Fuel scarce as East Coast struggles to recover

NEW YORK/SEASIDE HEIGHTS, New Jersey (Reuters) - Rescuers searched flooded homes for survivors, drivers lined up for hours to get scarce gasoline and millions remained without power on Thursday as New York City and nearby towns struggled to recover from one of the biggest storms to hit the United States.

New York subway trains crawled back to limited service after being shut down since Sunday, but the lower half of Manhattan still lacked power and surrounding areas such as Staten Island, the New Jersey shore and the city of Hoboken remained crippled from a record storm surge and flooding.

At least 95 people died in the "superstorm" that ravaged the Northeastern United States on Monday. Officials said the number could rise as rescuers searched house-by-house in coastal towns.

"I worked all my life, and everything I had is right there," said Bob Stewart, 59, standing on the Jersey Shore beach in the town of Seaside Heights and looking at the pile of debris that was once his home. "I put my life right there."

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Thursday that nearly a 1,000 people had been rescued by authorities.

In blackened New York City neighborhoods, some residents complained there was a lack of police and feared an increase in crime. Some were also concerned about traffic safety. New York police officials were not immediately available to comment.

"People feel safe during the day but as soon as the sun sets, people are extremely scared. The fact that Guardian Angels are on the streets trying to restore law just shows how out of control the situation is in lower Manhattan," said Wolfgang Ban, owner of Edi & The Wolf restaurant in Manhattan's Alphabet City neighborhood.

The Guardian Angels are a group of anti-crime volunteers.

More than 15 people in the borough of Queens were charged with looting, and a man was charged on Thursday with threatening another driver with a gun after he tried to cut in on a line of cars waiting for gas, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

The financial cost of the storm promised to be staggering. Disaster modeling company Eqecat estimated Sandy caused up to $20 billion in insured losses and $50 billion in economic losses, double its previous forecast.

At the high end of the range, Sandy would rank as the fourth costliest U.S. catastrophe ever, according to the Insurance Information Institute, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the September 11, 2001, attacks and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

POWER OUT, GAS SHORTAGE

The presidential campaign was back in full swing on Thursday after being on hold for several days because of the storm. President Barack Obama, locked in a tight race with Republican challenger Mitt Romney head of next Tuesday's election, appeared to gain politically from his disaster relief performance.

Christie, a vocal Romney supporter, praised Obama, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a political independent, endorsed Obama on Thursday.

In New York, U.N. headquarters suffered severe damage and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon offered recovery help to the United States and Caribbean nations affected by the storm.

The hunt for gasoline added to a climate of uncertainty as Sandy's death toll and price tag rose.

"I'm so stressed out," said Jessica Bajno, 29, a teacher from Elmont, Long Island, who was waiting in line for gas. "I've been driving around to nearby towns all morning, and being careful about not running out of gas in the process. Everything is closed. I'm feeling anxious."

Some residents may lack electricity for weeks. New York utility Consolidated Edison restored power to 250,000 customers, with 650,000 others still in the dark.

The vast majority will be restored by the weekend of November 10-11, but "the remaining customer restorations could take an additional week or more," the company said.

Advertising creative director Chris Swift, 37, lost power in his apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea district on Monday and by Thursday he was so fed up he got on a bus to Boston.

"I tried 20 (New York City) hotels on foot as couldn't call them with no battery left on my phone, but they were all booked. I tried to get to (friends in) Brooklyn but cabs would not take me as they we're running out gas," he said.

About 4.6 million homes and businesses in 15 U.S. states were without power on Thursday, down from a record high of nearly 8.5 million.

More deaths were recorded overnight in the New York borough of Staten Island, where authorities recovered 17 bodies after the storm lifted whole houses off their foundations. Among the dead were two boys, aged 4 and 2, who were swept from their mother's arms by the floodwaters, police said.

In all, 39 people died in New York City, officials said.

"It was like living through Titanic but on ground," said Krystina Berrios, 25, of Staten Island, looking at her bedroom caked in mud, furniture upended. "You would never think in a million years having to live through something like this."

JERSEY SHORE FLOORED

Sandy started as a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean, where it killed 69 people, before smashing ashore in the United States with 80-mile-per-hour (130-kph) winds. It stretched from the Carolinas to Connecticut and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades.

In New Jersey, where entire neighborhoods in oceanside towns were swallowed by seawater and the Atlantic City boardwalk was destroyed, the death toll rose to 13.

Floodwaters receded from the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, leaving behind a smelly mess of submerged basements and cars littering the sidewalks.

"The water was rushing in. It was like a river coming," said Benedicte Lenoble, a photo researcher from Hoboken. "Now it's a mess everywhere. There's no power. The stores aren't open. Recovery? I don't know."

New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi will headline a benefit concert for storm victims Friday on NBC television, the network announced.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to cover 100 percent of emergency power and public transportation costs through November 9 for affected areas of New York and New Jersey, up from the traditional share of 75 percent.

More than 36,000 disaster survivors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have applied for federal disaster assistance and more than $3.4 million in direct assistance has already been approved, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The Pentagon was airlifting power restoration experts and trucks from California to New York to assist millions of people still living in darkness.

Fuel supplies into New York and New Jersey were hit by idled refineries, a closed New York Harbor, damages to import terminals, and a closed oil pipeline.

The scarcity of fuel, electricity and supplies made cleanup more daunting for barrier towns.

Seaside Heights residents who obeyed the mandatory evacuation order were cut off from their homes. The entire community was submerged by the storm surge, which washed over the island and into the bay that separates it from the mainland.

Chris Delman, 30, saw a photograph of his house in a local newspaper on Wednesday. It was still standing.

"We ain't living in Seaside no more, that's obvious," Delman said. "I just want to know what I have left."

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus throughout the U.S. Northeast; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jim Loney and Peter Cooney)

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Worker: Japan nuke crisis crew not told of danger

IWAKI, Japan (AP) — The operator of a Japanese nuclear plant that went into a tsunami-triggered meltdown knew the risks from highly radioactive water at the site but sent in crews without adequate protection or warnings, a worker said in a legal complaint.

The actions by Tokyo Electric Power Co. led to radiation injuries, said the contract worker, who was with a six-member team working at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's Unit 3 reactor in the early days of last year's crisis.

The worker gave a rare public account of what happened at the plant during the accident. He spoke to The Associated Press on the condition that he be identified only as Shinichi, his given name.

Shinichi, 46, described a harrowing scene of darkness and fear, wading with headlamps into a flooded basement through steaming radioactive water that felt warm even through workers' boots.

"It was outrageous. We shouldn't even have been there," he said.

He said his six-member team was sent to lay electric cables in the basement of the Unit 3 turbine on March 24, 10 days after its reactor building exploded, spewing massive amounts of radiation into the environment. Their mission was to restore power to pumps to inject cooling water into its overheating spent fuel pool.

Shinichi said TEPCO and its primary subcontractor never warned them even though water leaks had been found elsewhere at the plant.

Asked about Shinichi's allegations, TEPCO spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi said the plant was aware of water leaks elsewhere but couldn't anticipate the water problem in Unit 3's basement.

Shinichi's radiation exposure that day alone exceeded half the government's annual exposure limit, and he had to stop working on plant jobs soon afterward.

Out of fear of harassment of his family due to the tendency of some Japanese to stigmatize those perceived as different or as troublemakers, Shinichi agreed to speak with the AP and several Japanese reporters on condition his face not be photographed.

On Tuesday, he filed a complaint with a labor standards office in Tokyo, asking authorities to confirm TEPCO's safety violations and issue improvement orders. He also is seeking penalties — up to six months in jail or fines of up to 500,000 yen ($6,250) under the Industrial Safety and Health Act — against the company that supervised him.

Shinichi's direct employer — the subcontractor for TEPCO — stopped calling him for jobs in March, just telling him to stand by. He now works on radiation decontamination of "hot spots" in Fukushima prefecture.

"So I decided I've had enough of this unjust treatment. That's why I decided to come forward," he said.

On the morning of March 24, 2011, Shinichi's team gathered at Fukushima Dai-Ichi's emergency command center to be briefed about the day's work. They donned double-layer coveralls underneath waterproof hazmat suits, charcoal-filtered full-face masks and double-layered rubber gloves.

Each picked up a pocket dosimeter, with an alarm set to 40 times the dose detected the day before, expecting only a moderate increase of radioactivity. The actual reading was 400 millisieverts that day — high enough to cause a temporary, but not life-threatening, decline in white blood cells.

The March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed power and crucial cooling systems at the plant, sending three reactors into meltdowns and releasing massive amounts of radiation. Tons of cooling water were pumped into the overheated and damaged reactors and leaked right out, pouring into the basements of the buildings housing them and nearby facilities.

Shinichi recalls a simple instruction: Just go in and connect the first floor and basement electrical switchboards. The radioactivity might be a bit high, but shouldn't be a problem.

"There was no mention of the water," Shinichi said.

So the men wore whatever boots were available — only two wore knee-high rubber boots, and four others, including Shinichi, wore short ones.

With only headlamps on their helmets to light the way, they entered the building from a hole cut into the wall, since the electric door was still inoperable. Three men hired by two other contractors went into the basement, while Shinichi and his two colleagues waited on the first floor. Looking down, he saw water, with steam rising from the surface, and heaps of debris and mangled equipment.

"It was eerie," he said. "If you're a nuclear plant worker, you know that water on the floor is bad news. You just don't touch it."

The dosimeter alarms — set to beep five times before reaching a maximum — sounded several times shortly after they entered the site.

Seconds after the three workers started going into the basement, the dosimeters began ringing loudly and then went silent, a sign the intended limit was exceeded, though the team's leader said it must be an error. The three workers in the basement waded through the ankle-deep water to check the wall-mounted switchboard and came back up, saying the water felt warm through their rubber boots.

Another team sent in to do other tasks rushed back out without doing any work, ignoring Shinichi's team, after measuring dangerously high radioactivity in the basement.

But his group stayed, making several more trips into the flooded basement. Two workers wearing short boots got their feet soaked and suffered beta-ray burns which were not life threatening. The three men who stayed there the longest were exposed to about 180 millisieverts — nearly four times the annual safe limit, according to a government report released in July. Shinichi refused to help tie up the dangling cable in the basement because of his short boots, and a colleague wearing long boots volunteered to do it instead, saving Shinichi from injury.

TEPCO spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida said the team leaders later told officials that they decided to stay because they took their mission very seriously and that they might have been too occupied to think carefully about the water. But TEPCO should have thought more carefully given the unpredictable plant conditions, she said.

Shinichi's radiation exposure from 13 days of working at the plant was just over 20 millisieverts, not considered a serious health risk, though he still worries.

His lawyers, who are representing several nuclear plant workers in other cases, say TEPCO and its top contractor Kandenko illegally sent him and five other men into areas with radioactivity far exceeding the allowable limit without full protection.

"Just sending the workers into the harsh environment and putting them at risk of exposure to dangerously high radiation is a labor safety violation," said Taku Yamazoe, a lawyer representing Shinichi. "Even if TEPCO didn't anticipate the consequences of all that water it had pumped in, it clearly lacked consideration for the workers' safety."

Shinichi's experience was typical of the inadequate protection received by workers laboring in the extremely harsh conditions at the plant, though Yamazoe said the multi-tiered subcontracting system used at nuclear plants can obscure who is directly responsible in case of an accident.

Investigations by the government, parliament and private groups have faulted TEPCO for inept crisis management, inadequate emergency training and miscommunication with authorities.

The parliamentary investigation took TEPCO to task for failing to deal with leaking contaminated water until the two workers suffered beta-ray burns in Unit 3, concluding that the operator was fully aware of the consequences of massive spraying and pumping of water into the reactors and spent fuel pools from the very beginning.

Shinichi said that when he finished work at the nuclear plant each day, he would take off his clothes before entering his home to minimize the risk of radiation exposure for his 5-year-old son. He would toss the clothes into the washing machine and immediately rush into a bath.

Many other nuclear workers face the same worries, he says.

"I don't have education, and I'm already over 40. There is little choice," he said. "I was dumped. I worked hard, sacrificed my family and my child and this is how I ended up."

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Apple's Cook fields his A-team before a wary Street

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook's new go-to management team of mostly familiar faces failed to drum up much excitement on Wall Street, driving its shares to a three-month low on Wednesday.

The world's most valuable technology company, which had faced questions about a visionary-leadership vacuum following the death of Steve Jobs, on Monday stunned investors by announcing the ouster of chief mobile software architect Scott Forstall and retail chief John Browett -- the latter after six months on the job.

Cook gave most of Forstall's responsibilities to Macintosh software chief Craig Federighi, while some parts of the job went to Internet chief Eddy Cue and celebrated designer Jony Ive.

But the loss of the 15-year veteran and Jobs's confidant Forstall, and resurgent talk about internal conflicts, exacerbated uncertainty over whether Cook and his lieutenants have what it takes to devise and market the next ground-breaking, industry-disrupting product.

Apple shares ended the day down 1.4 percent at 595.32. They have shed a tenth of their value this month -- the biggest monthly loss since late 2008, and have headed south since touching an all-time high of $705 in September.

For investors, the management upheaval from a company that usually excels at delivering positive surprises represents the latest reason for unease about the future of a company now more valuable than almost any other company in the world.

Apple undershot analysts targets in its fiscal third quarter, the second straight disappointment. Its latest Maps software was met with widespread frustration and ridicule over glaring mistakes. Sources told Reuters that Forstall and Cook disagreed over the need to publicly apologize for its maps service embarrassment.

And this month, Apple entered the small-tablet market with its iPad mini, lagging Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc despite pioneering the tablet market in 2010.

Investor concerns now center around the demand, availability and profitability of new products, including the iPad mini set to hit stores on Friday.

"The sudden departure of Scott Forstall doesn't help," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee. "Now there's some uncertainty in the management."

"There appears to be some infighting, post-Steve Jobs, and looks like Cook is putting his foot down and unifying the troops."

Apple declined to comment beyond Monday's announcement.

Against that backdrop, Cook's inner circle has some convincing to do. In the wake of Forstall's exit, iTunes maestro Eddy Cue -- dubbed "Mr Fixit", the sources say -- gets his second promotion in a year, taking on an expanded portfolio of all online services, including Siri and Maps.

The affable executive with a tough negotiating streak who, according to documents revealed in court, lobbied Jobs aggressively and finally convinced the late visionary about the need for a smaller-sized tablet, has become a central figure: a versatile problem-solver for the company.

Ive, the British-born award-winning designer credited with pushing the boundaries of engineering with the iPod and iPhone, now extends his skills into the software realm with the lead on user interface.

Marketing guru Schiller continues in his role, while career engineer Mansfield canceled his retirement to stay on and lead wireless and semiconductor teams. Then there's Federighi, the self-effacing software engineer who a source told Reuters joined Apple over Forstall's initial objections, and has the nickname "Hair Force One" on Game Center.

"With a large base of approximately 60,400 full-time employees, it would be easy to conclude that the departures are not important," said Keith Bachman, analyst with BMO Capital Markets. "However, we do believe the departures are a negative, since we think Mr. Forstall in particular added value to Apple."

TEAM COOK

Few would argue with Forstall's success in leading mobile software iOS and that he deserves a lot of credit for the sale of millions of iPhones and iPads.

But despite the success, his style and direction on the software were not without critics, inside and outside.

Forstall often clashed with other executives, said a person familiar with him, adding he sometimes tended to over-promise and under-deliver on features. Now, Federighi, Ive and Cue have the opportunity to develop the look, feel and engineering of the all-important software that runs iPhones and iPads.

Cue, who rose to prominence by building and fostering iTunes and the app store, has the tough job of fixing and improving Maps, unveiled with much fanfare by Forstall in June, but it was found full of missing information and wrongly marked sites.

The Duke University alum and Blue Devils basketball fan -- he has been seen courtside with players -- is deemed the right person to accomplish this, given his track record on fixing services and products that initially don't do well.

The 23-year veteran turned around the short-lived MobileMe storage service after revamping and wrapping it into the reasonably well-received iCloud offering.

"Eddy is certainly a person who gets thrown a lot of stuff to ‘go make it work' as he's very used to dealing with partners," said a person familiar with Cue. The person said Cue was suited to fixing Maps given the need to work with partners such as TomTom and business listings provider Yelp.

Cue's affable charm and years of dealing with entertainment companies may come in handy as he also tries to improve voice-enabled digital assistant Siri. He has climbed the ladder rapidly in the past five years and was promoted to senior vice president last September, shortly after Cook took over as CEO.

Both Cue and Cook will work more closely with Federighi, who spent a decade in enterprise software before rejoining Apple in 2009, taking over Mac software after the legendary Bertrand Serlet left the company in March last year

Federighi was instrumental in bringing popular mobile features such as notifications and Facebook integration onto the latest Mac operating system Mountain Lion, which was downloaded on 3 million machines in four days.

The former CTO of business software company Ariba, now part of SAP, worked with Jobs at NeXT Computer. Federighi is a visionary in software engineering and can be as good as Jobs in strategic decisions for the product he oversees, a person who has worked with him said.

His presentation skills have been called on of late, most recently at Apple annual developers' gathering in the summer.

Then there's Ive, deemed Apple's inspirational force. Among the iconic products he has worked on are multi-hued iMac computers, the iPod music player, the iPhone and the iPad.

Forstall's departure may free Ive of certain constraints, the sources said. His exit brought to the fore a fundamental design issue -- to do or not to do digital skeuomorphic designs. Skeuomorphic designs stay true to and mimic real-life objects, such as the bookshelf in the iBooks icon, green felt in its Game Center app icon, and an analog clock depicting the time.

Forstall, who will stay on as adviser to Cook for another year, strongly believed in these designs, but his philosophy was not shared by all. His chief dissenter was Ive, who is said to prefer a more open approach, which could mean a slightly different design direction on the icons.

"There is no one else who has that kind of (design) focus on the team," the person said of Ive. "He is critical for them."

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Edwin Chan and Ken Wills)

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Disney unlikely to change 'Star Wars' brand

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Naysayers would have you believe Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm can only mean one thing: Bambi and Mickey Mouse are sure to appear in future "Star Wars" movies taking up lightsabers against the dark side of the Force.

Not so, say experts who've watched Disney's recent acquisition strategy closely. If anything, The Walt Disney Co. has earned credibility with diehard fans by keeping its fingerprints off important film franchises like those produced by its Marvel Entertainment and Pixar divisions.

"They've been pretty clearly hands-off in terms of letting the creative minds of those companies do what they do best," says Todd Juenger, an analyst with Bernstein Research. "Universally, people think they pulled it off."

Though the Walt Disney Co. built its reputation on squeaky clean family entertainment, its brand today is multifaceted. Disney, of course, started as an animation studio in 1923 with characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse. Over the years, the company ventured into live action movies, opened theme parks, launched a fleet of cruise ships and debuted shows on TV.

By way of acquisitions over the last few decades, it has ballooned into a company with $40.9 billion in annual revenue and a market value of $88 billion. Disney bought Capital Cities/ABC in 1995 for $19 billion, Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006, Marvel for $4.2 billion in 2009 and this week, it said it will purchase Lucasfilm and the "Star Wars" franchise for $4.05 billion.

Disney's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009 offers the best example of how it might treat Lucasfilm and the "Star Wars" universe.

Marvel was in the midst of a storyline that would span several films following the smash hit success of its first self-produced movie, "Iron Man," in 2008. When Disney bought it a year later, it continued reading from the comic book giant's playbook, releasing in subsequent years "Iron Man 2," ''Thor," ''Captain America" and then this year, "The Avengers," which brought heroes from those movies together in one giant film that grossed $1.5 billion at the box office.

Now, "Avengers" director Joss Whedon is working on the sequel and developing a Marvel-based TV series for Disney-owned ABC.

Rick Marshall, a journalist and blogger who writes about the comic book and movie industries, was skeptical when Disney bought Marvel. But his doubts quickly melted when it was clear Disney wouldn't taint the Marvel universe by getting too involved.

"I was the first one to say there's going to be a Goofy-Wolverine crossover," Marshall said. "We haven't seen that .... Disney was able to step away."

Recent history ought to assuage "Star Wars" fans who fear the Disney empire. But that hasn't stopped many of them from posting an array of video and pictorial mash-ups and jokes online as they poke fun at their darkest fears: Luke Skywalker staring into the distance at a mouse-eared sun and Darth Vader telling Donald Duck that he's his father.

What Disney did with Marvel was merely amplify its presence in theme parks, stores and theaters, observers say.

Disney's formula for success with Marvel was not to tamper with storylines, but to bring the existing franchise under its corporate umbrella.

Before it was acquired, Marvel paid Paramount Pictures a percentage of movie ticket sales to advertise its movies, make film prints and get them into theaters. Disney has those capabilities, so now that money doesn't go out the door. Disney also has a worldwide network of staff that help put Marvel toys on store shelves, expanding their reach and saving the money that Marvel used to pay third-party merchandise middlemen.

Owning Marvel also gives Disney a steady flow of super hero cartoons for its pay TV channel, Disney XD. These kind of logistical savings allow Disney to profit from ownership while not interfering in the creative process.

"Marvel does seem like it's running pretty independently and staying pretty close to its roots," said Janney Capital Markets analyst Tony Wible.

Disney's recent acquisitions have also filled gaps in its creative portfolio. CEO Bob Iger has said the company's $7.4 billion purchase of Pixar in 2006 was partly an investment in talent and a way to "grow and improve Disney animation." The deal brought John Lasseter, a former Disneyland employee, back into the fold as its chief creative officer of both Disney and Pixar's animation studios.

The purchase of Marvel helped Disney add characters that would resonate with boys at a time when the company was becoming known more for princesses, fairies and its fictional teenage rock star Hannah Montana.

The "Star Wars" franchise fills a hole in Disney's live-action portfolio, which suffered an embarrassing $200 million loss on the sci-fi flick "John Carter" earlier this year. The box-office bomb caused an executive shuffle at the studio that brought in former Warner Bros. president Alan Horn, who oversaw the hugely successful runs of "Harry Potter" and "The Dark Knight" movies.

It's in Disney's best interest to maintain the integrity of film franchises that come with a built-in fan base. Disney chief Iger has said the plan is for "Star Wars" live-action movies to replace others that may be in development, and to keep its production slate at a modest seven to 10 movies per year.

"I think Disney's intention is that it just doesn't want to get in the way of a great asset," said Morningstar analyst Michael Corty.

In a conference call explaining the acquisition, Iger told analysts that "Disney respects and understands, probably better than just about anyone else, the importance of iconic characters and what it takes to protect and leverage them effectively."

When "Star Wars Episode 7" hits theaters in 2015, millions of fans will surely hold Iger to his word.

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Man with bionic leg to climb Chicago skyscraper

CHICAGO (AP) — Zac Vawter considers himself a test pilot. After losing his right leg in a motorcycle accident, the 31-year-old software engineer signed up to become a research subject, helping to test a trailblazing prosthetic leg that's controlled by his thoughts.

He will put this groundbreaking bionic leg to the ultimate test Sunday when he attempts to climb 103 flights of stairs to the top of Chicago's Willis Tower, one of the world's tallest skyscrapers.

If all goes well, he'll make history with the bionic leg's public debut. His whirring, robotic leg will respond to electrical impulses from muscles in his hamstring. Vawter will think, "Climb stairs," and the motors, belts and chains in his leg will synchronize the movements of its ankle and knee. Vawter hopes to make it to the top in an hour, longer than it would've taken before his amputation, less time than it would take with his normal prosthetic leg — or, as he calls it, his "dumb" leg.

A team of researchers will be cheering him on and noting the smart leg's performance. When Vawter goes home to Yelm, Wash., where he lives with his wife and two children, the experimental leg will stay behind in Chicago. Researchers will continue to refine its steering. Taking it to the market is still years away.

"Somewhere down the road, it will benefit me and I hope it will benefit a lot of other people as well," Vawter said about the research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Bionic — or thought-controlled — prosthetic arms have been available for a few years, thanks to pioneering work done at the Rehabilitation Institute. With leg amputees outnumbering people who've lost arms and hands, the Chicago researchers are focusing more on lower limbs. Safety is important. If a bionic hand fails, a person drops a glass of water. If a bionic leg fails, a person falls down stairs.

The Willis Tower climb will be the bionic leg's first test in the public eye, said lead researcher Levi Hargrove of the institute's Center for Bionic Medicine. The climb, called "SkyRise Chicago," is a fundraiser for the institute with about 2,700 people climbing. This is the first time the climb has played a role in the facility's research.

To prepare, Vawter and the scientists have spent hours adjusting the leg's movements. On one recent day, 11 electrodes placed on the skin of Vawter's thigh fed data to the bionic leg's microcomputer. The researchers turned over the "steering" to Vawter.

He kicked a soccer ball, walked around the room and climbed stairs. The researchers beamed.

Vawter likes the bionic leg. Compared to his regular prosthetic, it's more responsive and more fluid. As an engineer, he enjoys learning how the leg works.

It started with surgery in 2009. When Vawter's leg was amputated, a surgeon repositioned the residual spaghetti-like nerves that normally would carry signals to the lower leg and sewed them to new spots on his hamstring. That would allow Vawter one day to be able to use a bionic leg, even though the technology was years away.

The surgery is called "targeted muscle reinnervation" and it's like "rewiring the patient," Hargrove said. "And now when he just thinks about moving his ankle, his hamstring moves and we're able to tell the prosthesis how to move appropriately."

To one generation it sounds like "The Six Million Dollar Man," a 1970s TV show featuring a rebuilt hero. A younger generation may think of Luke Skywalker's bionic hand.

But Hargrove's inspiration came not from fiction, but from his fellow Canadian Terry Fox, who attempted a cross-country run on a regular artificial leg to raise money for cancer research in 1980.

"I've run marathons, and when you're in pain, you just think about Terry Fox who did it with a wooden leg and made it halfway across Canada before cancer returned," Hargrove said.

Experts not involved in the project say the Chicago research is on the leading edge. Most artificial legs are passive. "They're basically fancy wooden legs," said Daniel Ferris of the University of Michigan. Others have motorized or mechanical components but don't respond to the electrical impulses caused by thought.

"This is a step beyond the state of the art," Ferris said. "If they can achieve it, it's very noteworthy and suggests in the next 10 years or so there will be good commercial devices out there."

The $8 million project is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and involves Vanderbilt University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Rhode Island and the University of New Brunswick.

Vawter and the Chicago researchers recently took the elevator to the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower to see the view after an afternoon of work in the lab. Hargrove and Vawter bantered in the elevator in anticipation of Sunday's event.

Hargrove: "Am I allowed to trash talk you?"

"It's fine," Vawter shot back. "I'll just defer it all to the leg that you built."

At the top, Vawter stood on a glass balcony overlooking the city. The next time he heads to the top, he and the bionic leg will take the stairs.

___

AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/CarlaKJohnson.

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Storm spins death, 'a lot of tears' along path

Death blew in on the superstorm's wild winds and sea water torrents, claiming 90-year-olds and children with capriciously toppling trees, taking tall-ship adventurers in mountainous Atlantic waves and average folks just trying to deal with a freakish snowstorm. It felled both heroes rushing into harm's way and, ironically, people simply following advice to play it safe at home.

At least 72 died as the shape-shifting hurricane and winter storm ravaged the eastern U.S., and searchers continued looking for victims Wednesday.

In New York City, a college student went out to take pictures in the borough of Queens and was electrocuted by a downed power line, while across town on Staten Island, an off-duty policeman drowned after moving his family to safety.

Lauren Abraham, who went by the nickname LolaDiva on YouTube, was a makeup artist who worked out of a studio in her parents' Queens home. The recent beauty school graduate was studying at City University of New York's Lehman College, according to her Facebook page. "In her time of reflection she learned to find the beauty in even the darkest situations," her online bio reads.

As the superstorm ravaged New York and floodwater surged into his Staten Island house Monday evening, off-duty NYPD officer Artur Kasprzak, 28, shepherded six adult relatives and a baby to the attic.

Then, according to police, Kasprzak, a six-year veteran of the force, told one of the women he was going to check the basement. When he didn't return, she called 911. Police came quickly with a SCUBA unit, but couldn't access the home because power lines had fallen into the water.

"He went to the basement. And the water just started washing in," his sister Marta told the Daily News. "He was pushed into a window. ... The water just kept coming in."

Bunting draped a firehouse in Easton, Conn., honoring another first responder who rushed to help. Lt. Russell Neary was killed when an enormous tree crashed down on his fire truck as he and others tried to clear storm debris.

"We're a small volunteer department, and so everybody knew everybody," said Casey Meskers, the department vice president. Neary was the president. An insurance executive, he had volunteered for 13 years, and also helped with his children's sports teams.

"We've been on the soccer fields with each other with our kids," Meskers said Wednesday. "There's been a lot of tears shed, I'll tell you."

So many times, trees and heavy limbs that fell to the storm's powerful gusts left mourners along its path.

Two people died when a tree fell on their vehicle in Morris County, N.J., and many others perished inside homes, where they thought they'd be safe — from North Salem, N.Y., where two boys, 11 and 13, were killed when a tree fell on their home, to Pasadena, Md.

Donald Cannata Sr., 73, was at home in Pasadena, a leafy suburb between Baltimore and Annapolis, when the storm knocked a large tree into his house. The retired civil engineer lived alone with his cat and dog and had stepped into the kitchen just when the tree fell.

He loved photography and opera and was considerate, hardworking and selfless, said his son, Donald Jr., an opinion shared by neighbors. Cannata's son said his father's death "shook me so to the core," partly because they had talked about taking down the tree.

"We talked about it so many times. I said, 'Pop, the tree's getting pretty old,'" Cannata said.

An elderly man trimming a tree in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County was killed when a limb broke and fell on him, authorities said.

A limb fall also killed John Rose Sr. as he and his wife checked fences on his snow-covered 100-acre farm near Philippi, W.Va., on Tuesday. The storm had dumped about seven inches of snow in the region, where Rose was a Republican candidate for the House of Delegates. He had traveled to Charleston regularly to lobby lawmakers on farming and other issues, and he hoped to continue making the trip as a member.

Rose, 60, had previously run a power-washing business and worked as a coal miner, his son George Rose said.

"The whole county knew him," he said.

The storm's blizzard threat was still far off when, churning in the relatively warm Atlantic off Cape Hatteras, N.C., on Monday, Hurricane Sandy engulfed the replica tall ship HMS Bounty. The ship, which was featured in the films "Mutiny on the Bounty" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," took on water and eventually went down.

Coast Guard rescuers saved most of the 17 crew members, but a search continues for the ship's captain, Robin Wallbridge.

Swept overboard with him was Claudene Christian, 42, who said she was a direct descendant of the man who led the infamous 1789 mutiny on the real HMS Bounty. In the 1962 Bounty film, Marlon Brando starred as lead mutineer Fletcher Christian.

Searchers found Christian — a novice sailor who was wearing an orange survival suit — unresponsive in the water late Monday, about eight nautical miles from where the Bounty sank. She was flown by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland, where she was pronounced dead.

A marketing specialist, she had lived in Alaska, Oklahoma and California. She was a member of the University of Southern California cheering squad, the Song Girls, from 1989 to 1991, said coach Lori Nelson. "Claudene will always be remembered for her energetic and bubbly personality on and off the field," the team posted on its Facebook page.

Endless accidents that would be described as freak twists of fate spun off from the superstorm.

Eugene "Rusty" Brooks, 42, of Woodstock, N.H., died Tuesday morning when a hillside construction site in the state's White Mountains collapsed beneath him. Brooks, owner of Pemmi Contracting, had been preparing a cellar on a home site on Loon Mountain in the ski resort town of Lincoln, said Police Chief Ted Smith. The cellar hole had filled up with rain from Sandy, and Brooks had just thrown a hose in to drain it off when the ground gave way.

"The retaining wall just liquefied with him standing there," Smith said. "He washed down with all the boulders, mud and water into the street."

When police and rescue workers arrived, they found a bystander performing CPR on Brooks, who could not be revived.

"It just basically was a freak, bizarre accident," the chief said. "It could have given way prior to him being there or afterwards."

The massive storm's unrelenting stress was blamed as a contributor to death by some loved ones, and in other cases the paralyzing wind and water compounded medical problems.

An Atlantic City, N.J., woman had a heart attack while she was being evacuated on Monday, officials reported.

In Pennsylvania's Lehigh County, an 86-year-old woman was pronounced dead of hypothermia after being found unresponsive in her yard following exposure to the storm, and a 48-year-old woman died of carbon monoxide poisoning in her home, the coroner's office reported.

A 90-year-old woman also died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator in the Philadelphia area, one of two claimed by the storm at age 90. The other was a Mansfield, Conn., woman who neighbors said left her home after a small tree snapped and was killed by a larger one.

In New York City, Herminia St. John, a 75-year-old grandmother of 14 who suffered from congestive heart failure and diabetes, died after her oxygen machine lost power and a backup failed. Her grandson, Claudio St. John, rushed into the street and tried unsuccessfully to flag down an ambulance. Finally, he went around the corner to Bellevue Hospital, where his mother worked as a food supervisor for 30 years. But by the time someone came it was too late.

"I hugged her and she hugged and kissed me," Elsa St. John, 54, told the Daily News. "She asked me to turn her to the window and she was gone."

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Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, N.C., Alex Dominguez in Pasadena, Md., Sharon Cohen in Chicago, Justin Pope in Ann Arbor, Mich., Lawrence Messina in Charleston, W.Va., and Vicki Smith in Philippi, W.Va., contributed to this report.

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Apparent insider attack kills 2 NATO troops

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A man wearing an Afghan police uniform killed two NATO troops in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the international military alliance said.

The assault appeared to the be the latest in a string of insider attacks that have threatened to sever the partnership between international troops and the Afghan forces they are trying to train to take over responsibility for the country's security. There have also been cases of insurgents donning Afghan uniforms in assaults.

A statement from NATO gave no further details, saying the shooting is still under investigation.

Afghan officials said there was an attack in Helmand province's Nahri Sarraj district but also could not confirm any details.

"We know that there are casualties," said Ismail Hotak, the director of the provincial office that coordinates with the international forces.

Both the British and American militaries have large contingents in Helmand.

At least 53 international troops have been killed in attacks by Afghan soldiers or police this year, and a number of other assaults are still under investigation, the international alliance has said.

The surge in insider attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops ahead of a planned handover to the Afghans in 2014. It has further undermined public support for the 11-year war in NATO countries.

The attacks have not been limited to members of the NATO-led international coalition. More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this in attacks by their own colleagues.

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Disney to buy "Star Wars" producer for $4.05 billion

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co agreed to buy filmmaker George Lucas's Lucasfilm Ltd and its "Star Wars" franchise for $4.05 billion in cash and stock, a blockbuster deal that includes the surprise promise of a new film in the series in 2015.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger told analysts on Tuesday that the plan is to release a new movie in the series every two to three years thereafter. The last "Star Wars" picture was "Revenge of the Sith" in 2005, and Lucas has in the past denied any plans for more.

Lucas, a Hollywood icon known for exercising control over the most minute details of the fictional universe he created, will remain as a creative consultant on the new films.

"It's now time for me to pass 'Star Wars' on to a new generation of filmmakers," he said in a statement. Lucas will become the second-largest individual holder of Disney shares, with a 2.2 percent stake.

Disney will pay about half the purchase price in cash and issue about 40 million shares at closing.

"This is one of the greatest entertainment properties of all time," Iger said. Like Disney's purchases of Marvel Entertainment and Pixar studio, LucasFilm will "drive long-term value to our shareholders," he said.

Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo said the deal would lower Disney's earnings per share by a low single-digits percentage in fiscal 2013 and 2014. He also said Disney would repurchase all of the issued shares on the open market within the next two years, on top of planned buybacks.

This agreement marks the third time in less than seven years that Disney has signed a massive deal to take over a beloved studio or character portfolio, part of its strategy to acquire brands that can be stretched across TV, movies, theme parks and the Internet.

In early 2006, Disney struck a deal to acquire "Toy Story" creator Pixar, and in the summer of 2009 it bought the comic book powerhouse Marvel.

"Disney already has a great portfolio and this adds one more," said Morningstar analyst Michael Corty. "They don't have any holes, but their past deals have been additive."

Iger said he and Lucas first discussed a possible sale about 18 months ago. Lucas was pondering his retirement, and Iger was looking to add another well-known brand to the Disney empire. The two signed the deal at Disney's Burbank, California, headquarters on Tuesday.

"Everywhere I went, 'Star Wars' was already there, and sometimes they got there ahead of us," said Iger in an interview. "I kept seeing that brand and decided maybe we should buy it."

He told analysts he believed there was "substantial pent-up demand" for new "Star Wars" movies. Each of the last three films in the series would have grossed $1.5 billion in today's dollars at the box office, CFO Rasulo estimated.

The film's iconic characters also will boost Disney's sales of toys and other consumer products, particularly overseas, executives said. Sales of "Star Wars" items such as Darth Vader and Yoda action figures total roughly $215 million a year, Rasulo said.

In 2005, the year the last "Star Wars" film was released, LucasFilm generated $550 million in operating income, Rasulo said.

Disney also will be able to extend the presence of the franchise at its theme parks around the globe, Iger said. The company's parks already feature rides based on "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones," another Lucas property.

"Star Wars" characters also are likely to find a home on the Disney XD cable channel, which is aimed at young boys, Iger said.

Iger wouldn't commit to keeping the "Star Wars" operation separate from Disney, as he did with Pixar and Marvel.

And Lucas won't sit on the Disney board despite his 2.2 percent stake in the company, Iger said. The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who held a large stake in Disney after it bought his Pixar studio, had a seat on the Disney board.

From a fan's perspective, critics said there was sure to be at least some excitement at the prospect of episode seven in the saga of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

"Do I want to see more Star Wars movies? Not really, but they're not making these movies for me," the film writer "Mr. Beaks" wrote on the well-regarded industry site Ain't It Cool News. "There's a whole new generation of Star Wars fans, and they worship the prequels like folks my age worshipped the original trilogy."

Besides "Star Wars," the Lucasfilm deal also includes rights to the "Indiana Jones" franchise, though Disney did not elaborate on any plans for that series.

(Additional reporting by Michael Erman in New York and Himank Sharma in Bangalore; Writing by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Ciro Scotti)

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'Community,' White House sitcom in new NBC lineup

LOS ANGELES (AP) — NBC is making room for "Community" on its midseason schedule, along with a new comedy set in the White House and a dating series produced by former "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria.

"Community," which saw its return delayed this season, will air at 8 p.m. EST Thursdays starting Feb. 7. The Joel McHale comedy will be followed by "Parks and Recreation," which moves to a new 8:30 p.m. time slot starting Jan. 17, NBC said Tuesday.

The sitcom "1600 Penn," starring Bill Pullman, Jenna Elfman and Josh Gad as the first family, will debut at 9:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, Jan. 10.

Longoria's "Ready for Love," billed by NBC as an "innovative and dramatic" relationship show, begins at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 31.

"Deception," a new murder mystery series starring Meagan Good, Victor Garber and Tate Donovan, will air at 10 p.m. Monday, Jan. 7. Fall drama "Revolution," which goes on hiatus after November, will return at 10 p.m. Monday, March 25.

Also on NBC's 2013 schedule: "Betty White's Off Their Rockers," Jan. 8; "The Biggest Loser" with returning trainer Jillian Michaels, Jan. 6; "Smash" with guest star Jennifer Hudson, Feb. 5; "The Celebrity Apprentice," March 3; and "The Voice," with new judges Usher and Shakira, March 25.

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NBC is controlled by Comcast Corp.

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Mammograms: For 1 life saved, 3 women overtreated

LONDON (AP) — Breast cancer screening for women over 50 saves lives, an independent panel in Britain has concluded, confirming findings in U.S. and other studies.

But that screening comes with a cost: The review found that for every life saved, roughly three other women were overdiagnosed, meaning they were unnecessarily treated for a cancer that would never have threatened their lives.

The expert panel was commissioned by Cancer Research U.K. and Britain's department of health and analyzed evidence from 11 trials in Canada, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.

In Britain, mammograms are usually offered to women aged 50 to 70 every three years as part of the state-funded breast cancer screening program.

Scientists said the British program saves about 1,300 women every year from dying of breast cancer while about 4,000 women are overdiagnosed. By that term, experts mean women treated for cancers that grow too slowly to ever put their lives at risk. This is different from another screening problem: false alarms, which occur when suspicious mammograms lead to biopsies and follow-up tests to rule out cancers that were not present. The study did not look at the false alarm rate.

"It's clear that screening saves lives," said Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research U.K. "But some cancers will be treated that would never have caused any harm and unfortunately, we can't yet tell which cancers are harmful and which are not."

Each year, more than 300,000 women aged 50 to 52 are offered a mammogram through the British program. During the next 20 years of screening every three years, 1 percent of them will get unnecessary treatment such as chemotherapy, surgery or radiation for a breast cancer that wouldn't ever be dangerous. The review was published online Tuesday in the Lancet journal.

Some critics said the review was a step in the right direction.

"Cancer charities and public health authorities have been misleading women for the past two decades by giving too rosy a picture of the benefits," said Karsten Jorgensen, a researcher at the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen who has previously published papers on overdiagnosis.

"It's important they have at least acknowledged screening causes substantial harms," he said, adding that countries should now re-evaluate their own breast cancer programs.

In the U.S., a government-appointed task force of experts recommends women at average risk of cancer get mammograms every two years starting at age 50. But the American Cancer Society and other groups advise women to get annual mammograms starting at age 40.

In recent years, the British breast screening program has been slammed for focusing on the benefits of mammograms and downplaying the risks.

Maggie Wilcox, a breast cancer survivor and member of the expert panel, said the current information on mammograms given to British women was inadequate.

"I went into (screening) blindly without knowing about the possibility of overdiagnosis," said Wilcox, 70, who had a mastectomy several years ago. "I just thought, 'it's good for you, so you do it.'"

Knowing what she knows now about the problem of overtreatment, Wilcox says she still would have chosen to get screened. "But I would have wanted to know enough to make an informed choice for myself."

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