Evan Rachel Wood marries “Billy Elliot” star Jamie Bell

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood actress Evan Rachel Wood has quietly married Briton Jamie Bell – star of the 2000 “Billy Elliot” dance movie – in a ceremony in California, Wood’s spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

“The bride wore a custom dress by Carolina Herrera. It was a small ceremony with close family and friends,” the spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that the wedding took place on Tuesday.

In a Twitter posting on Wednesday, Wood, best known for her roles in “The Wrestler” and coming of age movie “Thirteen,” said “Words cannot describe the happiness I am feeling. Overwhelming.”

Wood, 25, first began dating Bell about seven years ago. But the pair broke up and Wood went on to have a highly publicized engagement with heavy metal rocker Marilyn Manson, who is almost twice her age.

Wood and Bell, 26, were rumored to have become engaged in January this year, but never confirmed their relationship.

Bell found fame as the teen star of “Billy Elliot” about a ballet dancer growing up in a tough coal mining town in northern England. He won a British BAFTA award for the role and has since appeared in adventure movies like “The Eagle” and “Jumper.”

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Sanofi draws fire over cost of MS drug Lemtrada

PARIS (Reuters) – Medical journal The Lancet warned that Sanofi‘s experimental multiple sclerosis drug Lemtrada may be too costly for patients and health insurers once it gets approved by regulators.

The journal, which published the encouraging results of two late-stage Lemtrada tests on Thursday, also criticized the drugmaker’s decision to withdraw leukemia therapy Campath, the same drug given at a different dosage, depriving MS patients who had been using it off-label.

In an editorial accompanying the test results, The Lancet voiced concerns that Lemtrada would be priced higher than current MS drugs on the market and said the discontinuation of Campath may mean patients who had used it for MS would not be able to continue their treatment.

The injectable drug, chemically known as alemtuzumab, was sold until September 2012 under the name Campath as treatment for leukemia and given more frequently at a higher dosage.

“There is concern that with a license for multiple sclerosis, the cost of alemtuzumab could rise and might become too expensive for many patients and health systems,” the editorial said.

Although Campath remains available free of charge to leukemia patients, Sanofi’s rare disease unit Genzyme pulled it off the market in September to prevent its unauthorized use as an MS drug.

Analysts said the move would allow the company to adjust the price to match that of rival MS drugs on the market.

A full course of Campath, which in 2011 had sales of $ 76 million, cost around $ 60,000 when given three times a week for up to 12 weeks, according to Genzyme.

Lemtrada, instead, is given at less than half the dose of Campath for 5 consecutive days and then again for 3 days a year later. Since the drug has yet to be approved, it remains unclear how much Sanofi will charge for it.

The drug, which works by resetting a person’s immune system, has shown in late-stage trials to be an effective treatment for MS patients who have failed to respond to other therapies.

It has also shown to benefit people not previously treated for the disease, suggesting it could be used as a first-line MS therapy.

But patients need regular monitoring for serious side effects that can include infections and autoimmune diseases.

“It’s important that the appropriate safety monitoring is in place for patients who are prescribed Lemtrada,” Genzyme’s head of MS, Bill Sibold, told Reuters, responding to questions about the Lancet editorial. “Until an approved risk-management program is established, we believe the use of Lemtrada should only occur in clinical trials.”

Lemtrada remains available to patients who are taking part in clinical tests.

Sibold declined to discuss pricing plans for Lemtrada, but said Genzyme has set up programs to make its approved drugs available to patients who cannot afford them. “With Lemtrada it would be no different,” he said.

DRUG FUNDING

But there are concerns that cash-strapped European governments may balk at funding the drug through their public healthcare systems.

Doug Brown, Head of Biomedical Research at U.K. charity MS Society said that while Lemtrada’s results are great news for patients, the drug would only be useful to them if it were available through the country’s publicly funded National Health Service.

“We urge Genzyme to price the treatment responsibly so that if it’s licensed, it’s deemed cost effective on the NHS,” he said.

The U.K.’s cost-effectiveness body National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), whose opinions are also watched closely in other countries, initially rejected Novartis’ MS pill Gilenya, only to make a U-turn after the company agreed to a discounted price.

Sanofi launched its MS pill Aubagio in the U.S. at a price of $ 45,000 for a year’s treatment, making it cheaper than rivals.

Gilenya – the only other MS pill currently on the market – costs 28 percent more, while injectable treatments such as Biogen Idec Inc’s Avonex and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd’s Copaxone are 8 and 6.5 percent higher respectively.

(Reporting by Elena Berton; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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New York state asks Washington to cover all storm costs

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New York state on Wednesday asked the U.S. federal government to pay all the costs of cleaning up and repairing damage from massive storm Sandy that tore through the Northeast this week and crippled New York City.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said he is asking fellow Democrat, President Barack Obama, to pay 100 percent of the estimated $ 6 billion bill, at a time that state and local government budgets remain constrained by a weak economic recovery.

That would be a significant change from last year when the federal government covered about 75 percent of the $ 1.2 billion cost paid by New York to clean up after storm Irene hit the region.

The two U.S. senators from neighboring New Jersey, the other state hit hardest by the storm, also asked that the federal government cover more than the usual share of the cost, given the size of the disaster and the financially strapped local coffers.

“Recent storms in New Jersey have already placed a significant burden on our state and local governments, which have been forced to pay for disaster response and will need federal assistance for recovery from Hurricane Sandy,” Senator Frank Lautenberg and Senator Robert Menendez, both Democrats, wrote in a letter to Obama.

“While we understand the federal share is typically 75 percent of these total costs, the unprecedented and extraordinary extent of damage Hurricane Sandy has caused to our state merits an adjustment to this cost-share to 90 to 100 percent federal coverage,” the two senators said.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, did not reply to request of comments.

Obama and Christie toured storm-stricken parts of New Jersey on Wednesday, taking in scenes of flooded roads from the air and telling residents they were moving quickly to get them help.

‘WE CAN’T PRINT MONEY’

New York top finance official, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, said Washington should foot the bill, because of lingering financial pressures on state and local governments from the 2007-09 recession.

“I think the focus will have to be on Washington, for obvious reasons,” DiNapoli told Reuters in an interview.

“They have greater resources. They can print money; we can’t do that here. And given the fact this is not just a New York disaster, it’s really a national disaster, it’s probably for the federal government to step up and play a significant role.”

“The problem is the state is limited in its resource capacity. We just put out the mid-year report a week or two ago and it really showed tax revenues are down,” DiNapoli said.

Most U.S. states must balance their budgets, unlike the federal government, and it is up to Obama to decide if federal funds can cover all the costs.

“The president has the discretion to go higher. Seventy-five percent is a floor not a ceiling,” said Matt Mayer, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security.

If Obama accepts covering all the costs, this would be announced by Federal Emergency management Agency, Mayer said.

Former President George W. Bush allowed 100 percent reimbursement of costs in some states after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Mayer, who worked at DHS during Bush’s presidency, told Reuters.

Cuomo said in a letter to Obama that “initial estimates project up to $ 6 billion in lost economic revenue in the greater metropolitan area and the state” due to disruption to business in the world’s financial hub.

Cuomo added that “the significant impact from Hurricane Sandy plainly warrants providing this assistance.”

The state, he said, was still battling multi-building fires, tunnel closures, and power outages at hospitals and other vital facilities. Plus there are destroyed homes and people needing shelter.

“Moreover, the cost to restore the complex electrically driven subway and rail transportation systems after total inundation from saltwater flooding will place a tremendous financial burden on New York state,” Cuomo said in the letter.

In New York alone nearly 2 million homes and businesses are still without power.

Cuomo said federal support is key to making sure state and local governments can respond effectively to the disaster.

New York state is rated AA by Standard and Poor’s and Aa2 by Moody’s and its outstanding debt is the second highest among states, after California.

(Additional reporting by Michael Connor in Miami; writing by Tiziana Barghini in New York; Editing by Mary Milliken and Bob Burgdorfer)

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Clinton calls for overhaul of Syrian opposition

ZAGREB (Reuters) – The United States called on Wednesday for an overhaul of Syria‘s opposition leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signaling a more active stance by Washington in attempts to form a credible political opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said a meeting next week in Qatar would be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against him.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for 20, 30, 40 years,” she said during a visit to Croatia.

“There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

Clinton’s comments represented a clear break with the Syrian National Council (SNC), a largely foreign-based group which has been among the most vocal proponents of international intervention in the Syrian conflict.

U.S. officials have privately expressed frustration with the SNC’s inability to come together with a coherent plan and with its lack of traction with the disparate internal groups which have waged the 19-month uprising against Assad’s government.

Senior members of the SNC, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups ended a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday and pledged to unite behind a transitional government in coming months.

“It’s been our divisions that have allowed the Assad forces to reach this point,” Ammar al-Wawi, a rebel commander, told Reuters after the talks outside Istanbul.

“We are united on toppling Assad. Everyone, including all the rebels, will gather under the transitional government.”

Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, a senior Syrian military defector, told a news conference after the meeting: “We are still facing some difficulties between the politicians and different opposition groups and the leaders of the Free Syrian Army on the ground.”

Clinton said it was important that the next rulers of Syria were both inclusive and committed to rejecting extremism.

“There needs to be an opposition that can speak to every segment and every geographic part of Syria. And we also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution,” she said.

Syria’s revolt has killed an estimated 32,000. A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine in a suburb of Damascus killed at least six more people on Wednesday, state media and opposition activists said.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The meeting next week in Qatar’s capital Doha represents a chance to forge a new leadership, Clinton said, adding the United States had helped to “smuggle out” representatives of internal Syrian opposition groups to a meeting in New York last month to argue their case for inclusion.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she told a news conference.

“We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice which must be heard.”

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance.

It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance – a fact that Assad’s chief backer Russia says shows western powers are intent on determining Syria’s future.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

Clinton said she regretted but was not surprised by the failure of the latest attempted ceasefire, called by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi last Friday. Each side blamed the other for breaking the truce.

“The Assad regime did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day,” she said.

“While we urge Special Envoy Brahimi to do whatever he can in Moscow and Beijing to convince them to change course and support a stronger U.N. action we cannot and will not wait for that.”

Clinton said the United States would continue to work with partners to increase sanctions on the Assad government and provide humanitarian assistance to those hit by the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Andrew Roche)

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What’s New in the New, Slim IMac?

Apple‘s iMac, or all-in-one desktop Mac, has always had a flair for the dramatic. From the “transparent gumdrop” original, to the “Pixar lamp” model, through to today’s enormous flatscreens, it’s been perhaps the most distinctive desktop computer in each of its iterations.

Now, at the event where Apple introduced the new iPad Mini, it also refreshed its mainstream desktop Mac lineups. Both the Mac Mini and iMac got new models, each faster and more powerful than the previous year’s. But while the Mac Mini still looks basically the same, the iMac now cuts an incredibly slim profile, which Apple says is 5 millimeters thin at its edge.

It’s not as thin as it seems — it curves substantially towards the back, not that you’d be able to tell from most of the photos on Apple’s site. But it doesn’t just have its looks going for it.

Improved display

The iMac still doesn’t have a Retina Display; that honor went to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the second Mac to get a screen so sharp you can’t discern individual pixels with your unaided eye. Apple claims that the iMac’s screen now features 75 percent glare reduction, however, as well as an IPS display for improved viewing angles. Finally, the screen is now flush with the glass, so that it looks like there’s nothing in between you and the picture.

No optical drive

The new iMac has an SDXC card slot, so you can plug in up to 64 GB digital camera memory cards. It also has two high-speed Thunderbolt ports, for attaching external displays and backup hard drives, as well as four USB ports. The slot-loading DVD drive, however, has been removed … so make room in the budget for an external drive, if you still need one.

Dramatically improved performance

It’s a cliche that each new generation of computers is faster, better, and smaller than the last these days. Apple provides concrete numbers and handy benchmarks, however: “up to 60 percent faster graphics,” for instance, and it says that they feature the new third-generation quad-core Intel Core processors. Obviously, how much faster it is than the last iMac will depend on the specs of each, but the high end is now much higher.

Fusion Drive

What about hard disk access speeds — the tightest bottleneck, when it comes to computer performance? One way to get around those is to use a solid-state drive, or SSD, which uses flash memory like on the iPad and is much faster than a magnetic hard disk. SSDs cost more, though, and don’t offer nearly as much storage space.

Apple’s solution to get around this is Fusion Drive, which pairs a smaller SSD with a 1 TB (or larger) hard disk. OS X and its core apps are preloaded on the faster SSD, and Fusion Drive automatically puts your most-used stuff on it as well. Expect this add-on option to be pricey, however; it costs $ 250 extra on the Mac Mini, and isn’t even available on the cheapest Mac Mini model.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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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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Kids who smoke menthol more likely to get hooked

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Kids who experiment with menthol cigarettes are more likely to become habitual smokers than their peers who start out with the regular variety, new research findings suggest.

In a study of tens of thousands of U.S. students, researchers found that kids who were dabbling with menthol cigarettes were 80 percent more likely to become regular smokers over the next few years, versus those experimenting with regular cigarettes.

Menthol is added to cigarettes to give them a minty “refreshing” flavor. Critics have charged that menthol makes cigarettes more palatable to new smokers – many of whom are kids – and may be especially likely to encourage addiction.

“This study adds additional evidence that menthol cigarettes are a potential risk factor for kids becoming established, adult smokers,” said study leader James Nonnemaker, of the research institute RTI International in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

Still, the findings, which appear in the journal Addiction, do not prove that menthol cigarettes are to blame.

“The study’s subject to a number of limitations,” Nonnemaker said. “This shows an association, not cause-and-effect.”

One issue, he said, is that the study was not set up specifically to answer the question of whether menthol might encourage habitual smoking.

The findings come from three years’ worth of surveys of over 47,000 U.S. middle school and high school students. That included almost 1,800 kids who had just started smoking during the first or second survey – one-third of whom had opted for menthol cigarettes.

By the third-year survey, more than half of those experimenters had quit smoking. Another third were still occasional smokers, and 15 percent had become habitual smokers.

The odds of becoming a regular smoker, the study found, were 80 percent higher for kids who’d started off with menthol cigarettes. That was with the kids’ age, gender and race taken into account.

The results are consistent with the idea that menthol cigarettes encourage kids to get hooked because of menthol’s “sensory properties,” according to Nonnemaker.

But, he said, more studies are needed. One question is whether the findings might vary by race. This study included mostly white students. But it’s known that young African Americans and Asian Americans are especially likely to smoke menthol varieties.

Last year, an advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said taking mentholated cigarettes off the shelves may benefit public health.

But studies have varied on the possible effects of the cigarettes versus regular ones.

One recent study found that menthol smokers had a higher stroke rate than those who favored the non-menthol variety. Another, however, found no higher risk of lung cancer, and no evidence that menthol fans had a harder time kicking the smoking habit.

Of course, not smoking at all is the wisest choice. The risks of the habits go beyond lung cancer, and include a range of other cancers, emphysema and heart disease – the number-one killer of Americans.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking any type of cigarettes increases a person’s risk of heart disease two- to four-fold compared to non-smokers.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TlBpP3 Addiction, online October 18, 2012.

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NYC Rats: Stronger Than Sandy

Unprecedented flooding throughout low-lying portions of New York City over the past two days undoubtedly left hundreds—if not thousands—of rats scrambling for their dear lives. According to experts, most of them likely survived. “They’re a jack of all trades when it comes to locomotion,” says Rick Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. “They can’t sprint, but they run well; they’re not Michael Phelps, but they’re strong swimmers; and even though they don’t have prehensile tails, they climb well. They do it all.”

Ostfeld notes that rats can easily swim a couple hundred yards. In fact, he says, “one of the ways that rats have dispersed around the world is by jumping off of ships and swimming to shore—the proverbial ‘rats leaving a sinking ship’ is actually based on reality.”

No one knows exactly how many rats live in New York City, but Ostfeld suspects that there are at least as many rats as humans. The city’s population is dominated by the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), an invader from Europe, and the Black rat (Rattus rattus), which originated in Asia. These highly resilient rats can be found throughout New York City, but they usually don’t travel far within those limits.

The displacement of rats caused by Hurricane Sandy—a dispersal of rats that is likely unprecedented for the city in terms of numbers—has Ostfeld concerned about a possible increased spread of rat-borne diseases. “You get infected individuals mixing with uninfected individuals and that’s a recipe for an outbreak,” says Ostfeld. “It spreads like the flu, from rat to rat.”

Urban rats are known to carry infectious diseases including leptospirosis, typhus, salmonella, hantavirus, and even the plague. The incubation period for these diseases in humans is usually a couple of weeks or months, and symptoms are often similar to those of a common flu. According to Ostfeld, “In the coming weeks and months, health-care providers should have rat-borne diseases on their radars and potentially test for them.”

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Hurricane’s death toll rises to 65 in Caribbean

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — As Americans braced Sunday for Hurricane Sandy, Haiti was still suffering.

Officials raised the storm-related death toll across the Caribbean to 65, with 51 of those coming in Haiti, which was pelted by three days of constant rains that ended only on Friday.

As the rains stopped and rivers began to recede, authorities were getting a fuller idea of how much damage Sandy brought on Haiti. Bridges collapsed. Banana crops were ruined. Homes were underwater. Officials said the death toll might still rise.

“This is a disaster of major proportions,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press, adding with a touch of hyperbole, “The whole south is under water.”

The country’s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding. The bulk of the deaths were in the southern part of the country and the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital, which holds most of the 370,000 Haitians who are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said Sunday that the rivers were receding and that people were beginning to dry their belongings in the sun.

“Things are back to being a little quiet,” Alexis said by telephone. “We have seen the end.”

Sandy also killed 11 in Cuba, where officials said it destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of houses. Deaths were also reported in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities while damaging an estimated 3,500 homes.

Jamaica’s emergency management office on Sunday was airlifting supplies to marooned communities in remote areas of four badly impacted parishes.

In the Bahamas, Wolf Seyfert, operations director at local airline Western Air, said the domestic terminal of Grand Bahamas‘ airport received “substantial damage” from Sandy’s battering storm surge and would need to be rebuilt.

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Steve Ballmer Wants You to Come Over to Windows 8 [VIDEO]

On the fence about Windows 8, or Microsoft‘s Surface Tablet, or the new batch of Windows phones? Wondering whether to develop for them, or purchase one? The CEO of Microsoft would like a word with you.

[More from Mashable: Steve Ballmer on Tim Cook’s Attack: ‘I’m Glad He’s Paying Attention’]

I sat down with Steve Ballmer at the Windows 8 Phone launch in San Francisco Monday (full interview to follow), and we shot this quick one-on-one above. (Appropriately enough, it was shot on the HTC Windows Phone 8X; Ballmer was keen to test the image stabilization feature.)

[More from Mashable: Battle of the Tablets: Nexus 10 vs. iPad 4, Surface and Kindle Fire HD [CHART]]

Here, then, is Ballmer’s pitch for why you should buy into the Windows 8 ecosystem, Live Tiles and all. For consumers, it comes down to familiarity and personalization with a fresh interface. For developers, it’s about considering how many users will be on the new mobile platform in a year’s time.

Microsoft is having some success at persuading users to switch over: as the company announced at its Build conference Tuesday morning, there have been four million Windows 8 upgrades since Friday.

Are you convinced by the pitch? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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