“Boardwalk Empire” creator on legalizing drugs and making Nucky likeable again

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – The prohibition drama “Boardwalk Empire” wrapped its spectacular third season Sunday night just weeks after the states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana.

To “Boardwalk” creator Terence Winter, who has immersed himself in the history of prohibition to research his gangster epic, the votes feel like a move in the right direction.

“It’s great. I think they should legalize drugs in general,” Winter told TheWrap. “The war on drugs is clearly not working, and I think they should take the profit motive out of being a drug dealer. And maybe kids will go to college and do something else.”

Winter, who reassembled his writers a few weeks ago to begin work on the show’s fourth season, talked to us about whether they ever go out of their way to slow down the action, making Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) likable again, and whether things are worse today than they were in the 1920s.

TheWrap: Is ‘Boardwalk’ making a case for drug legalization?

Winter: Well, I think history made it for us with prohibition. We’re just reflecting the reality of how it went down. I’m not trying to bend the reality or the truth of what happened. It clearly didn’t work. I don’t think people were more disposed to drink when alcohol was legal.

Actually, it had the opposite effect. Women didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted and college students didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted. Leaving the mystery aside might have had a better impact on the country – keeping it legal. In my personal opinion I don’t think making drugs legal would make anybody more likely to become a heroin addict, for example.

This is going to sound strange, but I mean it as a compliment. “Boardwalk” has a way of lulling you into looking at the costumes, and listening to the dialogue, and marveling at how pretty everything is. There are times when I almost want to nod off, it’s so comforting – and then suddenly someone gets set on fire. I feel you’re making a conscious effort to use boredom to really shock us at other times. Do you ever put in a scene that’s deliberately slow?

No, we don’t. I would disagree and say – slow or boring – there is dialogue that needs to be attended to and I think you need to pay attention to what’s going on. The pacing can sometimes be slower than certainly an action scene or a scene with incredible violence. Because we have such wide-ranging characters and such wide-ranging circumstances, some things might seem slower by comparison.

Obviously a scene involving a political figure or Margaret’s storyline, as opposed to something Al Capone is doing, is just by the very nature of it going to feel slow. But no, none of it is done by design.

I mean it in a good way. If you think things are slowing down, they’re not. It’s almost a trick.

The audience is so wide-ranging, too. We have people who can’t stand the violence and they’re much more entertained by the family stuff. One person’s slow is another person’s fascinating.

With the final episodes we got to see Nucky become really likable again. He’s always been generous, but at times he seemed a little too caught up in himself to care about the people around him. Was there an effort to make him a good guy again?

One of the points of this season is that he does get caught up in himself. That all comes home to visit in a big way in episode 11. He doesn’t know anything about Eddie Kessler the guy who works really closely with him. He doesn’t know if he has a family. He doesn’t know Chalky White’s phone number. It becomes apparent that he’s spent way too much time concerned with himself and his own affairs.

If you depict any character honestly, and show all of their colors, you’re going to find something relatable or likeable with anybody. And that’s certainly the truth with Al Capone or Luciano or Tony Soprano or any other famous character.

And certainly Steve Buscemi has an inherent likable quality to him. So when you add that to the mix you can’t help but like the guy.

Imagery is so important to the show, and I feel like at one point this season you did something just because it was gorgeous. When Billie changes her hair color to blonde, was there any reason to do that besides how incredible it looked in the explosion?

Well, she was sort of finally coming to terms with who she really was. That was the episode where she dropped the façade of Billie Kent and told Nucky her real name. She was going through a metamorphosis and that sort of illustrated that a little bit. They were sort of not pretending with each other any more.

Is Billie a natural blonde?

That color wasn’t natural. She wasn’t being Billie Kent that night. She was being the real person underneath. … But I agree it did look great in the explosion. Meg Chambers Steedle, who plays Billie Kent, is absolutely one of those people the camera just falls in love with. Unfortunately the context was terrible. But it was extremely cinematic.

Harrow kind of became the hero of the show this season. His scene of taking down the entire house full of gangsters: Wow. We’ve always been fascinated with the character and for me this season I was more interested in seeing who he is as a person and seeing him take that journey and fall in love and really explore that side of him. Given the way the story was, we knew it would end in violence.

But following the trajectory from the end of season 2, we knew this guy was very loyal to Jimmy and Angela and we knew he would stick around and take care of that kid. And of course Gillian being who she is, it wasn’t going to end well.

Is Gillian kaput at this point? The last time we saw her she was in a heroin daze, and she’s kind of lost everything.

She will be back on the show. She’s certainly still alive.

Is there anybody on the show you think you can’t kill?

Nope. Everybody’s up for grabs and that’s from the top on down. Anything can happen.

We hear so much about how much trouble our country is in. Do you think things are worse than they were in the 1920s?

No, and if anything, reading about how bad things were in the 1920s is strangely comforting in terms of how we think about things today. The level of corruption and the whole idea of going to hell in a hand basket is certainly nothing new. You look back and think, this pales in comparison. I think the more things change the more they stay the same.

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Fossil fuel subsidies in focus at climate talks

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump.

"Thank God that our country is an oil producer and the price of gasoline is one of the lowest," al-Kubaisi said, filling up his Toyota Land Cruiser at a gas station in Doha. "God has given us a blessing."

To those looking for a global response to climate change, it's more like a curse.

Qatar — the host of U.N. climate talks that entered their final week Monday — is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year. Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.

"We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution," said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.

His group presented research Monday showing that in addition to the fuel subsidies in developing countries, rich nations in 2011 gave more than $58 billion in tax breaks and other production subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. figure was $13 billion.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has calculated that removing fossil fuel subsidies could reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent by 2050.

Yet the argument is just recently gaining traction in climate negotiations, which in two decades have failed to halt the rising temperatures that are melting Arctic ice, raising sea levels and shifting weather patterns with impacts on droughts and floods.

In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion.

"I think it is manifestly clear ... that this is a massive missing piece of the climate change jigsaw puzzle," said Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for climate change.

He is spearheading an initiative backed by Scandinavian countries and some developing countries to put fuel subsidies on the agenda in various forums, citing the U.N. talks as a "natural home" for the debate.

The G-20 called for their elimination in 2009, and the issue also came up at the U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Frustrated that not much has happened since, European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Monday she planned to raise the issue with environment ministers on the sidelines of the talks in Doha.

Many developing countries are positive toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, not just to protect the climate but to balance budgets. Subsidies introduced as a form of welfare benefit decades ago have become an increasing burden to many countries as oil prices soar.

"We are reviewing the subsidy periodically in the context of the total economy for Qatar," the tiny Persian gulf country's energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told reporters Monday.

Qatar's National Development Strategy 2011-2016 states it more bluntly, saying fuel subsides are "at odds with the aspirations" and sustainability objectives of the wealthy emirate.

The problem is that getting rid of them comes with a heavy political price.

When Jordan raised fuel prices last month, angry crowds poured into the streets, torching police cars, government offices and private banks in the most sustained protests to hit the country since the start of the Arab unrest. One person was killed and 75 others were injured in the violence.

Nigeria, Indonesia, India and Sudan have also seen violent protests this year as governments tried to bring fuel prices closer to market rates.

Iran has used a phased approach to lift fuel subsidies over the past several years, but its pump prices remain among the cheapest in the world.

"People perceive it as something that the government is taking away from them," said Kretzmann. "The trick is we need to do it in a way that doesn't harm the poor."

The International Energy Agency found in 2010 that fuel subsidies are not an effective measure against poverty because only 8 percent of such subsidies reached the bottom 20 percent of income earners.

The IEA, which only looked at consumption subsidies, this year said they "remain most prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa, where momentum toward their reform appears to have been lost."

In the U.S., environmental groups say fossil fuel subsidies include tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels.

Industry groups, like the Independent Petroleum Association of America, are against removing such support, saying that would harm smaller companies, rather than the big oil giants.

In Doha, Mohammed Adow, a climate activist with Christian Aid, called all fuel subsidies "reckless and dangerous," but described removing subsidies on the production side as "low-hanging fruit" for governments if they are serious about dealing with climate change.

"It's going to oil and coal companies that don't need it in the first place," he said.

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Associated Press writers Abdullah Rebhy in Doha, Qatar, and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report

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Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter

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US reacts with joy to royal baby news

WESTPORT, Connecticut (AP) — An heir to the British throne is on the way — and Americans may be as enthralled as the Brits.

This former colony has been riveted by the royal news that the former Kate Middleton is pregnant — perhaps as much as Britain, where such regal developments are taken in stride.

"We don't really have a princess here," said Kathy Gitlin, an elementary school teacher in Connecticut who was thrilled to hear that Kate is with child. "I'm an Anglophile, I love England, and I think it's wonderful that two people in love wanted to get married and start a family. It's great."

There are several reasons for the American public's pleasure in Kate's news, manifested not only by the good wishes sent by President Obama but also by the breathless news coverage and the general good will toward the actually not-so-young young couple, who have both now reached 30.

First, and least complicated, is the fact that Kate seems a likeable and sensible young woman who married one of the world's most eligible bachelors without letting the power, prestige and A-plus jewelry go to her head.

Then there are the long ties between the two countries, so alike and so maddeningly different.

When Americans proudly declared their independence, they swore off sovereign kings and queens forever, yet several centuries later they find themselves drawn to the royals' pomp and pageantry, embracing the more colorful aspects of a system whose substance they had eagerly overthrown.

Finally, hardest to quantify, is the fading, almost ghostly, image of Princess Diana, who died so young. Americans want Diana's sons to flourish, and Kate seems to have made William very, very happy.

"I remember when Diana died, it was such a shock," said Gitlin, 52. "No one can ever take her place, but it's nice to have another person, someone this generation can look up to, and someone who William can love."

There's no doubt that many Britons are thrilled as well, and the country's embattled tabloid press certainly views a royal pregnancy (at Christmastime no less!) as a surefire circulation booster and a welcome diversion from a series of press scandals.

But some on Monday expressed a rather blasé attitude to the prospect of a new generation of Windsors seemingly bound for the throne. In the chill of early evening in north London's Camden market, young couples strolling among the stalls received the news of Kate's pregnancy with a shrug.

"I'm happy for them, but I don't really care," said Enya Lonergan, 19, who was visiting from Canterbury, south of London, with her friend Will Nichols, 20.

They could muster little enthusiasm for the news, noting that they had little in common with the royals, particularly in these bleak economic times.

"I don't think about them," Nichols said, adding that — naturally — he'd send them a gift. Or not.

Others said they were not interested and questioned the need for a royal family in the 21st century.

"I don't think it's a good thing," said Stephen Jowitt, 63, as he ambled down Camden High Street. "It reinforces a class system."

The news did provide a boost to one of Britain's national pastimes — finding new ways to wager money. Bookmakers are now taking bets on the gender of Kate's child, what the infant will be named and the color of his/her hair.

Joe Crilly, a spokesman for the William Hill bookmaker, said a high level of betting interest is expected, with favored names including Diana, Philip, Elizabeth and Sarah.

In America, ABC News even offered a poll, asking people to rate likely baby names.

Baby thoughts have been found in some less-than-fully-credible supermarket tabloids for months. They've been trumpeting "stories" about Kate's pregnancies for months, without any apparent basis in fact.

But that didn't keep the public from gobbling them up — the British royals, with their haughty glamour and slightly tragic air, have long captivated Americans.

"I'm always looking for any news of William and Kate," said 19-year-old Stacy McFacken, a clerk at a grocery store in Mentor, Ohio, in August when a number of tabloids offered screaming headlines about Kate's purported pregnancy.

"There's nothing like this in the States," she said. "It's just like all the fairy tales we read about as kids. We all want to be Kate."

Word of Kate's condition, including her hospitalization for complications, was top news on websites throughout the world. Her condition requires specialist treatment but if diagnosed early, it is unlikely to have long-term consequences for the mother or baby, and does not raise the risk of a miscarriage.

But while the parents might be anxious, world leaders stepped in to wish her well. The news was featured prominently on front pages in Argentina, India, France, South Africa and other countries. It sent Twitter into a tizzy, with the hashtag "royalbaby" trending worldwide and used more than 28,000 times in the first few hours following the official announcement. U.S. media websites such as People, Vanity Fair and the Daily Beast provided extensive coverage, with the Huffington Post launching a live blog to track developments.

"The whole wide world is excited," said Shao Hua Huang, a surgical nurse who practices in New York and Connecticut. "We're really happy for her. It's because of England and all the tradition. We Americans followed in their footsteps."

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Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds, Danica Kirka and Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed to this report.

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Baxter to buy Gambro for $4B

Baxter International Inc. said on Tuesday that it would buy privately held Swedish dialysis product company Gambro AB for about $4 billion to complement its kidney therapy portfolio.

Baxter will finance the deal, which it valued at $26.5 billion Swedish kroner, with debt and cash.

Baxter manufactures kidney dialysis equipment, drug infusion pumps and blood therapy products. The Gambro acquisition will round out Baxter's renal business, which accounted for almost one-fifth of the company's 2011 revenue of $13.89 billion.

Gambro is one of the largest makers of equipment for hemodialysis, which is generally performed in a hospital or clinic. The dialysis from Baxter's machines is called peritoneal and can be performed at home.

The deal marks further consolidation in the kidney dialysis market, where Gambro and Baxter compete against rivals such as U.S.-based DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc and Germany's Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co KGaA.

Analyst Kristofer Liljeberg of Sweden's Carnegie investment bank said the Gambro deal would give Baxter the No. 2 clinical dialysis position, behind Fresenius.

"I think in the longer term, the ambition is to try to challenge Fresenius," Liljeberg said.

However, he said, Gambro, which is owned by Swedish investment holding company Investor AB and its partly owned private equity company EQT Corp, had been struggling in recent years with slow growth and price competition.

Liljeberg said the deal was a good one for family-owned Investor, which controls several of Sweden's top companies. Since they bought Gambro, Investor and EQT have sold off its clinics and a blood component business.

A GROWING MARKET

More than 2 million patients globally are on some form of dialysis, and that has been increasing more than 5 percent annually, in part because of the rising rates of diabetes and hypertension.

Excluding special items, Baxter expects the Gambro transaction to reduce earnings per diluted share by 10 cents to 15 cents in 2013 and be neutral or add modestly to them in 2014. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.

Excluding f special items and estimated amortization of intangible assets, the company said the deal should not affect earnings in 2013 and add 20 cents to 25 cents a diluted share to them in 2014.

Baxter said it expected the deal to add to earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, after 2014.

The suburban Chicago company said it expected over five years to increase its sales by 7 percent to 8 percent, excluding currency fluctuations, on a compound annual basis, with earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, rising by 8 percent to 10 percent.

"Companies like Baxter can unlock a fair amount of value when they find strategic use for their overseas cash," said Piper Jaffray analyst Matt Miksic.

Indeed, Baxter said it planned to finance the deal with cash overseas. Multinational companies that have large international sales often have difficulties moving that cash back to the United States where they can put it to use.

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Fog grounds some flights, slows rush hour

(Tribune illustration / March 10, 2012)

Staff report

8:59 a.m. CST, December 3, 2012

Dozens of flights were canceled and rush hour traffic was slowed this morning as dense fog settled on the Chicago area.

As of 9 a.m., more than 50 flights had been canceled in Chicago, 49 at O'Hare International Airport and 3 at Midway Airport, according to FlightStats, which gathers data from airports and the Federal Aviation Administration. More than 300 flights were delayed, 232 at O'Hare and 88 at Midway.

On the roads, traffic moved slowly during the morning rush but no major accidents were reported, according to the Illinois State Police. Commuters were urged to leave extra space between vehicles.

The National Weather Service had issued a dense fog advisory until 8 a.m.

By 7 a.m., the fog had already lifted significantly in southern parts of the city and it will continue to lift northward throughout the morning, said Mike Bardou, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville.

“Over the next couple of hours, we should see visibility slowly come up,” Bardou said.

Unseasonably warm termperatures are contributing to the lingering fog: the weather service has predicted a high of 67 degrees for today, well above the normal high for Dec. 3 of 39 degrees.

Chicago's record high temperature for Dec. 3 is 71 degrees, which the city recorded in 1970.

Thunderstorms and showers are possible this afternoon and evening.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Nokia Siemens to sell optical networks unit

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Mobile telecoms equipment joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, which is focusing on its core business, is to sell its optical fiber unit to Marlin Equity Partners for an undisclosed sum.

Up to 1,900 employees, mainly in Germany and Portugal, will be transferred to the new company, NSN said on Monday.

The company, owned by Nokia and Siemens, has sold a number of product lines since it last year announced plans to divest non-core assets and cut 17,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of its total workforce.

Nordea Markets analyst Sami Sarkamies said he expected more divestments after the optical unit deal. This disposal was a small surprise, he said, because NSN needed some optical technology - where data is transmitted by pulses of light - for its main mobile broadband business.

The move may hint the company is preparing itself for further consolidation in the sector by cutting overlaps with other players, Sarkamies said.

The telecom equipment market is going through rough times with stiff competition. French Alcatel-Lucent is also cutting costs.

($1 = 0.7689 euro)

(Reporting by Harro ten Wold; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Dan Lalor)

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LeBron James chosen as SI's Sportsman of the Year

MIAMI (AP) — LeBron James of the Miami Heat is Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.

James became an NBA champion for the first time in 2012, a year in which he also won his second Olympic gold medal and his third NBA MVP trophy. He's the first NBA player to win the award since Heat teammate Dwyane Wade in 2006.

Time Inc. Sports Group editor Paul Fichtenbaum said Monday that James was chosen not only for his play but also for his charitable work, especially with schoolchildren in his native Akron, Ohio.

Past winners include Muhammad Ali, Jack Nicklaus, Wayne Gretzky, Arthur Ashe, Tom Brady, Derek Jeter and Michael Phelps. College basketball coaches Mike Krzyzewski and Pat Summitt shared the honor last year.

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“Searching for Sugar Man” wins Producers Guild documentary nomination

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Searching for Sugar Man” is the best-known of the five films whose producers have been nominated for documentary motion pictures by Producers Guild of America, which announced its nominations on Friday.

Malik Bendjelloul’s film about the rediscovery of ’70s recording artist Rodriguez joined a slate of nominees that also includes Jon Shenk’s doc about the ousted president of the Maldives, “The Island President”; Marius A. Merkevicius‘ story of the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic basketball team, “The Other Dream Team”; Dror Moreh’s chronicle of some members of the Israeli intelligence services, “The Gatekeepers”; and Aaron Yeger’s film about the Roma (gypsies) in Europe, “A People Uncounted.”

The PGA bypassed number of the year’s high-profile docs, including “Bully,” “The Queen of Versailles,” “The Imposter,” “Samsara,” “West of Memphis” and “The Invisible War.”

Of the guild’s choices, only “Sugar Man” was also nominated in the top category at the IDA Awards and the Cinema Eye Honors, the two major awards in the documentary field.

The PGA release:

LOS ANGELES, CA (November 30, 2012) – The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced today the Documentary Motion Picture nominees that will advance in the voting process for the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards.

The nominated films, listed below in alphabetical order, are:

A PEOPLE UNCOUNTED

THE GATEKEEPERS

THE ISLAND PRESIDENT

THE OTHER DREAM TEAM

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

All other nominations for the 2013 Producers Guild Award categories will be announced on January 3, 2013, along with the individual producers.

All 2013 Producers Guild Award winners will be announced on January 26, 2013 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. This year, the Producers Guild will also award special honors to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, J.J. Abrams, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner and Russell Simmons, among others. The 2013 Producers Guild Awards Chair is Michael De Luca.

In 1990, the Producers Guild held the first-ever Golden Laurel Awards, which were renamed the Producers Guild Awards in 2002. Richard Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck took home the award for Best Produced Motion Picture for DRIVING MISS DAISY, establishing the Guild’s awards as a bellwether for the Oscars. Last year, the PGA awarded THE ARTIST with its Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, marking the fifth consecutive year the Producers Guild has presaged the Academy of Motion Picture’s choice.

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Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

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Study shows growth in second screen users

NEW YORK (AP) — Television viewers were once called couch potatoes. Many are becoming more active while watching now, judging by the findings in a new report that illustrates the explosive growth in people who watch TV while connected to social media on smartphones and tablets.

The Nielsen company said that one in three people using Twitter in June sent messages at some point about the content of television shows, an increase of 27 percent from only five months earlier. And that was before the Olympics, which was probably the first big event to illustrate the extent of second screen usage.

"Twitter has become the second screen experience for television," said Deirdre Bannon, vice president of social media at Nielsen.

Social networking is becoming so pervasive that the study found nearly a third of people aged 18-to-24 reported using the sites while in the bathroom.

An estimated 41 percent of tablet owners and 38 percent of smartphone owners used their device while also watching television at least once a day, Nielsen said.

That percentage hasn't changed much; in fact, 40 percent of smartphone owners reported daily dual screen usage a year earlier, Nielsen said. The difference is that far more people own these devices and they are using them for a longer period of time. The company estimated that Americans spent a total of 157.5 billion minutes on mobile devices in July 2012, nearly doubling the 81.8 billion the same month a year earlier.

"There are big and interesting implications," Bannon said. "I think both television networks and advertisers are onto it."

The social media can provide networks with real-time feedback on what they are doing. The performance of moderators at presidential debates this fall was watched more closely than perhaps ever before, because people were instantly taking on Twitter to provide their own critiques.

It also makes for some conflicting information: Twitter buzzed with complaints last summer about NBC's policy of airing many Olympics events from London on tape delay, yet ratings for the prime-time Olympics telecast soared past expectations.

The increase in people watching television and commenting about it online would seem to run counter to another big trend this fall: more people recording programs and watching them at a later hour. Those contrary trends both increase the value of live event programming like awards shows or sporting events.

The Nielsen study also found that 35 percent of people who used tablets while watching TV looked up information online about the program they were watching. A quarter of tablet owners said they researched coupons or deals for products they saw advertised on television

As rapid as the use of social media while on television is growing in the United States, it already lags behind other countries. Nielsen said that 63 percent of people in the Middle East or Africa report using social media while on TV, and 52 percent of people in Latin America.

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