The actress who played tomboy Elly May Clampett on 1960s television show "The Beverly Hillbillies" has settled her lawsuit against Mattel over a Barbie doll based on her character.
Actress Donna Douglas, now 78, sued the toy company in May as well as the consumer products division of CBS Corp. seeking a minimum of $75,000 in damages.
Her complaint said Mattel was "engaging in the unauthorized use" of her name, likeness and image to promote and sell the "Elly May" Barbie.
Attorneys in the case filed court papers on Tuesday in Louisiana indicating the lawsuit had been settled. The financial terms were not revealed
Douglas starred in "The Beverly Hillbillies" which ran from 1962 to 1971 on CBS television. She played the beautiful but naive Elly May Clampett, in the show about a family that struck oil and ditched their backwoods home for life in California.
Philip Shaheen, an attorney for Douglas who now lives in Louisiana, said he could not comment on the details of the settlement. California-based Mattel could not be reached for comment.
CBS Consumer Products had argued in court papers that it had exclusive rights to use the Elly May character, and did not need Douglas' permission before entering into an agreement with Mattel for the doll.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
NAIROBI, Kenya ? A resident and a military officer say Ethiopian troops have entered a border town in Somalia in what would be a third front against al-Shabab militants.
Resident Mohammed Abdi said hundreds of residents fled the border town of Beledweyne on Saturday after hundreds of Ethiopian and Somali troops moved in.
Capt. Hashi Nor of the Somali military confirmed that Somali and Ethiopian troops had moved in.
The movement appears to be a third front against al-Shabab, Somalia's strongest militant group. Kenyan troops are fighting al-Shabab in Somalia's south, and African Union troops in Mogadishu have mostly pushed al-Shabab fighters out of the capital.
THE HILL: Perry blasts Obama for not hosting parade for returning US troops. ?It really disturbs me that nearly after nine years of war in Iraq that this president wouldn?t welcome home our many heroes with a simple parade in their honor.?
NEW YORK ? After a customer backlash, Verizon Wireless on Friday dropped a plan to start charging $2 for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit or debit cards.
In a statement on its website Friday, the company said "customer feedback" prompted the decision to drop the "convenience fee" it wanted to introduce on Jan. 15.
Verizon wanted to steer people to electronic check payments, which are cheaper, and automatic credit card payments, which are more reliable.
A petition on Change.org against the fees had gathered more than 95,000 names by Friday afternoon, a day after Verizon, the country's largest cellphone company, announced the fees. The petition was set up by Molly Katchpole, who earlier this year started a successful campaign to make Bank of America drop a $5-per-month fee for debit-card use.
Payment processors for power companies usually charge "convenience fees" of up to $5 for every payment made by phone or online, but cellphone companies haven't taken the step yet. The furor against Verizon hints that they may have to wait further.
Verizon Wireless serves 91 million phones and other devices on accounts that pay the company directly, and more who pay indirectly through other companies. It's a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. of New York and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.
BEIJING ? China's manufacturing slowed in December for a second month due to weak global demand amid U.S. and European economic woes, a survey released Friday showed.
The latest HSBC Purchasing Managers Index added to growing signs of strain on China's manufacturers and exporters. They have been battered by a plunge in global demand and lending curbs that have driven thousands of entrepreneurs into bankruptcy, wiping out jobs and raising the specter of unrest.
The index for December stood at 48.7 on a 100-point scale on which numbers below 50 indicate a contraction in activity. It said companies reported a drop in foreign orders due to sluggish global demand.
"Weakening external demand is starting to bite," said HSBC economist Hongbin Qu in a statement with the survey.
The latest data will add to pressure on Beijing to ease spending and lending controls to stabilize growth and spur job creation, Qu said.
"Hard landings should be avoided so long as easing measures filter through in the coming months," he said.
China's export growth declined in November for a third month, falling to 13.8 percent from the 15.9 percent the previous month.
The slump in global demand has battered export-driven southern coastal regions, where thousands of small companies have been driven out of business and the survivors have laid off tens of thousands of workers.
Smaller private companies were hard hit by bank lending curbs imposed to cool inflation and a boom in housing prices. The government has promised to have state banks lend more to help struggling entrepreneurs but says most of its curbs will remain in place.
Just one day after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hinted that the U.S. may be the reason behind the cancer affecting many of the South American leaders. Read more after the jump!
Wendy L.
(Bloomberg)?Chavez said the Central Intelligence Agency was behind chemical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and that it?s possible that in years to come a plot will be uncovered that shows the U.S. spread cancer as a political weapon against its critics.
?It?s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America,? Chavez said in a nationally televised speech to the military. ?Would it be so strange that they?ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won?t know about it for 50 years??
Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in June and had a baseball-sized tumor removed in Cuba, has called for a regional summit of leaders who have battled cancer including Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva and Paraguay?s Fernando Lugo.
?I?m just sharing my thoughts, but it?s very, very, very strange,? Chavez said. ?Evo take care of yourself, Correa, be careful, we just don?t know,? he said, referring to Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, the leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador. Thomas Mittnacht, press director at the U.S. embassy in Caracas, declined to comment when reached by telephone.
Re-election Bid
Chavez, a former tank commander who has led South America?s largest oil producer since 1999 and will seek a third consecutive six-year term in October elections, says that the U.S. was involved in a coup against him in 2002 that briefly ousted the socialist leader before he was reinstated by the military and supporters.
The 57-year-old leader also accuses the U.S. of plotting an invasion of Venezuela to capture its oil reserves. Chavez, who continues to send the U.S. more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day, said that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has warned him about assassination attempts after surviving what he has claimed are hundreds of plots by the U.S. since he took power in 1959.
?Fidel always tells me, ?Chavez be careful, they?ve developed technology, be careful with what you eat, they could stick you with a small needle,?? the Venezuelan leader said today. ?In any case, I?m not accusing anyone, I?m just using my freedoms to reflect and issue comments on very strange events that are hard to explain.?
Mutation in gene that's critical for human development linked to arrhythmiaPublic release date: 27-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phil Sahm phil.sahm@hsc.utah.edu 801-581-2517 University of Utah Health Sciences
(SALT LAKE CITY) Arrhythmia is a potentially life-threatening problem with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat, causing it to go too fast, too slow or to beat irregularly. Arrhythmia affects millions of people worldwide.
The cardiac conduction system (CCS) regulates the rate and rhythm of the heart. It is a group of specialized cells in the walls of the heart. These cells control the heart rate by sending electrical signals from the sinoatrial node in the heart's right atrium (upper chamber) to the ventricles (lower chambers), causing them to contract and pump blood.
The biologic and genetic mechanisms controlling the formation and function of the CCS are not well understood, but new research with mice shows that altered function of a gene called Tbx3 interferes with the development of the CCS and causes lethal arrhythmias.
In a study published in the Dec. 26, 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early edition, researchers led by the University of Utah showed the CCS is extremely sensitive to levels of Tbx3. Mouse embryos with Tbx3 levels below a critical threshold suffered arrhythmia and couldn't survive. As the levels of Tbx3 were increased, mice survived to birth, but as adults they developed arrhythmias or had sudden death.
Tbx3 dysfunction merits further investigation as a cause of acquired and spontaneous arrhythmias, says Anne M. Moon, M.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor of pediatrics at the U of U School of Medicine and corresponding author on the study. "The cardiac conduction system is very sensitive to Tbx3," Moon says. "Tbx3 is required for the conduction system to develop, mature, and then continue to function properly."
The Tbx3 protein, which is a transcription factor encoded by the TBX3 gene, has been linked to heart development, but its role is not yet clearly defined. Moon and her colleagues, including first author Deborah U. Frank, M.D., Ph.D., U assistant professor of pediatrics, found that slight alterations in the structure of the Tbx3 gene alter the level of the protein in mice. When this happens, it can impair the electrical signal in the sinoatrial node and block the atrioventricular node, which conducts electrical signals from the atria to the ventricles. The result is lethal arrhythmias in embryonic and adult mice.
This discovery has implications for the potential to regenerate functional heart tissue, according to Moon. "There's a big effort to regenerate heart muscle," she says. "But if the muscle can't conduct electrical signals, it's not going to do any good; we also need to be able to regenerate conduction tissues to regulate that muscle."
Arrhythmia is not the first problem related to mutations in the TBX3 gene. In humans, TBX3 mutations have been shown to cause limb malformations in people with ulnar-mammary syndrome, an inherited birth disorder characterized by abnormalities of the bones in the hands and forearms and underdeveloped sweat and mammary glands.
In her future research, Moon wants to discover specifically how Tbx3 regulates the behavior of cells in the cardiac conduction system and whether cells that don't have enough Tbx3 die or turn into some other kind of cells.
"It turns out that Tbx3 is a lot more important in the heart than we realized," Moon says.
###
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam, University of Washington, and New York University also contributed to the study.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Mutation in gene that's critical for human development linked to arrhythmiaPublic release date: 27-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phil Sahm phil.sahm@hsc.utah.edu 801-581-2517 University of Utah Health Sciences
(SALT LAKE CITY) Arrhythmia is a potentially life-threatening problem with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat, causing it to go too fast, too slow or to beat irregularly. Arrhythmia affects millions of people worldwide.
The cardiac conduction system (CCS) regulates the rate and rhythm of the heart. It is a group of specialized cells in the walls of the heart. These cells control the heart rate by sending electrical signals from the sinoatrial node in the heart's right atrium (upper chamber) to the ventricles (lower chambers), causing them to contract and pump blood.
The biologic and genetic mechanisms controlling the formation and function of the CCS are not well understood, but new research with mice shows that altered function of a gene called Tbx3 interferes with the development of the CCS and causes lethal arrhythmias.
In a study published in the Dec. 26, 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early edition, researchers led by the University of Utah showed the CCS is extremely sensitive to levels of Tbx3. Mouse embryos with Tbx3 levels below a critical threshold suffered arrhythmia and couldn't survive. As the levels of Tbx3 were increased, mice survived to birth, but as adults they developed arrhythmias or had sudden death.
Tbx3 dysfunction merits further investigation as a cause of acquired and spontaneous arrhythmias, says Anne M. Moon, M.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor of pediatrics at the U of U School of Medicine and corresponding author on the study. "The cardiac conduction system is very sensitive to Tbx3," Moon says. "Tbx3 is required for the conduction system to develop, mature, and then continue to function properly."
The Tbx3 protein, which is a transcription factor encoded by the TBX3 gene, has been linked to heart development, but its role is not yet clearly defined. Moon and her colleagues, including first author Deborah U. Frank, M.D., Ph.D., U assistant professor of pediatrics, found that slight alterations in the structure of the Tbx3 gene alter the level of the protein in mice. When this happens, it can impair the electrical signal in the sinoatrial node and block the atrioventricular node, which conducts electrical signals from the atria to the ventricles. The result is lethal arrhythmias in embryonic and adult mice.
This discovery has implications for the potential to regenerate functional heart tissue, according to Moon. "There's a big effort to regenerate heart muscle," she says. "But if the muscle can't conduct electrical signals, it's not going to do any good; we also need to be able to regenerate conduction tissues to regulate that muscle."
Arrhythmia is not the first problem related to mutations in the TBX3 gene. In humans, TBX3 mutations have been shown to cause limb malformations in people with ulnar-mammary syndrome, an inherited birth disorder characterized by abnormalities of the bones in the hands and forearms and underdeveloped sweat and mammary glands.
In her future research, Moon wants to discover specifically how Tbx3 regulates the behavior of cells in the cardiac conduction system and whether cells that don't have enough Tbx3 die or turn into some other kind of cells.
"It turns out that Tbx3 is a lot more important in the heart than we realized," Moon says.
###
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam, University of Washington, and New York University also contributed to the study.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 27-Dec-2011
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