Despite the many number of studies examining workaholism, large-scale studies have been lacking. The present study utilized an open web-based cross-sectional survey assessing symptoms of psychiatric disorders and workaholism among 16,426 workers (M age = 37.3 years, SD = 11.4, range = 16–75 years). Participants were administered the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, the Obsession-Compulsive Inventory-Revised, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Bergen Work Addiction Scale, along with additional questions examining demographic and work-related variables. Correlations between workaholism and all psychiatric disorder symptoms were positive and significant. Workaholism comprised the dependent variable in a three-step linear multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Basic demographics (age, gender, relationship status, and education) explained 1.2% of the variance in workaholism, whereas work demographics (work status, position, sector, and annual income) explained an additional 5.4% of the variance. Age (inversely) and managerial positions (positively) were of most importance. The psychiatric symptoms (ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression) explained 17.0% of the variance. ADHD and anxiety contributed considerably. The prevalence rate of workaholism status was 7.8% of the present sample. In an adjusted logistic regression analysis, all psychiatric symptoms were positively associated with being a workaholic. The independent variables explained between 6.1% and 14.4% in total of the variance in workaholism cases. Although most effect sizes were relatively small, the study’s findings expand our understanding of possible psychiatric predictors of workaholism, and particularly shed new insight into the reality of adult ADHD in work life. The study’s implications, strengths, and shortcomings are also discussed.

 Introduction

 Workaholism has been defined as “being overly concerned about work, driven by an uncontrollable work motivation, and to investing so much time and effort to work that it impairs other important life areas” [1] (p. 8). Research into this timely topic has heavily expanded over the past few decades [2,3], and concerns have been raised regarding the downsides of workaholism [4,5]. In order to prevent workaholism developing, there is a need to identify factors involved with this compulsive work pattern–especially since modern technology (i.e., laptops, tablets, smartphones) has blurred the natural lines between home and the workplace.

 Given this evolving context, the present study aimed to identify risk factors associated with workaholism, and to enrich the existing literature in several ways. Previous workaholism research has often used invalid measures, small samples, and insufficient theoretical frameworks [1,6,7]. In this study, a contemporary theoretical framework of addiction to conceptualize workaholism was applied, and validated scales were utilized to investigate whether several psychiatric symptoms were related to workaholism among a large sample of employees.

 The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) reconceptualized addictive behavior to include behavioral addictions akin to more traditional drug addictions [8]. Two profound changes were made: (i) Gambling Disorder (formerly pathological gambling) was reclassified as a behavioral addiction rather than a disorder of impulse control [9], (ii) and Internet Gaming Disorder was introduced into Section 3 of the DSM-5 (Emerging Measures and Models) [8]. However, at present, although these changes represent a substantial recognition of behavioral addictions in general, most potentially addictive behaviors are not yet formally defined as such–including workaholism.

 As the line between excessive enthusiasm and a genuine addiction is difficult to define, scholars have typically used specific criteria to define the border between addictive and non-addictive behavior [10]. These criteria involve being totally preoccupied by work (salience), using work to alleviate emotional stress (mood modification), gradually working longer and longer hours to get the same mood modifying effects (tolerance), suffering emotional and physical distress if unable to work (withdrawal), sacrificing other obligations (personal relationships with partner and children, social activities, exercising, etc.) because of work (conflict), desiring or attempting to control the number of hours spent working without success (relapse), and suffering some kind of harm or negative consequence as either a direct or indirect result of the excessive working (problems) [11,12]. Because previous workaholism scales did not cover these addiction components, the seven-item Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS) was specifically developed in order to assess this behavior using the same criteria as other addictions [13]. Consequently, the BWAS is based on and embedded within general addiction theory [10], and has demonstrated robust psychometric properties across studies in different countries [13–15].

 Via mobile technology hardware, work is highly accessible to anyone and anywhere, and has the potential to facilitate and enhance workaholism tendencies [16,17]. However, there has been a perceivable paucity in the number of reliable prevalence estimates of workaholism. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses tentatively report estimates from 5% to over 25% [14,18]. According to a recent (and, to date, only) nationally representative study of Norwegian workers, 8.3% were categorized as workaholics [14]. Research has also shown that age is inversely related to workaholism [14,19]. Although a few studies have reported gender differences [20,21], workaholism appears to be unrelated to both gender and marital status [2,14,19]. Research has further demonstrated that higher education and having managerial duties are associated with workaholism [13,19,20,22,23]. A few studies have reported higher levels of workaholism in certain lines of work (e.g., commercial trade, agriculture, medicine, communication, consultancy, etc.) as well as sectors (private and self-employment) [19,20,22–24]. For some, workaholism has been described as a money disorder [25], and one study associated it with having a higher income [20]. This has good face validity because working hard usually means increased salary/earnings. Given these findings, it is expected that younger, well-educated workers, in self-employed and private sector, with managerial responsibilities and higher income will report higher scores on the Bergen Work Addiction Scale in the present study (Hypothesis 1).

 Research have consistently demonstrated that Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) increases the risk of various chemical and non-chemical addictions [26]. However, this psychiatric disorder has never been empirically examined (or theoretically associated with) workaholism. ADHD is prevalent in 2.5–5% of the adult population, and is typically manifested by inattentiveness and lack of focus, and/or impulsivity, and excessive physical activity [8,26]. Individuals with ADHD may often stop working due to their disorder, and may have trouble in getting work health insurance as they are regarded as a risk group [26]. For this reason, the present authors hypothesize that individuals with ADHD may compensate for this by over-working to meet the expectations required to hold down a job. Although this is a contentious issue, there are a number of reasons why ADHD may be relevant to workaholism.

 Firstly, the present authors argue that the inattentive nature of individuals with ADHD causes them to spend time beyond the typical working day (i.e., evenings and weekends) to accomplish what is done by their fellow employees within normal working hours (i.e., the compensation hypothesis). In addition, as they may have a hard time concentrating while at work due to environmental noise and distractions (especially office work in open landscape environments), they might find it easier to work after co-workers have left their working environment or work from home. Their attentive shortcomings may also cause them to overly check for errors on the tasks given, since they often experience careless mistakes due to their inattentiveness [26]. This may cause a cycle of procrastination, work binges, exhaustion, and–in some cases–a fear of imperfection. Although ADHD is associated with lack of focus, such individuals often have the ability to hyper-focus once they find something interesting–often being unable to detach themselves from the task (e.g., flow) [27,28].

 Secondly, the present authors’ argue that the impulsive nature of individuals with ADHD causes them to say ‘yes’ and taking on many tasks without them thinking ahead, and taking on more work than they can realistically handle–eventually leading to workaholic levels of activity. Thirdly, it is also argued that the hyperactive nature of individuals with ADHD and the need to be constantly active without being able to relax, causes such individuals to keep on working in an attempt to alleviate their restless thoughts and behaviors. Consequently, work stress might act as a stimulant, and they may choose active (and often multiple) jobs with high pressure, deadlines and activity (e.g., media, sales, restaurant work)–where they have the opportunity to multitask and constantly shift between tasks (e.g., Type-A personality behavior) [26,29]. In line with this, Type-A personality has often been associated–and sometimes used interchangeably–with workaholism in previous research [2,30]. This line of reasoning also relates to the workaholic type portrayed by Robinson [31], in which he actually denoted “attention-deficit workaholics” (who tend to start many projects but become bored easily and need to be stimulated at all times). His description of the “relentless” type also corresponds well with ADHD symptoms (i.e., unstoppable in working fast and meeting deadlines, often with many projects going on simultaneously). In other words, these types may utilize work pressure to obtain focus, constantly seeking stimulation, crisis, and excitement–and therefore like risky jobs.

 Finally, people with ADHD are often mistaken as being lazy, irresponsible, or unintelligent because of their difficulties with planning, time management, organizing, and decision-making [26]. Feeling misunderstood might cause individuals with ADHD to push themselves to prove these misconceptions as wrong–and resulting in an excessive and/or compulsive working pattern. Such individuals are often intelligent, but may feel forced or motivated to start up their own business (i.e., entrepreneurs), as they find it troubling to adjust to standard work schedules or organizational boundaries. Previous research has highlighted that workaholism is prevalent among entrepreneurs and the self-employed [24,32]. Often failing in other aspects of life (e.g., family) [26], work for such individuals may become even more important to them (e.g., self-efficacy). In accord with the aforementioned line of reasoning and findings, it is hypothesized that ADHD symptoms will be positively associated with workaholism in the present study (Hypothesis 2).

 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is another underlying psychiatric disorder that increases the likelihood of developing an addiction [33]. Full-blown OCD occurs in approximately 2–3% of children and adults, and is commonly manifested by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors of checking, obsessing, ordering, hoarding, washing, and/or neutralizing [8,34,35]. It has been suggested that addictive behaviors might represent a coping and/or escape mechanism of OCD symptoms, or as an OCD-behavior that eventually becomes an addiction in itself [36]. Previous workaholic typologies have incorporated the “compulsive-dependent” and “perfectionistic” types [37], and some empirical studies have demonstrated that obsessive-compulsive traits are present among workaholics [2,38,39]. The OCD tendency of having the need to arrange things in a certain way (i.e., a strong need for control) and obsessing over details to the point of paralysis–may predispose workers with such traits to develop workaholic working patterns [31,37,40,41]. Therefore, it is hypothesized that OCD symptoms will be positively related to workaholism in the present study (Hypothesis 3).

 Other psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression may also increase the risk of developing an addiction [33]. Approximately 30% of people will suffer from an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, and 20% will have at least one episode of depression [34,35]. These conditions often occur simultaneously, as most people who are depressed also experience acute anxiety [36]. Anxiety and/or depression can lead to addiction, and vice versa [36]. A number of studies have previously reported a link between anxiety, depression, and workaholism [2,7,42,43]. Furthermore, it is known that workaholism (in some instances) develops as an attempt to reduce uncomfortable feelings of anxiety and depression. Working hard is praised and honored in modern society, and thus serves as a legitimate behavior for individuals to combat or alleviate negative feelings–and to feel better about themselves and raise their self-esteem [10,11]. Consequently, it is hypothesized that there will be a positive association between anxiety, depression, and workaholism (Hypothesis 4). Against this background, data were analyzed from a large sample in order to investigate whether individual and work-related demographics and psychiatric symptoms in terms of ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression could predict workaholism (Hypotheses 1–4). ||||| A large national Norwegian study shows that workaholism frequently co-occurs with ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression.

 Researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway have examined the associations between workaholism and psychiatric disorders among 16,426 working adults.

 "Workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics," says researcher and Clinical Psychologist Specialist Cecilie Schou Andreassen, at the Department of Psychosocial Science, at the University of Bergen (UiB), and visiting scholar at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

 Workaholics score higher on all clinical states

 The study showed that workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics. Among workaholics, the main findings were that:

 32.7 per cent met ADHD criteria (12.7 per cent among non-workaholics).

 25.6 per cent OCD criteria (8.7 per cent among non-workaholics).

 33.8 per cent met anxiety criteria (11.9 per cent among non-workaholics).

 8.9 per cent met depression criteria (2.6 per cent among non-workaholics).

 "Thus, taking work to the extreme may be a sign of deeper psychological or emotional issues. Whether this reflects overlapping genetic vulnerabilities, disorders leading to workaholism or, conversely, workaholism causing such disorders, remain uncertain," says Schou Andreassen.

 The pioneering study, published in the open-access journal PLOS One, is co-authored by researchers from Nottingham Trent University and Yale University.

 Affects identification of disorders

 According to Schou Andreassen, the findings clearly highlight the importance of further investigating neurobiological deviations related to workaholic behaviour.

 "In wait for more research, physicians should not take for granted that a seemingly successful workaholic does not have ADHD-related or other clinical features. Their considerations affect both the identification and treatment of these disorders," says Schou Andreassen.

 Seven diagnostic criteria for workaholism

 The researchers used seven valid criteria when drawing the line between addictive and non-addictive behaviour.

 Experiences occurring over the past year are rated from 1 (never) to 5 (always):

 You think of how you can free up more time to work.

 You spend much more time working than initially intended.

 You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness or depression.

 You have been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them.

 You become stressed if you are prohibited from working.

 You deprioritize hobbies, leisure activities, and/or exercise because of your work.

 You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health.

 Scoring 4 (often) or 5 (always) on four or more criteria identify a workaholic.

 Accordingly, the Bergen Work Addiction Scale operationalizes workaholism by the same symptoms as traditional addictions: salience, mood modification, conflict, tolerance, withdrawal, relapse and problems.

 In line with previous research, 7.8 per cent of the current sample classified as workaholics, which is close to an estimate (8.3 per cent) found in a (and, to date, only) nationally representative study conducted by Dr. Andreassen and colleagues in 2014. ||||| Gain a global perspective on the US and go beyond with curated news and analysis from 600 journalists in 50+ countries covering politics, business, innovation, trends and more.

Summary: – Spending late nights at the office and missing a kid's piano recital or three might be a sign of a deeper psychiatric problem, according to a study published last week in PLOS One. Researches found workaholism was statistically linked with anxiety, depression, OCD, and ADHD. “Workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics," researcher Cecilie Schou Andreassen says in a press release. Researchers found 32.7% of workaholics had ADHD versus 12.7% of non-workaholics; 25.6% had OCD versus 8.7% of non-workaholics; 33.8% had anxiety versus 11.9% of non-workaholics; and 8.9% had depression versus 2.6% of non-workaholics. Without further research, the nature of the relationship between workaholism and common psychiatric conditions is unclear. But Schou Andreassen notes, “Taking work to the extreme may be a sign of deeper psychological or emotional issues." Researchers found 7.8% of the nearly 16,500 adults studied were workaholics, which they determined with a series of seven statements participants could rank, including, “You think of how you can free up more time to work” and “You become stressed if you are prohibited from working.” But not everyone is convinced. “Any human behavior can be turned into a disease,” a professor at Liverpool University tells the Financial Times. “It’s this tendency to pathologize the usual messy realities of life, of which work is one.” (Here's why we shouldn't have to find meaning in work.)


Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Two days after CNN first reported that five women said "Game Change" co-author and journalist Mark Halperin sexually harassed or assaulted them during his time at ABC News, the number of accusers has grown to at least a dozen women, including four who are now sharing their accounts for the first time. Another woman, who shared her account in CNN's initial article on the condition her name not be published, is now speaking out on the record.

 The new accusations from the four women include that Halperin masturbated in front of an ABC News employee in his office and that he violently threw another woman against a restaurant window before attempting to kiss her, and that after she rebuffed him he called her and told her she would never work in politics or media. The alleged incidents occurred while Halperin was in a position of significant authority at ABC News, while the women were young and had little power.

 Halperin denies that he masturbated in front of anyone, that he physically assaulted anyone, or that he threatened anyone in the way described in this story.

 In a statement provided to CNN Friday evening, Halperin said, "I am profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated." Halperin said that in recent days, as he has read accounts of women he worked with at ABC News, he has felt "profound guilt." He said that for several years, around his departure from ABC News, he "had weekly counseling sessions to work on understanding the personal issues and attitudes that caused me to behave in such an inappropriate manner." He additionally said that his behavior had not continued after he left ABC News. (Halperin's full statement appears at the bottom of this article.)

 Related: Five women accuse journalist and 'Game Change' co-author Mark Halperin of sexual harassment

 The first of the four new accusers, who was at the time of the incident an ABC News desk assistant in her early 20s, told CNN she asked Halperin if she could meet with him for career advice in either 1997 or 1998. It was after 10 p.m. when she went into his office, she said. During their conversation, Halperin began to masturbate behind his desk while staring at her, the woman said.

 "I sat in a chair across from him," she told CNN. "He was behind a wooden desk so I couldn't see him from the waist down. As we had our conversation about my career he was masturbating. There was no question about it."

 "I pretended like I didn't know what was going on and we talked a bit more and then he abruptly wrapped up the conversation," she continued.

 The woman told CNN it was clear what Halperin was doing. "There was an up and down motion," she said.

 "I don't know if he made any sound at the end or how it was clear to me that he had climaxed," she said. "But it was clear that he was satisfied -- like he stopped making that motion and stopped staring at me."

 A longtime friend of the woman's told CNN that the woman had told him her story years ago.

 The second woman told CNN she met Halperin in the late 1990s while she was interning at the White House.

 "At the end of my internship, Mark said to me, 'When you graduate from college, if you're looking for a job, call me.' And I was super flattered and really excited. So when I graduated, I called Mark Halperin," she said.

 The woman told CNN that Halperin took her to lunch in Midtown Manhattan. They didn't talk about her career or jobs at all throughout the lunch, but she assumed that he knew it was why he called and that the topic would be addressed later. At the end of the lunch, after they walked out of the restaurant, she said, she extended her hand for him to shake it. Halperin, she said, had other ideas.

 "He put both hands on my arms and threw me against the window of the restaurant hard. So my head banged against the window hard, in a way I thought people inside were going to think something terrible had happened to me," she said, adding, "This was rough, and hard, and violent. And not in a seductive way -- in a way that telegraphs some anger and meanness."

 "And he lunged at me," she continued, "with his body pressed against mine against the window and came at me with his open mouth."

 The woman said she was able to avoid his attempt to kiss her, get out from under him and walk away. About 10 minutes later, she said, he called her.

 "I was really hoping he would be calling to apologize. And he said something to the effect of, 'You are never going to get a job. You're never going to be hired in politics or media. Why would anyone ever hire you?' And that's when I broke down and started crying," she told CNN.

 Two friends of the woman told CNN that the woman had told them about the incident more than a decade ago.

 A third woman, who worked as a desk assistant on "World News Tonight," told CNN that Halperin hit on her in the office during the Fall of 2006. The woman provided CNN excerpts from the journal she kept at the time that she told CNN referenced Halperin, although it only referred to the man as "an older man who is involved with someone else and has a powerful position at ABC."

 "He cornered me in the coffee closet, and introduced himself," the journal said. "And knowing of course who he is, his national significance, and his importance in news, I squandered (sic) in nervousness. I noticed he had been eying me... he's in the newsroom a lot... but figured he was looking at the monitors behind me."

 Later, the woman wrote in her journal, the man pulled her aside when she was alone and "He whispered -- how old are you, do you have a boyfriend, and do you understand how important it is that we remain secretive? With that he told me he wanted to meet me in his office before I left for the night. Knowing perfectly well that his intentions were wrong, I went to him anyway -- if anything to save my dignity and stand up for myself for seeming more interested or suggestive than I was."

 At that time, the woman's account in her journal said, the man told her he was "extremely attracted" to her. The woman told Halperin it was best if they remained professional, but he didn't listen.

 "As I gathered my things to leave, he leaned in to kiss me. I turned my head away, but he would not relent," she wrote in the journal. "So in the awkwardness and pressure of the moment, I let him put his lips on mine. It was nothing -- not a kiss, just lips on lips. And he smelled like makeup. I went home, wanting to cry and vomit."

 The woman told CNN that what Halperin did was "part of the reason I didn't go for an off-air position," the term ABC News used to describe reporters who were embedded with presidential campaigns.

 "I didn't want to work with him," she said, later adding the whole episode contributed to her decision to leave journalism all together.

 The woman, at the time, confided in a close friend. The friend told CNN she had told him the story years ago.

 A fourth woman, who was a 19-year-old ABC News intern in the summer of 1995, told CNN she was assigned to the political unit. She said she was working on a project when Halperin personally volunteered one night to assist her. He said he would go with her to a museum in New York City to review some archived CBS footage.

 "I remember thinking to myself he's got a million associate producers, so why is he going with the intern to do research?" the woman recalled to CNN, but said at the same time she was "very impressed" by him and thrilled he'd want to help her with the assignment.

 The woman said the booths for reviewing footage at the museum were only meant for one person, but Halperin told her "he want[ed] to share" one.

 It was a tight fit, the woman said, so "our cheeks [were] touching."

 "And then I look over and he has a massive boner. And our legs are touching," she said. "And at this point, I just flew up and got up. And he said, 'The night's not over! We need to end it with a margarita.'"

 The woman said she declined.

 The four new accounts bring the total number of women who have accused Halperin of sexual harassment to at least one dozen. Five women made accusations in CNN's original report Wednesday night, the Washington Post included an on-the-record account in an article it published Thursday night, journalist Emily Miller wrote on Twitter that she had been "attacked" by Halperin in the past, and on Thursday night a former CNN producer published an op-ed on CNN.com in which she accused him of sexually harassing her in his office at ABC News when she was just out of college, before she went to work at CNN.

 Related: Why I'm speaking up about Mark Halperin, and why I stayed silent so long

 In a Friday statement, an ABC News spokesperson told CNN that the company takes issues of harassment seriously and would like to encourage anyone who has been subjected to such treatment to "come forward so we can address them immediately."

 "While Mark left ABC News over a decade ago and no complaints were made during his tenure, we hold everyone at ABC News accountable for their behavior and how they conduct themselves," the spokesperson said. "We know that our people do their best work in an environment where they feel respected, safe and supported. Harassment or retaliation of any kind is never acceptable."

 In addition to the new accounts, Lara Setrakian, who was one of the five women whose stories were included in CNN's Wednesday night report without her name attached, is now going on the record, both with CNN and in an op-ed for the Washington Post published Friday afternoon. In CNN's original article, she said Halperin had grabbed her breasts during an encounter in his office; he had denied doing so. She told CNN on Friday that Halperin's denial is false.

 "I understand why he feels the need to deny it," Setrakian said. "But it's not true. What he said is not true. ... There's absolutely no question of what happened in terms of unwanted physical contact."

 Setrakian said it "hurt to see [Halperin] rise and rise without any accountability."

 "It felt like the world was so stacked," she told CNN. "It felt profoundly unfair to have feelings of anxiety as a woman in media while watching someone who was clearly misbehaving rise and rise in our industry with no apology, no thought as to how we felt before, no effort to apologize. No effort to reach out to us."

 Setrakian said now she is happy Halperin issued a form of an apology, but she wants to know what Halperin will do "to make it right." She told CNN the incident changed her.

 "It made me hyper-conscious. First, it made me much more skeptical of people's intentions," she said. "I think it made me hyper-sensitive to the idea that my career will depend on who finds me sexually attractive. And if the time comes when they don't I will be at a massive disadvantage. That upset me tremendously. And it made me move away from television. It made me feel like I had an expiration date."

 Mark Halperin's full Friday evening statement:

 I am profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated.

 The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace. That new awareness is, of course, a positive development. For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it. As I said earlier in the week, my behavior was wrong. It caused fear and anxiety for women who were only seeking to do their jobs.

 In recent days I have closely read the accounts of women with whom I worked at ABC News. I have not read these accounts looking for discrepancies or inconsistencies. Instead, in almost every case, I have recognized conduct for which I feel profound guilt and responsibility, some involving junior ABC News personnel and women just starting out in the news business.

 Many of the accounts conveyed by journalists working on stories about me or that I have read after publication have not been particularly detailed (and many were anonymous) making it difficult for me to address certain specifics. But make no mistake: I fully acknowledge and apologize for conduct that was often aggressive and crude.

 Towards the end of my time at ABC News, I recognized I had a problem. No one had sued me, no one had filed a human resources complaint against me, no colleague had confronted me. But I didn't need a call from HR to know that I was a selfish, immature person, who was behaving in a manner that had to stop.

 For several years around my departure from ABC News, I had weekly counseling sessions to work on understanding the personal issues and attitudes that caused me to behave in such an inappropriate manner.

 Those who have worked with me in the past decade know that my conduct in subsequent jobs at TIME, Bloomberg, NBC News, and Showtime has not been what it was at ABC. I did not engage in improper behavior with colleagues or subordinates. If you spoke to my co-workers in those four places (men and women alike), I am confident you would find that I had a very different reputation than I had at ABC News because I conducted myself in a very different manner.

 Some of the allegations that have been made against me are not true. But I realize that is a small point in the scheme of things. Again, I bear responsibility for my outrageous conduct at ABC News.

 I hope that not only will women going forward be more confident in speaking up, but also that we as an industry and society can create an atmosphere that no longer tolerates this kind of behavior.

 I know I can never do enough to make up for the harm I caused. I will be spending time with my family and friends, as I work to make amends and contributions both large and small. ||||| FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin’s publisher has canceled the... (Associated Press)

 FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin’s publisher has canceled the book he was to co-write about the 2016 election. Penguin Press announced Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017, that... (Associated Press)

 FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin’s publisher has canceled the book he was to co-write about the 2016 election. Penguin Press announced Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017, that... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin’s publisher has canceled the... (Associated Press)

 LOS ANGELES (AP) — CNN reported Friday that four more women have leveled allegations of sexual harassment against journalist Mark Halperin.

 The news channel said that one woman claimed Halperin masturbated in her presence after she went to his ABC News office to seek advice from him about her career at the news division, where she was a desk assistant.

 CNN said a second woman alleged that the "Game Change" co-author threw her against a restaurant window and threatened to derail her career after she rebuffed his attempt to kiss her.

 The woman, who told CNN she met Halperin when she was interning at the White House, said he called her shortly after the encounter and warned that she'd never be hired in media or politics.

 The four women, who were not identified in the CNN report, said the encounters took place between the late 1980s and 2006, during which time Halperin worked at ABC News in influential positions including political director.

 CNN said that Halperin denied that he masturbated in front of anyone or physically assaulted or threatened anyone.

 The two other women included in CNN's report: One who worked as a desk assistant at ABC News and who claimed Halperin forced her into a kiss, and an intern who said he squeezed into a small footage-reviewing booth with her and became visibly aroused.

 The latest allegations bring the number of women accusing him of sexual misconduct to about 12.

 Halperin issued a lengthy apology on Twitter, saying he was "profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated."

 "The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace. That new awareness is, of course, a positive development. For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it," he said in the post.

 But counseling he sought after leaving the network changed his behavior, he said.

 "Those who have worked with me in the past decade know that my conduct in subsequent jobs at TIME, Bloomberg, NBC News, and Showtime has not been what it was at ABC. I did not engage in improper behavior with colleagues or subordinates," Halperin said.

 The journalist has been suspended from his role as a MSNBC contributor, while a follow-up to 2010's "Game Change" was canceled by Penguin Press and HBO dropped plans for a miniseries based on the book about the 2016 election.

Summary: – CNN reported Friday that four more women have leveled allegations of sexual harassment against journalist Mark Halperin. The news channel said that one woman claimed Halperin masturbated in her presence after she went to his ABC News office to seek advice from him about her career at the news division, where she was a desk assistant. CNN said a second woman alleged that the Game Change co-author threw her against a restaurant window and threatened to derail her career after she rebuffed his attempt to kiss her. The woman, who told CNN she met Halperin when she was interning at the White House, said he called her shortly after the encounter and warned that she'd never be hired in media or politics. The four women, who were not identified in the CNN report, said the encounters took place between the late 1980s and 2006, during which time Halperin worked at ABC News in influential positions including political director. CNN said that Halperin denied that he masturbated in front of anyone or physically assaulted or threatened anyone. The latest allegations bring the number of women accusing him of sexual misconduct to about 12. Halperin issued a lengthy apology on Twitter, the AP reports. He said he was "profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. ... The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace. ... For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it." But counseling he sought after leaving the network changed his behavior, he said. The journalist has been suspended from his role as a MSNBC contributor, while a follow-up to 2010's Game Change was canceled by Penguin Press and HBO dropped plans for a miniseries based on the book about the 2016 election.


AT&T Inc. (T), joining the ranks of U.S. TV, Internet and wireless providers racing to consolidate, is in advanced talks to acquire DirecTV (DIG1) for about $50 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

 Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private. DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White is likely to retire after 2015, the people said.

 The purchase would give AT&T a national satellite-TV provider to combine with its wireless, phone and high-speed broadband Internet services as competition ramps up. The pool of pay-TV customers is peaking in the U.S. because viewers are increasingly watching video online, and the combination would keep DirecTV from being on its own with just a TV offering and no competitive Internet package.

 “With DirecTV they are getting a national TV presence -- they can sell TV with wireless nationwide,” said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics, based in Dedham, Massachusetts. “AT&T has increasingly been breaking out of their 22-state landline footprint. They sell wireless, they started selling home security and they could add TV to that package.”

 Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private. Close Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV... Read More Close Open Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private.

 A price could come in close to $95 a share, depending on how much cash or stock is in the transaction, another person said. The person said White’s future after a merger is also still being negotiated. The price could go as high as $100 a share, two other people said.

 Cash-Stock

 The deal could be reached in the next couple of weeks while the sides negotiate the cash-stock component along with the size of the termination fee, said another person familiar with the matter.

 The termination fee is important because that payment would go to DirecTV from AT&T if the deal was blocked for various reasons, including by regulators on antitrust grounds. In AT&T’s failed effort to acquire Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile US unit in 2011, the company paid out $3 billion in cash plus wireless frequencies and a roaming agreement.

 AT&T fell 1 percent to $36.20 at the close in New York. DirecTV slipped 1.2 percent to $86.08, after gaining 26 percent this year through yesterday.

 Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is one of the biggest beneficiaries of DirecTV’s rally, thanks to a stake built by his deputy stock pickers at about half the current price. Berkshire had about 36.5 million shares as of Dec. 31, a filing shows.

 Photographer: Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White plans to retire after 2015, said people asking not to be named because the information is private. Close DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White plans to retire after 2015, said people... Read More Close Open Photographer: Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White plans to retire after 2015, said people asking not to be named because the information is private.

 Latin America

 AT&T would be getting a pay-TV business that’s expanding in Latin America and generating higher monthly bills from U.S. customers. DirecTV’s exclusive content includes the National Football League Sunday Ticket package and products such as Genie, a multiroom digital video recorder.

 Comcast Corp.’s (CMCSA) plan to acquire Time Warner Cable (TWC) Inc. -- to create an even bigger provider of both TV and Internet in the U.S. -- is accelerating the drive for consolidation in the rest of the industry. In March, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson called the Time Warner Cable takeover an “industry-redefining deal.”

 The question with all of these potential tie-ups is whether regulators will allow them. Comcast’s takeover of Time Warner Cable hasn’t been approved yet. A merger of DirecTV and Dish Network Corp. (DISH) was blocked more than a decade ago, and AT&T had to abandon a purchase of T-Mobile several years ago in the face of antitrust opposition.

 Regulatory Approval

 DirecTV and AT&T are planning on a 12-month regulatory process to review the deal, one of the people said.

 “If regulators let Comcast buy Time Warner Cable, there’s no reason they wouldn’t let AT&T buy DirecTV,” Entner said. “They have to see it as part of a holistic market.”

 Getting ownership of DirecTV’s Latin American units would cause a conflict for AT&T, which holds an 8 percent stake in America Movil SAB (AMXL) -- a direct competitor to DirecTV in countries including Brazil and Colombia. DirecTV’s Latin America operation includes Mexico, where it has a minority stake in Sky Mexico, controlled by Grupo Televisa SAB, one of America Movil’s biggest rivals.

 DirecTV had also drawn merger interest from Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen, people with knowledge of the matter said in March. While a DirecTV merger is tempting, the satellite-TV rival is too expensive to pursue, Ergen said last week on a conference call to discuss first-quarter earnings.

 Debt Funding

 “If DTV is willing to sell for $100 then it must be either concerned about its lack of broadband long term, worried about the viability of a Dish merger, or both,” Philip Cusick, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., wrote in a research note.

 Darris Gringeri, a DirecTV spokesman, declined to comment as did Brad Burns, an AT&T spokesman. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that AT&T is planning a stock and cash bid for DirecTV (DTV), without specifying the price.

 AT&T can afford to add about $16 billion in debt to fund the DirecTV deal without risking a credit-rating downgrade, according to Erich Marriott, an analyst with Bloomberg Industries. The company is rated A3 by Moody’s Investors Service and A- at Standard & Poor’s, both four levels above junk.

 Adding $16 billion of debt would keep AT&T’s ratio of debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization below 2.5, the level at which credit ratings agencies have said may trigger a downgrade, Marriott wrote in a research note. The analysis assumes deal synergies of about 10 percent.

 That implies that AT&T will need to offer a significant portion of stock to fund the $50 billion acquisition. The company has about $3.6 billion of cash and near-cash items and two revolving credit agreements with a combined $8 billion available, according to a regulatory filing.

 “We were thinking AT&T would want to use as much debt as they can and that the deal could be all cash,” said John Hodulik, an analyst with UBS AG. “But that would mean the leverage would be about 2.7, and that’s too high. I think they’d prefer 2.5 leverage.”

 To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Sherman in New York at asherman6@bloomberg.net; Jeffrey McCracken in New York at jmccracken3@bloomberg.net

 To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mohammed Hadi at mhadi1@bloomberg.net; Sarah Rabil at srabil@bloomberg.net Sarah Rabil ||||| Photo

 AT&T is in talks to buy DirecTV for at least $50 billion, and the two sides are actively working toward an announcement, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.

 If completed, a deal would give AT&T, the country’s second-largest wireless carrier, control of the country’s largest satellite television provider, further reshaping the rapidly changing telecommunications and television industries. AT&T has grown interested in DirecTV in recent months, according to several people with knowledge of the company’s thinking, leading to an approach in the last few weeks. Rumors of a deal between the two companies have sent DirecTV shares up about 12 percent this month.

 On Monday, after The Wall Street Journal reported that talks had accelerated, details on the timing and the price of a deal began coming into focus. The terms of any agreement are not expected to be released in the next two weeks, and the two sides are working on a pricing structure under which AT&T would pay $92 to $94 a share. In addition, Mike White, DirecTV’s chief executive, is not expected to step down if the deal goes through.

 DirecTV closed at $87.16 on Monday, but was up sharply in after-hours trading.

 For AT&T, a deal for DirecTV would signal its continued ambitions to grow in the United States, after its attempted takeover of the rival wireless carrier T-Mobile failed in 2011 because of resistance from regulators.

 This year, AT&T was looking to expand in Europe and considering an acquisition of Vodafone, which sold its stake in Verizon Wireless back to Verizon Communications for $130 billion in February.

 But AT&T has refocused its attention on the United States market, believing it has an opportunity to expand its footprint in the pay-television business. DirecTV has about 20 million subscribers in the United States.

 Talks between AT&T and DirecTV began in earnest after Comcast announced its plan to acquire Time Warner Cable. That deal, if completed, would create a clear leader in the cable television industry.

 Photo

 People knowledgeable about both deals said that if AT&T and DirecTV announced a merger, it could complicate the review of Comcast’s bid for Time Warner Cable, because antitrust regulators might want to consider both deals simultaneously.

 By acquiring DirecTV, AT&T could bolster its small television operations and gain a valuable foothold in Latin America, where DirecTV has about 18 million subscribers.

 But several people in the industry said they believed that the ideal target for AT&T would be not DirecTV but its main competitor, Dish Network. Dish, run by the billionaire Charles W. Ergen, has amassed a trove of spectrum that could be valuable to AT&T as it seeks to build out its wireless network.

 Some investment bankers privately speculated that talks between AT&T and DirecTV were intended to draw Mr. Ergen off the sidelines and into the fray. But last week, speaking in a conference call after announcing first-quarter earnings, Mr. Ergen said his company was not in a position to make an offer for DirecTV.

 “DirecTV would be too frothy for us, for our board to look at, at those kinds of prices,” he said.

 Photo

 AT&T is facing renewed competition in the wireless market. Verizon has taken full control of Verizon Wireless, giving it access to additional cash. And Sprint, the third-largest wireless provider, has struck a deal with Japan’s SoftBank that will give it added firepower as it seeks to expand.

 Another deal on the horizon could be Sprint’s making an offer for T-Mobile, the fourth-largest wireless carrier, which is just completing its own major purchase. Last year, T-Mobile acquired MetroPCS.

 People briefed on the discussions between AT&T and DirecTV said there was no guarantee that a deal would be completed.

 AT&T and DirecTV declined to comment.

 Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting. ||||| NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES AT&T; Inc is in active talks to buy satellite TV provider DirecTV and may complete a deal in the next few weeks that could be worth close to $50 billion, two people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

 The second-largest wireless operator is discussing an offer in the low- to mid-$90s per share for DirecTV, one of the people said, compared with the company's closing price of $87.16 on Monday.

 A bid near $95 per share would value DirecTV at more than $48 billion based on its shares outstanding, and would represent a premium of more than 20 percent to its stock price before news of AT&T;'s interest first emerged on May 1.

 The deal price has yet to be finalized and terms could still change, the people said, adding that discussions are continuing. They asked not to be named because the matter is not public.

 Other details also have yet to be worked out, such as a break-up fee as well as a potential role for DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White, the second person said.

 The talks are the latest sign of a rising tide of potential megadeals in the telecoms, cable and satellite TV space, which is being roiled by Comcast Corp's proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc as well as market forces such as the rise of Web-based TV and surging mobile Internet usage.

 AT&T; and DirecTV declined to comment. Bloomberg News earlier reported that AT&T; was offering to pay around $100 per share for DirecTV, whose management team will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T.; (link.reuters.com/xyf39v). The Wall Street Journal said a deal could happen in two weeks.

 DirecTV shares rose 6 percent to $92.50 in extended trading on Monday.

 DirecTV is working with advisers including Goldman Sachs Group to evaluate a possible combination following a recent takeover approach from AT&T;, Reuters reported last week.

 A combination of AT&T; and DirecTV would create a pay television giant close in size to where Comcast will be if it completes its pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable. For that reason, the proposed merger is likely to face a prolonged battle to convince regulators to allow further consolidation in pay-TV.

 "This is not the first time that AT&T; and DirecTV have danced around the fire and thought if they could give it a go," said ReconAnalytics analyst Roger Entner.

 "They both looked at each other for at least 10 years. Both kind of came to the conclusion that it was in the right environment. It makes a lot of sense to get together, but there was never the right regulatory environment for it."

 A Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger would call for a counterweight like a combined AT&T-DirecTV;, Entner said. He added that the merger would make sense for DirecTV given the decline of satellite TV.

 "They both see the Grim Reaper at the horizon. DirecTV hasn't gone out and bought spectrum. Dish has, so DirecTV needs to find a partner, and AT&T; is that partner," he said.

 Some investors have also speculated about a potential tie-up of DirectTV and smaller rival Dish Network Corp.

 But Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen last week said his company, which attempted to buy DirecTV more than a decade ago, would not make a fresh approach at current prices even though he said such a tie-up would create many benefits.

 (Additional reporting by Marina Lopes, Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Tom Brown, Richard Chang and Ken Wills)

Summary: – AT&T is in active talks to buy DirecTV for around $50 billion, multiple outlets are reporting, with the deal potentially coming in a matter of weeks. The move could have implications for Comcast's purchase of Time Warner, because anti-regulators may want to look at both deals together, the New York Times reports, adding that the AT&T talks actually began in earnest right after the Time Warner deal was announced. "With DirecTV they are getting a national TV presence—they can sell TV with wireless nationwide," one analyst tells Bloomberg. The exact price is still up in the air; Reuters sources say it's in the "low- to mid-$90 per share" range, while Bloomberg says it could be as high as $100 per share. Also still in the air is the fate of DirecTV CEO Mike White, who isn't expected to step down—but does reportedly plan to retire after 2015. Some industry sources speculate that the entire deal is a feint intended to land the real apple of AT&T's eye, Dish Network. Last week Dish said it could see the logic in merging with its competitor, but said it couldn't outbid AT&T for DirecTV.


Credit where credit is due. Last night Sean Hannity had on as his guest GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, and very delicately broached the subject of yesterday’s controversial and anonymously-penned story that appeared in Gawker that outlined a “one night stand” with the candidate. Hannity brought it up in the safe and predictable context of “liberal media” attacks on GOP women candidates.

 How did O’Donnell reply? Alas, she did not take the bait, claiming that she had such a busy day that she did not know what specific attack on her that Hannity was referencing, which, given the breakneck pace of late October campaigning, is a completely credible explanation. Another explanation is that O’Donnell simply didn’t want to address the story, which given some of the sordid details, is also completely understandable.

 O’Donnell’s campaign did issue an official statement via the candidate’s Facebook page:

 Wilmington, DE – Communications Director Doug Sachtleben stated in response to the universal condoning of the Gawker story: This story is just another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with. From Secretary Clinton, to Governor Palin, to soon-to-be Governor Haley, Christine’s political opponents have been willing to engage in appalling and baseless attacks — all with the aim of distracting the press from covering the real issues in this race. Even the National Organization for Women gets it, but Christine’s opponent disturbingly does not. As Chris Coons said on September 16th he would not condone personal attacks against Christine. Classless Coons goons have proven yet again to have no sense of common decency or common sense with their desperate attacks to get another rubber stamp for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. Such attacks are truly shameful, but they will not distract us from making our case to Delaware voters — and keeping the focus on Chris Coons’ record of higher taxes, increased spending, and as he has done again here, breaking his promises to the voters.” The National Organization for Women (NOW) on Thursday condemned the tabloid website Gawker for publishing an anonymous account: NOW issued a statement late Thursday stating that “sexist, misogynist attacks against women have no place in the electoral process, regardless of a particular candidate’s political ideology.” “NOW repudiates Gawker’s decision to run this piece. It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O’Donnell, but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere,” said NOW president Terry O’Neill. ||||| Christine O’Donnell’s campaign late Thursday night responded to an anonymous Gawker post claiming a drunken encounter with Delaware’s Republican Senate nominee, calling it “sexism and slander.”

 "This story is just another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with — from Secretary [Hillary] Clinton to Gov. [Sarah] Palin to soon-to-be Gov. [Nikki] Haley. Christine's political opponents have been willing to engage in appalling and baseless attacks — all with the aim of distracting the press from covering the real issues in this race," O’Donnell Communications Director Doug Sachtleben wrote in a post on Facebook.

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 The gossip website Gawker on Thursday posted an anonymous account of a man who said he had had a one-night stand with O’Donnell three years ago on Halloween.

 Gawker reportedly paid the man in the "low four figures" for the account and pictures of O’Donnell dressed up like a ladybug.

 The site has been widely criticized by media outlets for posting the item and was denounced Thursday by the National Organization for Women.

 "NOW repudiates Gawker's decision to run this piece," the organization said in a statement. "It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O'Donnell but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere."

 O'Donnell trails Democrat Chris Coons by 21 percentage points, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released Thursday.

 The Republican's Facebook post attempts to link the post to the Coons camp.

 "Even the National Organization for Women gets it, but Christine’s opponent disturbingly does not," Sachtleben wrote. "Classless Coons goons have proven yet again to have no sense of common decency or common sense with their desperate attacks to get another rubber stamp for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. Such attacks are truly shameful, but they will not distract us from making our case to Delaware voters — and keeping the focus on Chris Coons’s record of higher taxes, increased spending and, as he has done again here, breaking his promises to the voters." ||||| Sean Hannity had Ann Coulter on his Fox News show to do some preemptive gloating about Tuesday’s midterm election.

 Coulter didn’t want any part of that, but she did have a lot to say about her gender.

 “You’re not really doing much to lower expectations,” she warned Hannity at the beginning. Later in the show, she cautioned him “I think you’re getting kind of ahead of the game,” when he said he believes Democrats think “Marco Rubio could be President some day.”

 But looking at the polls this year, Coulter had this conclusion:

 I am so proud of my gender, which is, for the first time, voting Republican more than they have since that poll has been taken beginning in 1992, and I think that’s because women are more likely to pay the bills in the family.

 Coulter also weighed in on the Christine O’Donnell-Gawker story – in addition to O’Donnell herself. “The attacks Christine O’Donnell has come under are just stunning,” she said. “For one thing this shows why public figures don’t like to meet new people or go out in public.”

 Also, of Gawker’s tactics: “This is the Democratic Party, America.”

 Check it out, from FNC. Apparently Ann Coulter wakes up at Noon. Who knew?

 —–

 » Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter

 Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| Delaware Democrat Chris Coons on Friday denounced as “cowardly” an anonymous Gawker post from a man claiming a drunken encounter with Republican Christine O’Donnell

 “The Gawker item is despicable, cowardly and has absolutely no value at all to any Delaware voters,” Coons spokesman Daniel McElhatton told POLITICO. “We denounce it with great vigor.”

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 The comment comes in response to the gossip website’s post Thursday in which an anonymous man claims to have had a one-night stand with O’Donnell three years ago on Halloween. The post includes numerous embarrassing claims about O’Donnell, as well as pictures of her dressed like a lady bug.

 O’Donnell spokesman Doug Sachtleben responded to the item with a post on Facebook calling it “sexism and slander.”

 The National Organization for Woman also denounced the post as “public sexual harassment.”

 The story comes amid more bad news for O’Donnell, as two new polls continue to show her trailing Coons.

 According to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released Thursday, O’Donnell trails her Democratic opponent by 21 percentage points.

 But a Monmouth University poll out Friday has O’Donnell down only 10 percentage points among likely voters. The same poll two weeks ago had Coons leading by 19 percentage points.

Summary: – Christine O’Donnell’s campaign has slammed Gawker for its one-night stand story, reports Politico—and so has her opponent, Chris Coons, as well as the National Organization for Women. Some reactions: It’s “just another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with,” wrote an O’Donnell rep on Facebook, linking the story to “Coons goons” who “have proven yet again to have no sense of common decency.” For Coons' part, a rep called the story “despicable” and “cowardly,” with “absolutely no value at all to any Delaware voters.” NOW called the piece “public sexual harassment” that targeted “all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere.” Meanwhile, Ann Coulter labeled it it “stunning,” reports Mediaite, adding, “This is the Democratic Party, America.” O’Donnell herself, though, kept quiet: asked about the story on Hannity last night, she'd had such a busy day campaigning, she was unfamiliar with it.


http://timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_prison-5.jpg

 Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.

 WILKES-BARRE — Two people died Monday evening inside the Luzerne County Correctional Facility — an inmate and a prison guard — according to Luzerne County Manager David Pedri. The two died after a brief altercation that took place at about 6:25 p.m., Pedri said at a news conference late Monday night. Pedri identified the inmate as Timothy Gilliam, 27. Pedri said he believed Gilliam had been incarcerated for failing to register under Megan’s Law, for sex offenders. Pedri said the name of the prison guard was not being released at the request of his family. “This guard went to work today believing that he would be coming home,” Pedri said. “And, sadly that didn’t happen.” He called the incident a “sad and tragic.” “We will do everything in our power to ensure an incident like this never happens again,” he said. According to Pedri, who declined to comment on the specifics of the incident, the matter was under investigation by the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office and Pennsylvania State Police. When asked about Mark Rockovich, the new correctional division head, Pedri said Monday was his first day on the job. Luzerne County Councilman Tim McGinley, who was on site shortly after the incident occurred, said any suspect death would be of concern to the county, noting that the county spends $30 million on the facility annually. Michele Rohrbaugh, whose son Michael is an inmate on the fifth floor of the facility, came for a visit at about 7 p.m. and was told by prison staff that there would be no visit because the prison was on lockdown. Rohrbaugh stood outside of the prison for over three hours, hoping to hear her son was safe. After the press conference, she made her way from council chambers visibly relieved. “It wasn’t him,” she said. “It wasn’t my son.” Rohrbaugh said she recently had heard that gang activity at the prison was on the rise. She also said she was concerned with her son’s safety. Some prison guards have been complaining for months about security and safety concerns at the main prison, located on Water Street. Prison officials have been wrestling with an increase in inmate assaults and fighting — problems that have been blamed on a rise in inmates who are addicted to drugs, battling mental health issues and involved in gangs. The main prison has been at or over its 505-inmate capacity in recent years. In April, county officials investigated the hospitalization of a prison inmate for a serious cut above his right ear down into his neck. Prison officials said they suspected the man was assaulted by another inmate, but the inmate continues to maintain he cut himself when he fell off the top metal bunk bed in his cell, officials said as recently as last week. One guard, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Monday night that he and many of his colleagues blame Pedri and prison deputy Warden James Larson for not taking their safety concerns seriously. Larson has been acting as correctional services division head since April 1, following the March resignation of prior prison overseer J. Allen Nesbitt in March. The county council unanimously voted last week to confirm Pedri’s nomination of Rockovich as the new correctional division head. Rockovich, who has worked at the prison since 1991, assured the council he will address problems at the facility, including work release. Federal authorities recently charged former prison employee Louis Elmy with extortion and possession of a firearm in furtherance of selling crack cocaine. Prosecutors said Elmy, while acting in his official role as a prison work-release counselor, extorted money and other items of value from work release inmates in exchange for giving them special privileges and unauthorized furloughs. The resolution appointing Rockovich was to take effect six days after adoption, which means Monday was his first day in the new position. County Councilman Eugene Kelleher in March questioned delays in repairing malfunctioning security cameras at the prison and other safety concerns raised by at least 10 past and present staffers who had contacted him. The aging facility has more nooks and crannies than a modern prison because it is five stories. “I’m really concerned about security at the prison for employees,” Kelleher said at the time. The administration said it was addressing the cameras. Editors Note: This article has been edited to reflect the correct identity of the deceased inmate.

Summary: – A correctional officer and an inmate are dead following an altercation at a Pennsylvania prison. It happened Monday night at Luzerne County Correctional Facility in Wilkes-Barre, which is currently on lockdown, the AP reports. Luzerne County Manager David Pedri tells the Times Leader that the dead inmate is 27-year-old Tracy Gilliam, who he believes was in prison for failing to register as a sex offender. Pedri says the guard's family has asked for his name not to be released. "This guard went to work today believing that he would be coming home," he says. "And sadly, that didn't happen." Pedri says authorities will do all they can to make sure a "sad and tragic" incident like this doesn't happen again. State police and the county DA are investigating.


Donald Trump said he wanted to make a deal on DACA. Donald Trump just spent the past few days doing everything he could to kill a deal on DACA. Therefore, Donald Trump deserves the blame for the Senate’s failure to pass an immigration bill.

 It’s really that simple.

 The Senate debacle only happened because Congress — and everyone else — thought Trump wanted to make a deal

 Even after Donald Trump got elected president with immigration as his signature issue, most members of Congress didn’t want to touch the subject. They knew that the combination of complicated policy and polarized politics was going to make it very difficult to pass any legislation, and they didn’t want to take any votes that would turn into attack-ad fodder instead of actual laws.

 What changed their minds wasn’t just Trump’s September 2017 decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young unauthorized immigrants from deportation and allowed them to work legally in the United States. It wasn’t even, necessarily, the fact that Trump set an artificial March 5 “deadline” and said that he wasn’t really ending DACA, just giving Congress a six-month chance to address the status of DACA recipients.

 What really inspired so many members of Congress, in both chambers and parties, to accept a “DACA fix” as a legislative priority was that Trump acted like he wanted to make a deal.

 Trump’s “dealmaker” reputation has often been misunderstood or overstated by pundits and politicians. Even as a businessman, Trump loved deals but hated compromises; a deal, for him, was that he won and the other guy lost. But what Trump prided himself on, and ran on as a candidate, was that he could find imaginative ways to get what he wanted.

 For Congress to actually make a deal on such a touchy issue as immigration, that combination of flexibility and relentlessness would be desperately needed. Congress would need the autonomy to work out the details of legislation in such a way that 60 members of the Senate, and a majority of House Republicans, could feel comfortable voting for it — which would be much easier for Republicans if they knew the president would provide political cover with the right wing.

 The idea that Trump would play dealmaker on immigration wasn’t as far-fetched as it might have seemed. He said over and over that he had a “big heart” for DACA recipients and wanted to protect them. The fact that it took him until September 2017 to actually pull the trigger on DACA — and, even then, sent Jeff Sessions in front of the cameras to make the official announcement — was an indication that he really didn’t want to be on the hook for young immigrants losing deportation protections.

 Sure, many of Trump’s closest advisers, including senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff John Kelly, had strong opinions about immigration policy. But Trump had shown an inclination not to listen to his advisers when he didn’t want to.

 On several occasions between the September announcement and the Senate debate, Trump actually did show interest in compromise. There was the infamous “Chuck and Nancy” dinner meeting, during which (depending on whom you believe) he may have agreed to sign a bill that legalized DACA recipients without demanding any concession to conservatives. There was the January Oval Office meeting in which (after the cameras were off) he reportedly told congressional negotiators to ignore the packet of demands that Department of Homeland Security officials had just passed out.

 And before the cameras had turned off, Trump had said this:

 “When this group comes back, hopefully with an agreement, I am signing it. I will be signing it. I’m not going to say, �?Oh, gee, I want this or I want that.’ I will be signing it.”

 Trump didn’t do anything he needed to do to make a deal

 At some point — probably after the “shithole countries” brouhaha in January, judging from the tone of the president’s tweets — Donald Trump decided he was more interested in blaming Democrats for not making a deal on DACA than he was in making a deal on DACA. From that point on, the White House’s strategy aligned with what staffers like Stephen Miller wanted: with more interest in fighting for specific policies that weren’t related to DACA — specifically, cutting legal immigration — then in fighting to address DACA itself first and foremost.

 It’s not yet clear (though it’s probably just a few juicy palace-intrigue articles away) exactly what role Trump played in the White House’s shift. He might have changed his mind — after several months of pressing Congress to act, he might have decided that he actually cared a great deal about “I want this or I want that,” and was comfortable letting Congress twist in the wind.

 Or he could have, just as damningly, made a mess of the negotiations and then walked away for other people to clean it up.

 By the time the Senate actually took up immigration at the beginning of this week, the White House’s demands had calcified to a page-long laundry list of “want this, want that.” They put out an immigration framework in late January and decided unilaterally that it represented a compromise (even though Democrats were immediately and vociferously opposed).

 The White House then panned the alternatives floated by various bipartisan groups, claiming that because they didn’t stick to the particulars in the White House framework, they were violating the four “pillars” legislators had agreed to in the televised meeting — the meeting where Trump said he wouldn’t haggle over particulars.

 The White House killed bills the Senate might have passed. The Rounds-King proposal that got 54 votes on Thursday, for example, likely would have passed with a few more Republicans (Chuck Schumer might have been less willing to allow three Democrats who voted no to defect if it made the difference between passage and failure). But the White House issued a veto threat before the vote had been opened; DHS put out a press release invoking 9/11; administration officials held a press call just to dump on the bill.

 Trump didn’t even really try to close the deal on the bill he claimed to support: the Grassley bill modeled on his own framework. Instead of lobbying senators, he wrote a vague tweet about “merit-based immigration.” Instead of extolling the virtues of the Grassley bill, his advisers talked to reporters about how much they’d given up to immigration doves by allowing DREAMers to apply for citizenship — even exaggerating the scope of the “amnesty” in ways that might have helped cost them the votes of a few hardline Republicans.

 All four bills that were put up for a vote in the Senate failed on Thursday. The one Trump had endorsed fared the worst, with 60 senators voting against it. But the fact that nothing happened for the DREAMers — and that hundreds of thousands of young immigrants can still be used as bargaining chips if Congress ever picks up immigration again — should either be seen as the policy victory the White House wanted or a damning political failure. Either way, the responsibility rests on the shoulders of Donald J. Trump. ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpMcMaster complained that Trump 'thinks he can be friends with Putin': report Manafort requests Virginia trial be moved, citing media coverage Giuliani: Mueller needs to prove Trump committed crime before agreeing to interview MORE on Friday accused Democrats of abandoning young immigrants after the Senate rejected three separate immigration bills a day earlier.

 "Cannot believe how BADLY DACA recipients have been treated by the Democrats...totally abandoned!" Trump tweeted, referring to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. "Republicans are still working hard."

 Cannot believe how BADLY DACA recipients have been treated by the Democrats...totally abandoned! Republicans are still working hard. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2018

 The president's tweet came a day after senators rejected three proposals that would have resolved the fate of the "Dreamers" — young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

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 DACA temporarily shielded Dreamers from deportation and gave them permission to work in the U.S. But Trump rescinded the program in September, giving lawmakers until March 5 to work out a legislative fix for the program recipients.

 But three bills that sought to address the matter were voted down in the Senate on Thursday.

 The measure that received the most votes was a centrist compromise bill, which would have established a path to citizenship for Dreamers while setting aside roughly $25 billion for Trump's proposed border wall. That bill got 54 votes — six short of the 60 it needed to avoid a fillibuster and pass.

 Trump, however, refused to back any proposal other than his own, which was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyThe Senate's grown-ups in the Trump-Russia probe follow facts, not politics Trump: 'No final straw' on Pruitt GOP lawmakers relieved with Pruitt’s departure MORE (R-Iowa). That measure would have created a pathway to citizenship for the Dreamers but also sought to curb legal immigration. It received only 39 votes in the Senate. ||||| Is The March 5 DACA Deadline Meaningful Anymore?

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Spencer Platt/Getty Images Spencer Platt/Getty Images

 Updated at 11:58 a.m. ET

 When it comes to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program and Congress, no one seems to know what comes next.

 Three approaches to making DACA permanent came up for a vote in the Senate on Thursday, and all three failed. A majority of lawmakers backed two narrow bills that would allow DACA protectees to live in the country legally and also increase funding for border security.

 But an aggressive veto threat from the White House killed the chances of the bipartisan approach crafted by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and other moderate lawmakers from both parties.

 President Trump is rejecting any measure that doesn't also narrow legal immigration. After telling legislators in January that he would sign anything that passed Congress, Trump has now tanked two bipartisan compromises.

 But notably, the bill backed by the White House got far less support than any other measure Thursday, winning just 39 votes.

 On Friday morning, Trump tried to put the blame for the lack of progress on Democrats.

 In September, Trump set the March 5 expiration date for DACA, a program that offers protections for immigrants in the U.S. illegally who came to the country as children. At the time, the White House called on Congress to come up with a more permanent solution as part of a broader immigration overhaul.

 Now that deadline is inching closer and closer, and Congress is out next week on recess.

 Yet, with ongoing court battles over the program, DACA will almost certainly stay in place beyond March 5. Two separate federal courts have blocked the president from ending the program.

 "Until further notice, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017," a spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services told NPR. The agency continues to accept renewal applications for people whose status expired after Trump began the process of ending DACA.

 And because of that — and because of Congress' inability to pass a fix — some leaders are beginning to say DACA doesn't necessarily need to be addressed before March 5.

 "We think this deadline's an important deadline. Obviously with the court ruling it's not as important as it was before, given the court rulings," said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., this week.

 Ryan said he still wants Congress to operate with some urgency. "I think this place works better with deadlines, and we want to operate on deadlines. We clearly need to address this issue in March," he said.

 A potential slide from March 5 to sometime in March has Democrats worried.

 "For the speaker to say this could go to March 5, to the end of March, means he doesn't know the fear that [the White House] has instilled into the families and into the hearts of these children," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, referring to people whose protected status has expired or would be eliminated if future court rulings eliminate DACA.

 "I don't think the end of March has viability to it. Let's just get on with it," she said.

 The problem: With both narrow and broad approaches failing in the Senate this week, it's not clear what, if anything, could win support of the House, Senate and the White House.

Summary: – Lawmakers had three chances to protect Dreamers from deportation in the form of three separate bills voted on by the Senate on Thursday. None passed, and President Trump laid the blame on Democrats on Friday, the Hill reports. "Cannot believe how BADLY DACA recipients have been treated by the Democrats...totally abandoned! Republicans are still working hard," the president tweeted. However, Dara Lind at Vox writes Trump is pointing his finger in the wrong direction. Trump announced he was ending DACA on March 5, opening young immigrants brought illegally to the US as children to deportation, and said he wanted lawmakers to work on a deal to protect Dreamers permanently. In January, Trump had this to say: “When this group comes back, hopefully with an agreement, I am signing it. I will be signing it. I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, gee, I want this or I want that.’ I will be signing it.” On Thursday, a bipartisan bill offering a path to citizenship for Dreamers—something proposed by the White House—and $25 billion for border security and Trump's wall fell just six votes short of passing. It's possible it could have secured the final votes needed to pass had Trump and the White House not vehemently opposed it and threatened a veto. The bill Trump did support received just 39 of the needed 60 votes to pass. Meanwhile, Trump's decision to end DACA is being blocked in two courts, meaning the March 5 deadline could pass with no change—or peace of mind—for Dreamers, NPR reports.


APS March Meeting 2015 Volume 60, Number 1 Monday–Friday, March 2–6, 2015; San Antonio, Texas

 Session S48: Focus Session: Physics of Evolutionary and Population Dynamics I

 8:00 AM–11:00 AM, Thursday, March 5, 2015

 Room: 217C

 Sponsoring Unit: DBIO

 Chair: Michel Pleimliung, Virginia Tech University

 Abstract ID: BAPS.2015.MAR.S48.8

 Abstract: S48.00008 : The Statistical Mechanics of Zombies

 9:24 AM–9:36 AM

 Preview Abstract Abstract

 Authors:

 Alexander A. Alemi

 (Cornell University)

 Matthew Bierbaum

 (Cornell University)

 Christopher R. Myers

 (Cornell University)

 James P. Sethna

 (Cornell University)

 We present results and analysis from a large scale exact stochastic dynamical simulation of a zombie outbreak. Zombies have attracted some attention lately as a novel and interesting twist on classic disease models. While most of the initial investigations have focused on the continuous, fully mixed dynamics of a differential equation model, we have explored stochastic, discrete simulations on lattices. We explore some of the basic statistical mechanical properties of the zombie model, including its phase diagram and critical exponents. We report on several variant models, including both homogeneous and inhomogeneous lattices, as well as allowing diffusive motion of infected hosts. We build up to a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States, and discover that for `realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed. ||||| Zombies as portrayed in the movie Night of the Living Dead. Credit: Wikipedia A team of Cornell University researchers focusing on a fictional zombie outbreak as an approach to disease modeling suggests heading for the hills, in the Rockies, to save your 'braains' from the 'undead.'

 Reading World War Z, an oral history of the first zombie war, and a graduate statistical mechanics class inspired a group of Cornell University researchers to explore how an "actual" zombie outbreak might play out in the U.S.

 During the 2015 American Physical Society March Meeting, on Thursday, March 5 in San Antonio, Texas, the group will describe their work modeling the statistical mechanics of zombies—those thankfully fictional "undead" creatures with an appetite for human flesh.

 Why model the mechanics of zombies? "Modeling zombies takes you through a lot of the techniques used to model real diseases, albeit in a fun context," says Alex Alemi, a graduate student at Cornell University.

 Alemi and colleagues' work offers a nice introduction to disease modeling in general, as well as some techniques of statistical physics for measuring second-order phase transitions. "It's interesting in its own right as a model, as a cousin of traditional SIR [susceptible, infected, and resistant] models—which are used for many diseases—but with an additional nonlinearity," points out Alemi.

 All told, the project was an overview of modern epidemiology modeling, starting with differential equations to model a fully connected population, then moving on to lattice-based models, and ending with a full U.S.-scale simulation of an outbreak across the continental U.S.

 It involved a lot of computational results generated from simulations the researchers wrote themselves. "At their heart, the simulations are akin to modeling chemical reactions taking place between different elements and, in this case, we have four states a person can be in—human, infected, zombie, or dead zombie—with approximately 300 million people," Alemi explains.

 The project's large-scale simulations are stochastic in nature, meaning that they have an element of randomness. "Each possible interaction—zombie bites human, human kills zombie, zombie moves, etc.—is treated like a radioactive decay, with a half-life that depends on some parameters, and we tried to simulate the times it would take for all of these different interactions to fire, where complications arise because when one thing happens it can affect the rates at which all of the other things happen," he says.

 In most films or books, "if there is a zombie outbreak, it is usually assumed to affect all areas at the same time, and some months after the outbreak you're left with small pockets of survivors," explains Alemi. "But in our attempt to model zombies somewhat realistically, it doesn't seem like this is how it would actually go down."

 Cities would fall quickly, but it would take weeks for zombies to penetrate into less densely populated areas, and months to reach the northern mountain-time zone.

 "Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down—there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate," he elaborates. "I'd love to see a fictional account where most of New York City falls in a day, but upstate New York has a month or so to prepare."

 If you somehow happen to find yourself in the midst of a fictional zombie outbreak and want to survive as long as possible, Alemi recommends making a run for the northern Rockies. While not an entirely practical implication, it's "fun to know," he says, and points out the benefits of applying hard science to fun topics—especially to help make learning more entertaining and enjoyable.

 "A lot of modern research can be off-putting for people because the techniques are complicated and the systems or models studied lack a strong connection to everyday experiences," Alemi adds. "Not that zombies are an everyday occurrence, but most people can wrap their braains around them."

 What's next for Alemi and colleagues? "Given the time, we could attempt to add more complicated social dynamics to the simulation, such as allowing people to make a run for it, include plane flights, or have an awareness of the zombie outbreak, etc.," he notes.

 Explore further: UK brains under threat?

 More information: meeting.aps.org/Meeting/MAR15/Session/S48.8

Summary: – If a zombie outbreak were to strike US shores, East Coasters should head west ASAP. That recommendation comes by way of Cornell University researchers, who have modeled the statistical mechanics of, yes, zombies and will present their findings at a meeting of the American Physical Society on March 5 in San Antonio. The researchers used a number of techniques that are used when modeling real diseases, and the abstract ends with this dismal line: "We build up to a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States, and discover that for 'realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed." But Phys.Org relays a glimmer of hope by way of Alex Alemi, a grad student involved in the research: He says those who want to remain safe from the undead for as long as they can should head to the northern Rockies. He explains that while books and movies typically show an outbreak touching all corners of the country immediately, "in our attempt to model zombies somewhat realistically, it doesn't seem like this is how it would actually go down." Yes, major cities could be toast within days, but less populated areas could be unaffected for weeks, and the northern Mountain Time Zone could be safe for months. "Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down—there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate," says Alemi. "I'd love to see a fictional account where most of New York City falls in a day, but upstate New York has a month or so to prepare." (Of course, some people want to be trapped in a room with a zombie.)


Hackers on Sunday claimed to have stolen a raft of e-mails and credit card data from U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor, promising it was just the start of a weeklong Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

 One alleged hacker said the goal was to use the credit data to steal a million dollars and give it away as Christmas donations, and images posted online claimed to show the receipts.

 Members of the loose-knit hacking movement known as "Anonymous" posted a link on Twitter to what they said was Stratfor's tightly-guarded, confidential client list. Among those on the list: The U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and the Miami Police Department.

 The rest of the list, which Anonymous said was a small slice of its 200 gigabytes worth of plunder, included banks, law enforcement agencies, defense contractors and technology firms such as Apple and Microsoft.

 "Not so private and secret anymore?" the group taunted in a message on the microblogging site.

 Lt. Col. John Dorrian, public affairs officer for the Air Force, said that "for obvious reasons" the Air Force doesn't discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats or responses to them.

 "The Air Force will continue to monitor the situation and, as always, take apporpriate action as necessary to protect Air Force networks and information," he said in an email.

 Miami Police Department spokesman Sgt. Freddie Cruz Jr. said that he could not confirm that the agency was a client of Stratfor, and he said he had not received any information about any security breach involving the police department.

 Anonymous said it was able to get the credit details in part because Stratfor didn't bother encrypting them _ an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company.

 Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfor's client list, Anonymous posted images online that it suggested were receipts for charitable donations made by the group manipulating the credit card data it stole.

 "Thank you! Defense Intelligence Agency," read the text above one image that appeared to show a transaction summary indicating that an agency employee's information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit.

 Stratfor said in an email to members that it had suspended its servers and email after learning that its website had been hacked.

 "We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites," said the email, passed on to The Associated Press by subscribers. "We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained."

 The email, signed by Stratfor Chief Executive George Friedman, said the company is "working closely with law enforcement to identify who is behind the breach."

 "Stratfor's relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me," Friedman wrote.

 Stratfor's website was down midday Sunday, with a banner saying "site is currently undergoing maintenance."

 Wishing everyone a "Merry LulzXMas" _ a nod to its spinoff hacking group Lulz Security _ Anonymous also posted a link on Twitter to a site containing the email, phone number and credit number of a U.S. Homeland Security employee.

 The employee, Cody Sultenfuss, said he had no warning before his details were posted.

 "They took money I did not have," he told The Associated Press in a series of emails, which did not specify the amount taken. "I think why me? I am not rich."

 One member of the hacking group, who uses the handle AnonymousAbu on Twitter, claimed that more than 90,000 credit cards from law enforcement, the intelligence community and journalists _ "corporate/exec accounts of people like Fox" news _ had been hacked and used to "steal a million dollars" and make donations.

 It was impossible to verify where credit card details were used. Fox News was not on the excerpted list of Stratfor members posted online, but other media organizations including MSNBC and Al Jazeera English appeared in the file.

 Anonymous warned it has "enough targets lined up to extend the fun fun fun of LulzXmas through the entire next week."

 The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on companies such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, as well as others in the music industry and the Church of Scientology.

 ____________

 Associated Press writer Jennifer Kway in Miami contributed to this report.

 _____________

 Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

Summary: – Hackers say they stole credit card numbers from a US security think tank today and began using them to make donations to charity, the AP reports. The hackers are members of the loose-knit movement known as "Anonymous." The victims are members of a highly guarded list of clients of Stratfor, including the US Air Force, US Army, and Miami police. Hackers have posted tweets saying they plan to make $1 million in donations with the card numbers. "Anonymous" members even posted images of fresh donation receipts to charitable groups. "Not so private and secret anymore?" tweeted one alleged hacker. Anonymous says it's using the numbers easily because Stratfor neglected to encrypt them—a major blunder if true. For its part, Stratfor has shut down its site and is "diligently investigating," it said in an email. Anonymous, which has claimed responsibility for earlier credit card attacks, says it plans to continue striking targets throughout Christmas week.