Lights out on Rhode Island's tallest building

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The exterior of Rhode Island's tallest building will no longer be illuminated at night beginning this week, a decision made to save money as it sits vacant with questions unanswered about how it will be used in the future, a spokesman for the building's owner said Wednesday.

The exterior of the 26-story Art Deco-style skyscraper, known to some as the Superman building for its similarity to the Daily Planet headquarters in the old TV show, was not illuminated by floodlights for the first time Tuesday night, said Bill Fischer, a spokesman for the building owner, Massachusetts-based High Rock Development. He said they would be turned off "for the foreseeable future."

The decision means the most distinctive feature on the downtown Providence skyline will now be dark at night, apart from the blue beacon that sits on top of the building. That will continue to be turned on every night as a "gesture of goodwill," Fischer said. He added that without a tenant or viable plan to use the building, it costs too much to keep the other lights on. He said it costs $26,000 to $30,000 annually to light the exterior.

"We have to protect the integrity of the building, and we have to protect the investment. It's just not prudent to light it," Fischer said Wednesday.

The 380,000-square-foot building lost its only tenant, Bank of America Corp., in April. High Rock pushed for $39 million in state tax credits to help it convert the building into apartments, which it called the "highest and best use" of the building. That idea was rejected by lawmakers.

The company has also proposed moving some state offices there, but Fischer says that would still require extensive renovations to the building, which has been used as a bank since it first opened in 1928.

Fischer said High Rock is not interested in selling.

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EU partially lifts ban on Philippine airlines

MANILA, Philippines — The European Union has partially lifted a ban on the entry of Philippine planes after aviation authorities in Manila addressed safety concerns, removing an obstacle to a robust flow of tourists and trade between Europe and the Southeast Asian nation, officials said Wednesday.

EU Ambassador to Manila Guy Ledoux said that the decision, which takes effect on Friday, will allow flag carrier Philippine Airlines to resume flights to Europe. More safety improvements will have to be made for other Philippine carriers, like budget airline Cebu Pacific Air, to follow, he said.

Philippine Airlines, which has recently acquired new long-haul Airbus aircraft, plans to resume flights to London, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam as early as September, company president Ramon Ang said at a news conference. He commended President Benigno Aquino III's government for dealing with significant safety issues that have hounded the country's aviation industry for years.

Cebu Pacific, the country's largest low-cost carrier, has complied with regulations and taken steps to deal with safety issues, but a recent accident involving one of its aircraft in southern Davao city revealed "some weaknesses" that still need to be addressed, Ledoux said.

The plane veered off the runway, and although no one was hurt, the aircraft was stuck on the runway for two days, and passengers complained that it took about 15 minutes for emergency slides to be deployed.

Philippine officials welcomed the EU decision. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said it will "boost tourism, enhance competitiveness and facilitate the entry of investments from the eurozone."

Manila also expects the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to lift safety-linked restrictions later this year. Those restrictions have prohibited Philippine Airlines from expanding its flight operations in the United States and prevented other Manila-based carriers from opening air services to the U.S. mainland.

The European Commission banned all Philippine carriers from entering its airspace in March 2010 due to noncompliance with international safety standards.

The 2010 ban came after the International Civil Aviation Organization questioned whether Filipino aviation regulators could adequately ensure the safety of Philippine-registered airlines, and after the FAA downgraded the Philippines' safety rating. ICAO is the Montreal-based U.N. aviation safety agency.

John Andrews, deputy director-general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, said problems in his agency that had drawn concern, such as the lack of a database on all registered Philippine aircraft, have been corrected.

Ledoux, the EU ambassador, said Philippine authorities also are addressing corruption. He mentioned a Manila news report about a former Philippine aviation official who was indicted for providing licenses to student pilots who had failed aviation proficiency tests.

"Clearly this is an issue that needed to be addressed and has been addressed," Ledoux said.

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High-tech gadgets monitor seniors' safety at home

WASHINGTON — It could mean no more having to check up on Mom or Dad every morning: Motion sensors on the wall and a monitor under the mattress one day might automatically alert you to early signs of trouble well before an elderly loved one gets sick or suffers a fall.

Research is growing with high-tech gadgets that promise new safety nets for seniors determined to live on their own for as long as possible.

"It's insurance in case something should happen," is how Bob Harrison, 85, describes the unobtrusive monitors being tested in his apartment at the TigerPlace retirement community in Columbia, Mo.

Living at home — specialists call it aging in place — is what most people want for their later years. Americans 40 and older are just as worried about losing their independence later in life as they are about losing their memory, according to a recent survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Common-sense interventions like grab bars in bathrooms and taping down rugs to prevent tripping can make homes safer as seniors deal with chronic illnesses. Technology is the next frontier, and a far cry from those emergency-call buttons seniors sometimes wear to summon help.

Already, some companies are offering monitoring packages that place motion sensors on the front door, a favorite chair, even the refrigerator, and then send an alert to a family member if there's too little activity over a certain period of time. Other gadgets can make pill bottles buzz when it's time for a dose and text a caregiver if it's not taken, or promise to switch off a stove burner that's left on too long.

Researchers at the University of Missouri aim to go further: Their experiments show that certain automatic monitoring can spot changes — such as restlessness in bed or a drop in daytime activity — that occur 10 days to two weeks before a fall or a trip to the doctor or hospital.

"We were blown away that we could actually detect this," said nursing professor Marilyn Rantz, an aging-in-place specialist who is leading the research. She compares it to "a vital sign of my physical function."

Why would the gadgets work? That monitor under the mattress can measure pulse and respiratory patterns to see if heart failure is worsening before someone realizes he or she is becoming short of breath. More nighttime bathroom trips can indicate a brewing urinary tract infection.

A change in gait, such as starting to take shorter or slower steps, can signal increased risk for a fall. Basic motion sensors can't detect that. So Rantz's team adapted the Microsoft Kinect 3-D camera, developed for video games, to measure subtle changes in walking. (Yes, it can distinguish visitors.)

The researchers installed the sensor package in apartments at the university-affiliated TigerPlace community and in a Cedar Falls, Iowa, senior complex. On-site nurses received automatic emails about significant changes in residents' activity. One study found that after a year, residents who agreed to be monitored were functioning better than an unmonitored control group, presumably because nurses intervened sooner at signs of trouble, Rantz said.

The bigger question is whether simply alerting a loved one, not a nurse, might also help. Now, with a new grant from the National Institutes of Health, Rantz will begin expanding the research to see how this monitoring works in different senior housing — and this time, participants can decide if they'd like a family member or friend to get those alerts, in addition to a nurse.

Rantz says embedding sensors in the home is important because too many older adults forget or don't want to wear those older emergency-call buttons — including Rantz's own mother, who lay helpless on her floor for eight hours after tripping and badly breaking a shoulder. Rantz said her mother never fully recovered, and six months later died.

"When we started this team, I said we are not going to make anybody wear anything or push any buttons, because my mother refused and I don't think she's any different than a lot of other people in this world," Rantz said.

Monitoring raises important privacy questions, about just what is tracked and who has access to it, cautioned Jeff Makowka of AARP.

To work, the high-tech approach has to be "less about, 'We're watching you, Grandma,' but 'Hey, Grandma, how come you didn't make coffee this morning?'" he said.

Sensor prices are another hurdle, although Makowka said they're dropping. Various kinds already on the market can run from about $70 to several hundred, plus monthly service plans.

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Critics: Piling 6 druggists on board may compound problems

The decision by state legislators to stack the state pharmacy board with pharmacists as part of a sweeping sterile compounding reform bill is raising alarms with some experts, who say those members need more vetting to avoid the apparent conflicts in the wake of last year's fungal meningitis outbreak.

A bill unveiled yesterday by state Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez and the Committee on Public Health targets the state's compounding pharmacies, mandating surprise inspections, hefty fines up to $25,000 and requiring pharmacies to report incidents.

But Gov. Deval Patrick had recommended four pharmacists on the 11-member board. 
The legislative bill calls for six pharmacists and one pharmacy technician. The proposed reforms follow last year's deadly outbreak that killed 61 people, sickened more than 740 and was linked to Framingham's New England Compounding Center.

"You run the risk of having conflicts of interest," Sarah Sellers, a former Food and Drug Administration official, said of the bill's board proposal. "It's analogous of having employees from Pfizer working for the FDA office of compliance. It's a challenging situation when you have industry policing industry for the purpose of enforcement."

Sanchez recognized that the board's composition is a "sensitive subject," but said other state boards have "majorities" of professionals who work in the fields they oversee.

"Who knows pharmacy better than the pharmacists?" Sanchez said, adding that increased reporting requirements and an advisory council will hold a spotlight on the board's activities.

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First Apple computer sells at auction for $387,750

NEW YORK — An original Apple computer from 1976 has sold at auction for nearly $388,000.

Known as the Apple 1, it was one of the first Apple computers ever built.

It sold Monday for $387,750 at a Christie's online-only auction. The auction house did not disclose the name of the buyer. The seller was a retired school psychologist from Sacramento, Calif.

Vintage Apple products have become a hot item since Steve Jobs' death in October 2011. Jobs joined forces with Steve Wozniak to build computer prototypes in a California garage, and Wozniak built the Apple 1.

Another Apple 1 was sold in May for a record $671,400 by a German auction house. It broke a record of $640,000 set in November.

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Berlusconi court date raises Italy gov't tensions

ROME — Tensions in Italy's uneasy ruling coalition increased Wednesday as the government's allies denounced an accelerated date for a high court decision that could see former Premier Silvio Berlusconi banned for years from public office.

Although Berlusconi isn't in the government himself, steady support from his center-right People of Freedom party is necessary to keep Premier Enrico Letta's 10-week-old government alive, since Letta's center-left Democratic Party doesn't have enough support in Parliament to control both houses.

But Berlusconi's allies hobbled Parliament's work following the Court of Cassation's decision to schedule an appeal in the media mogul's tax fraud trial for July 30, months earlier than expected. The high court said it moved up the date to prevent the statute of limitations from expiring on one of the charges on Aug. 1.

As if those tensions weren't enough for Letta's fragile government as it tries to revive growth and create jobs, Standard & Poors's Rating Service on Tuesday downgraded Italy's credit rating and warned of further reductions if Italy's economic prospects stay bleak.

Last week, relations had already become tense among Italy's unusual ruling alliance of rivals after the International Monetary Fund urged Italy to bring back a property tax that Letta reluctantly agreed to suspend to placate Berlusconi and his populist following.

The increased IMF pressure, the ratings drop and the high court development all "converge on a single aim — the collapse of the Letta government and the destabilization of Italy," said Alessandro Pagano, a lawmaker from Berlusconi's party.

He called the speeded up court timetable a kind of "judicial vice being tightened around" the conservative leader.

Berlusconi's lawyers had expected the high court to rule no sooner than the fall in his appeal of his tax fraud conviction involving his Mediaset empire, which saw him sentenced to four years in prison and barred from holding public office for five years.

Berlusconi was convicted in a scheme that involved inflating the price his Mediaset media empire paid for TV rights to U.S. movies and pocketing the difference. Berlusconi has said he did nothing wrong and has accused Milan magistrates of pursuing politically motivated cases against him.

Even if the top criminal court upholds the sentence, there is little risk that the 76-year-old Berlusconi, because of his age, would ever serve time behind bars.

Nevertheless, the debate over the high court decision was already having its effect on the work of the government and Parliament Wednesday: Coalition leaders scrapped a planned meeting to discuss the unpopular property tax and a meeting of chamber whips was suspended at the request of Berlusconi's allies so they could huddle to discuss the Cassation decision.

To protest the derailment of work over Berlusconi's plight, senators from the legislature's third-largest bloc, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, took off their jackets — mandatory dress code for men in the upper chamber — further heating up the political climate.

"If that's how Parliament is, if it does nothing, then we'll work out of Parliament," 5-Star leader Beppe Grillo said. "Autumn is around the corner, and with it possible economic collapse."

Letta has said he doesn't believe the court's accelerated calendar will affect his government. But even the leader of a center-right party that used to be a loyal ally of Berlusconi was irked by the behavior of Berlusconi's lawmakers.

"It's not possible that Parliament shuts down for one party's problems, with so much to do," said Roberto Maroni, head of the Northern League. Letta's government appears to be "on the true brink of a crisis."

A close Berlusconi ally, Maurizio Lupi, tried to tamp down worries about the government's survival, saying the accelerated court decision "puts at risk not the coalition, but democracy in this country."

"We will continue to do our work and move forward," said Lupi, who serves in the government as infrastructure minister.

The July 30 high court hearing leaves Berlusconi's defense team less time to prepare arguments. His lawyers only lodged the appeal on June 19. Usually it takes months to schedule such a hearing in Italy's notoriously slow justice system.

Berlusconi has faced dozens of legal cases in his two decades in politics, but has most of the time has either been acquitted or seen the charges dismissed when statutes of limitations expired.

Last month, Berlusconi was convicted, sentenced to seven years and banned from politics for life for paying an underage prostitute for sex during infamous "bunga bunga" parties and pressuring public officials to cover it up. He denies wrongdoing and is appealing that verdict as well, a process that could take a couple of years.

In Italy, sentences are considered final after two levels of appeals are exhausted.

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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Senate fails to keep student loan rates low

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Wednesday failed to restore lower interest rates on student loans, again coming up short and perhaps signaling that undergraduates might really face rates twice as high as the ones they enjoyed last year.

The proposal from Democratic leaders would have left interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans at 3.4 percent for another year while lawmakers took up a comprehensive overhaul. The one-year stopgap measure failed to overcome a procedural hurdle as Republicans — and a few Democrats — urged colleagues to consider a plan now that would link interest rates to the financial markets and reduce Congress' role in setting students' borrowing rates.

The competing proposals failed and lawmakers said students would face higher costs to repay their loans after graduation.

"Today our nation's students once again wait in vain for relief," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. "They expected more of us and I share their disappointment."

"Today, we failed. And our nation's students pay the cost of that failure," he added after the vote.

The failure to win a one-year approval — combined with little interest in such a deal in the Republican-led House — meant students would be borrowing money for fall courses at a rate leaders in both parties called unacceptable.

The rate increase does not affect many students right away; loan documents are generally signed just before students return to campus, and few students returned to school over the July Fourth holiday. Existing loans were not affected, either.

However, absent congressional action in the coming weeks, the increase could spell an extra $2,600 for an average student returning to campus this fall, according to Congress' Joint Economic Committee.

During last year's presidential campaign, lawmakers from both parties voted to keep interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans at 3.4 percent. Yet this year, without a presidential election looming, the issue seemed to fizzle and the July 1 deadline passed without action.

The White House and most Democratic senators favored keeping the rates at 3.4 percent for now and including a broad overhaul of federal student loans in the Higher Education Act rewrite lawmakers expect to take up this fall.

"It's not just what rate. It's how do we keep college costs in check?" said Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who pushed for the extension measures. "It will allow us to work through a very complicated set of issues."

The Republican-led House has already passed legislation that links interest rates to financial markets. Republicans in the House were opposed to a one-year extension, meaning Wednesday's Senate vote might not have meant much relief for students even if it had passed.

Efforts to find a compromise went nowhere as well. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia worked with the top Republican on the education panel, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, to write a bipartisan bill that closely follows the GOP bill. That bill incorporated an idea that originally was included in President Barack Obama's budget to link interest rates to the financial markets before he distanced himself from it.

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Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

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Icahn to seek court appraisal of $24.4B Dell deal

NEW YORK — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn says he will ask a Delaware judge to assess whether a proposed $24.4 billion acquisition of Dell represents a fair price for the struggling personal computer maker. It is Icahn's latest attempt to wrangle a higher offer from buyout group that includes company CEO Michael Dell.

Icahn, Dell Inc.'s second largest shareholder, outlined the rationale for his legal maneuver Wednesday in an open letter. The missive urged the rest of Dell's shareholders to exercise their right for a court appraisal to determine whether the Round Rock, Texas, company is worth more than the $13.65 per share that Michael Dell's group has agreed to pay.

The push for an appraisal comes just two days after Icahn suffered a setback when three shareholder advisory firms recommended accepting the current offer.

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United Dreamliner London-Houston flight canceled

HOUSTON — A United Airlines Boeing 787 flight from London to Houston has been canceled because of apparent trouble with an indicator device.

United spokeswoman Mary Clark says Flight 125 on Tuesday from Heathrow Airport to George Bush Intercontinental Airport was canceled due to problems with a message indicator. Further details weren't immediately released. United Airlines is a unit of United Continental Holdings Inc.

United officials say the 211 passengers on the jet, which Boeing calls the Dreamliner, were being put on other flights Wednesday.

A United Boeing 787 bound from London to Houston on June 20 — also listed as Flight 125 — diverted to Newark, N.J., because of a low engine oil indicator.

Boeing Co.'s Dreamliner faces more scrutiny than normal because it was grounded for three months earlier this year amid concerns about overheating lithium-ion batteries.

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Head of rail company visits grieving Quebec town

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec — The head of the rail company whose runaway oil train set off a fiery explosion that left at least 15 people dead and incinerated 30 buildings was visiting the shell-shocked town in Quebec on Wednesday, as officials upped the number of missing to 45.

Edward Burkhardt, president and CEO of the railway's parent company, Rail World Inc., was expected a day after police announced they were pursuing a painstaking, wide-ranging criminal investigation of the inferno ignited by the derailment of the oil train that demolished the center of this lakeside town of 6,000.

Flanked by reporters at Montreal's Trudeau airport Tuesday evening, Burkhardt suggested firefighters who extinguished an earlier fire on the same train shared some of the blame.

"We have responsibility for this incident. We don't have total responsibility but we have partial responsibility," Burkhardt said in remarks broadcast on CTV.

At a press conference, shortly before Burkhardt was due to arrive, Quebec Premier Pauline Marois faulted the company's response in the wake of the disaster.

"We have realized there are serious gaps from the railway company from not having been there and not communicating with the public," Marois said.

She also announced a $60-million fund to help victims in Lac-Megantic.

Quebec police inspector Michel Forget announced Wednesday morning that the number of missing had risen to 60, a number that included the 15 bodies recovered so far that have been burnt beyond recognition. Police had earlier put the number of missing at 50.

Forget said the numbers remained in flux as reports of missing people trickled in or people believed to be missing turned out to be alive.

Forget had earlier ruled out terrorism as a cause, but said that an array of other possibilities remain under investigation, including criminal negligence. Other officials have raised the possibility that the train was tampered with before the crash early Saturday.

"This is an enormous task ahead of us," Forget said. "We're not at the stage of arrests."

The heart of the town's central business district is being treated as a crime scene and remained cordoned off by police tape — not only the 30 buildings razed by the fire but also many adjacent blocks.

On downtown's main street — Rue de Laval — police positioned a truck near the perimeter of the no-go zone, which prevented news crews from getting direct photo and video views of the search operations being conducted by some 200 officers.

Police officials left no doubt that the hunt for the missing people was taxing — they said two officers were withdrawn from the sector because of worries about their physical condition.

"This is a very risky environment," said Quebec Provincial Police Sgt. Benoit Richard. "We have to secure the safety of those working there. We have some hotspots on the scene. There is some gas."

The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train broke loose early Saturday and hurtled downhill through the darkness nearly seven miles (11 kilometers) before jumping the tracks at 63 mph (101 kph) in Lac-Megantic, in eastern Quebec near the Maine border, investigators said. All but one of the 73 cars were carrying oil. At least five exploded.

Rail dispatchers had no chance to warn anyone during the runaway train's 18-minute journey because they didn't know it was happening themselves, Transportation Safety Board officials said. Such warning systems are in place on busier lines but not on secondary lines, said TSB manager Ed Belkaloul.

At the center of the destruction is the Musi-Cafe, a popular bar that was filled at the time of the explosion, which also forced about 2,000 of the town's 6,000 residents from their homes. By Tuesday, only about 800 were still barred from returning to their houses, though residents were cautioned to boil tap water before drinking it.

Efforts continued to stop waves of crude oil spilled in the disaster from reaching the St. Lawrence River, the backbone of the province's water supply.

Investigators searching for a cause of the accident are looking closely at the fire that happened on the train less than an hour before it got loose while parked in the nearby town of Nantes.

The train's engine was shut down — standard operating procedure dictated by the train's owners, Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert said. Burkhardt suggested that shutting off the locomotive to put out the fire might have disabled the brakes.

"The train had the engine shut down by the firemen, they didn't do that for malicious purposes by it's what happens," Burkhardt told reporters at the Montreal airport. "The firemen should have roused the locomotive engineer who was in his hotel and taken him to the scene with them. But it's easy to say what should have happened. We're dealing with what happened."

Lambert defended the fire department, saying that the blaze was extinguished within about 45 minutes and that's when firefighters' involvement ended.

The accident has thrown a spotlight on MMA's safety record. Over the past decade, the company has consistently recorded a much higher accident rate than the national average in the U.S., according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration.

Last year, for instance, the railroad had 36.1 accidents per million miles traveled by its trains. The national average for 2012 was 14.6.

Before the Lac-Megantic accident, the company had 34 derailments since 2003, according to the federal agency. Over that period, the company was involved in five accidents that had reportable damage of more than $100,000.

The severity of those incidents, however, is difficult to determine from the federal agency's 10-year data overviews on railroad safety. But before the weekend accident, incidents involving the company's trains had resulted in just one death. That 2006 accident involved a vehicle that struck a moving train at a highway crossing.

Burkhardt said the figures were misleading.

"This is the only significant mainline derailment this company has had in the last 10 years. We've had, like most railroads, a number of smallish incidents, usually involving accidents in yard trackage and industry trackage," he told the CBC.

Nonetheless, Burkhardt predicted the accident would lead to changes in the way railways operate, and indicated that MMA would no longer leave loaded trains unattended, a practice he said was standard in the industry.

The tanker cars involved in the crash were the DOT-111 type — a staple of the American freight rail fleet whose flaws have been noted as far back as a 1991 safety study. Experts say the DOT-111's steel shell is so thin that it is prone to puncture in an accident, potentially spilling cargo that can catch fire, explode or contaminate the environment.

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Associated Press writers Sean Farrell in Lac-Megantic, Charmaine Noronha in Toronto and Jason Keyser in Chicago contributed to this story.

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