“iCarly” and “Victorious” spinoff gets greenlight from Nickelodeon

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Tweens of the world, rejoice: “iCarly” may be relegated to the dustbin of TV-programming history, but a part of it will live on.

Nickelodeon has greenlit “Sam & Cat,” a hybrid spinoff of “iCarly” – which ended its run last week – and the Nickelodeon series “Victorious.”

The series – from “iCarly” and “Victorious” creator Dan Schneider – will star Jennette McCurdy (who played Sam Puckett on “iCarly”) and Ariana Grande (perhaps better known as Cat Valentine to “Victorious” viewers). Both will reprise theo become teen entrepreneurs by starting their own after-school babysitting business.”

The 20-episode first season of “Sam & Cat” will premiere next year; production will begin in January in Los Angeles.

“Jennette and Ariana are adored by our audience, and it’s great to unite these talented actresses in this hilarious new comedy from Dan Schneider,” Nickelodeon’s president of content development and production Russell Hicks said. “This show promises to deliver on what our audience loves most about these two favorite characters – laugh-out-loud humor and non-stop adventure, and is sure to be a compelling new chapter for our new comedic duo.”

The “iCarly” series finale last week drew 6.4 million viewers.

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Generic drugmaker Teva plans sweeping reorganization

(Reuters) – Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, the world’s biggest maker of generic drugs, announced an ambitious plan on Friday to reshape the company as it faces increased competition for its top-selling multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone.

The Israeli-based company said it plans to streamline operations, cut costs and make targeted acquisitions to improve profitability. It will discontinue certain research programs and integrate functions ranging from ordering to inventory control.

Teva said profit excluding some items will be between $ 4.85 and $ 5.15 a share in 2013, while revenue will be $ 19.5 billion to $ 20.5 billion. Analysts were on average forecasting earnings of $ 5.71 a share and revenue of $ 20.85 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Teva will outline its plans in detail at an investor day on December 11. In the meantime, it is predicting sales of Copaxone will fall somewhat in 2013 as it faces competition from new drugs for multiple sclerosis. A new drug that is expected to be approved shortly from Biogen Idec Inc, BG-12, is expected to pose particularly strong competition.

The reshaping of Teva is being driven by its new chief executive, Jeremy Levin, a former senior executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb, who says he wants to make the company more transparent and responsive to shareholders.

“Teva will look like a very different company going forward,” he told analysts on a conference call.

As part of its reorganization, Teva plans to cut $ 1.5 billion to $ 2 billion in costs, with most of those savings occurring over the next three years and the rest over the following two years. The savings will come from every aspect of its business, Teva said, including the way it procures raw materials, the amount of real estate it owns, and how it invests in information technology.

“Most had anticipated below-consensus guidance and while clearly the magnitude will surprise, we actually think the lowered bar will be welcome when the dust settles today relative to the stock reaction,” said Randall Stanicky, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity.

Teva’s shares were up 0.7 percent at $ 40.52 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Teva expects revenue from its generic drugs of $ 10.3 billion to $ 10.7 billion in 2013, and sales of branded medications of $ 7.6 billion to $ 8 billion.

The company expects sales of Copaxone to range between $ 3.7 billion and $ 3.9 billion. The company said it could not predict with accuracy the extent of the drug’s potential sales decline until the trajectory of BG-12′s launch becomes clearer. It said it continues to believe Copaxone will remain a strong player in the market. That drug currently accounts for about 20 percent of Teva’s total sales.

The company said sales of branded products will be hurt somewhat by the launch of multiple generic versions of Provigil, a sleep disorder drug the company acquired with its $ 6.5 billion purchase of Cephalon Inc. On the other hand, Teva expects growth in other branded products, including women’s health.

Teva has grown historically through acquisitions, some substantial such as the Cephalon deal. But Levin said that going forward, Teva plans to make targeted acquisitions in its core areas of expertise, such as central nervous system disorders.

Levin said Teva is determined to be more transparent with Wall Street and says there are “different levers” the company can pull to return value to shareholders, including potentially increasing stock buybacks and allocating cash more efficiently.

“Our intent is to divest businesses that don’t have the margins we want and at the same time build businesses with margins that we want to have,” he said.

That means continuing to invest in treatments for multiple sclerosis and other central nervous system disorders.

(Reporting by Toni Clarke in Boston; additional reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; editing by John Wallace and Matthew Lewis)

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Deadly, destructive 2012 hurricane season ends

MIAMI (AP) — The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season that spawned the destruction of Sandy and Isaac has come to an end as one for the record books.

There were 19 named storms in what meteorologists consider an above-average year that tied as being the third most-active season since 1851. The season runs from June 1st to November 30th, although tropical storms can and do sometimes develop outside those dates.

Even without a so-called major storm reaching the U.S., there was plenty of damage. A storm is classed as major once it becomes a Category 3 hurricane, with top sustained winds of 111 miles per hour (178 kph) and more.

Seven years have now gone by without a major hurricane making U.S. landfall, the longest stretch on record.

Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center, said a persistent jet stream pattern has steered storms away from the U.S. in recent years.

It wasn't enough to keep away Sandy, which morphed from hurricane to superstorm as it slammed into the New Jersey coast in October and wreaked havoc across the Northeast. It left millions without power and killed at least 125 people in the U.S. and 71 in the Caribbean.

The storm is estimated to have caused about $62 billion in damage and other losses in the U.S., most of it in New York and New Jersey. It is the second-costliest storm in U.S. history after 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Isaac struck southern Louisiana in August on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's seventh anniversary, swamping the Gulf Coast after trudging through the Gulf of Mexico and delaying the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

Sandy combined with an early winter storm and blast of artic air from the north to create a deadly brew meteorologists coined "Frankenstorm" and struck two days before Halloween.

A somewhat similar phenomenon occurred with the so-called Perfect Storm off the coast of New England in 1991, but that storm did not strike a major metropolitan region like Sandy.

"This was certainly one for the record books," Feltgen said.

A typical hurricane season has 12 named storms, six of which become hurricanes and three major storms. This year 10 storms became hurricanes and just one a Category 3 or higher, though it remained in the Atlantic Ocean.

Four storms in all made landfall, including Tropical Storm Beryl, which struck Jacksonville, Fla., with 75 miles per hour winds, the strongest tropical storm to strike the U.S. before hurricane season officially starts.

Whether next year's hurricane season will bring another calamitous strike is still too early to predict.

"You can't use this year as a gauge for next year," Feltgen said. "You have to go into each season thinking, 'This is the year I'm going to be hit and I have to be ready for it."

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.

Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.

Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.

One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”

“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.

Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.

Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.

On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.

“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”

Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.

On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.

And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.

It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.

Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”

Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.

“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.

Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.

One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.

But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.

For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.

The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.

When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”

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AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.

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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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Thousands touched by photograph of New York cop helping shoeless man

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A photograph of a New York City police officer crouching by a shoeless panhandler to give him a new pair of boots on a cold night in Times Square has drawn a deluge of praise after it was published on the police department‘s Facebook page this week.

By Thursday afternoon, nearly 394,000 people had clicked a button on the department’s Facebook page to indicate that they “liked” the photograph. Tens of thousands left comments, most praising Officer Lawrence DePrimo for his charitable deed.

The photograph was snapped by Jennifer Foster, an employee of the Pinal County Sheriff‘s Office in Florence, Arizona, during a trip to New York this month, according to police.

She took the picture shortly after she noticed the man asking passersby for money.

“Right when I was about to approach, one of your officers came up behind him,” Foster wrote in an email to the New York Police Department accompanying the snapshot, according to the picture caption on the department’s Facebook page. She said she was some distance away, and the officer did not know he was being photographed.

“The officer said, ‘I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let’s put them on and take care of you.’ The officer squatted down on the ground and proceeded to put socks and the new boots on this man.”

DePrimo and Foster could not be reached for comment on Thursday, and the police department did not respond to queries about the photograph.

DePrimo, 25, joined the force in 2010 and lives with his parents on Long Island, according to The New York Times. He paid $ 75 for the boots from a nearby Skechers store after an employee there gave him a 25 percent discount upon learning they were to be donated to a man in need.

“I wish more cops were like this guy,” one person wrote on the department’s Facebook page. Others suggested there were plenty of good-hearted police officers about, even if their good deeds were not photographed or touted on Facebook.

(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Stacey Joyce)

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Actor who apparently killed landlady not on drugs

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An autopsy report shows no drugs were detected in the body of a former “Sons of Anarchy” actor who police say killed his landlady and then fell to his death.

Toxicology results on Johnny Lewis found no traces of cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or any other types of drugs in the actor’s system. Officials checked for anti-psychotic drugs as well as psychedelic drugs.

Lewis was found dead in September in the driveway of a Los Angeles residence, and police found his landlady and a cat dead inside the home. Officials believe Lewis fell while trying to flee the home after killing 81-year-old Catherine Davis.

The killing occurred just days after Lewis was released from jail. Records show he had pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon and attempted burglary in separate cases.

Authorities expressed concern about his mental health in court hearings before his release.

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Drug, alcohol abuse tied to early-life strokes: study

(Reuters) – Younger adults who suffered a stroke were often smokers or had abused drugs or alcohol, according to a U.S. study that looked at over 1,000 patients.

Strokes are often thought of as a condition of the elderly, but researchers said long-term changes in the heart, arteries or and blood as a result of drug abuse or heavy drinking may put users at higher-than-average risk earlier in life.

“Substance abuse is common in young adults experiencing a stroke,” wrote lead researcher Brett Kissela from the University of Cincinnati in the journal Stroke.

“Patients aged younger than 55 years who experience a stroke should be routinely screened and counseled regarding substance abuse.”

It’s also possible that some drugs, particularly cocaine and methamphetamines, may trigger a stroke more immediately, according to S. Andrew Josephson, a neurologist from the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied drug use and stroke but was not involved in the study.

“We know that even with vascular risk factors that are prevalent – smoking, high blood pressure… most people still don’t have a stroke until they’re older,” he added.

“When a young person has a stroke, it is probably much more likely that the cause of their stroke is something other than traditional risk factors.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke every year, and they are the most common cause of serious long-term disability. One study of 2007 data found that almost five percent of people who had a stroke that year were between ages 18 and 44.

The current study involved people from Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky who’d had a stroke before they hit 55.

The researchers reviewed medical charts for blood or urine test results of other records of substance abuse for close to 1,200 stroke patients.

In 2005, the most recent year covered, just over half of young adults who suffered a stroke were smokers at the time, and one in five used illicit drugs, including marijuana and cocaine. Thirteen percent of people had used drugs or alcohol within 24 hours of their stoke.

“The rate of substance abuse, particularly illicit drug abuse, is almost certainly an underestimate because toxicology screens were not obtained on all patients,” said Steven Kittner, a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore who also wasn’t part of the research.

The rate of smoking, drug use and alcohol abuse – defined as three or more drinks per day – seemed to increase among stroke patients between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s.

But Kissela and his team said they can’t be sure whether more people were actually using those substances or doctors were just getting better at testing for and recording drug abuse.

The study also can’t prove that patients’ drug or alcohol use directly contributed to their strokes. It’s possible, for example, that people who abuse drugs also see their doctors less often or engage in other risky behaviors that increase the chance of strokes, Josephson explained.

He added that the study emphasizes the need to learn and quickly recognizing the signs of strokes, even in young people, since some treatments can only be used in a short window of opportunity after the stroke. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TVQvpi

(Reporting from New York by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

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U.N. upgrades Palestine to 'state,' U.S. objects

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to recognize a Palestinian state, a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and war. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States.

A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation, as the final vote was cast.

In an extraordinary lineup of international support, more than two-thirds of the world body's 193 member states approved the resolution upgrading the Palestinians to a nonmember observer state. It passed 138-9, with 41 abstentions.

The historic vote came 65 years to the day after the U.N. General Assembly voted in 1947 to recognize a state in Palestine, with the jubilant revelers then Jews. The Palestinians rejected that partition plan, and decades of tension and violence have followed.

Real independence, however, remains an elusive dream until the Palestinians negotiate a peace deal with the Israelis, who warned that the General Assembly action will only delay a lasting solution. Israel still controls the West Bank, east Jerusalem and access to Gaza, and it accused the Palestinians of bypassing negotiations with the campaign to upgrade their U.N. status.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, jubilant Palestinians crowded into the main square, waving Palestinian flags and chanting "God is great!" Hundreds had watched the vote on outdoor screens and televisions, and they hugged, honked their horns and set off fireworks as the final vote was cast.

The tally came after a speech by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in which he called the moment a "last chance" to save the two-state solution.

"The General Assembly is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine," the Palestinian leader declared.

The United States and Israel immediately criticized the vote.

"Today's unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the path of peace," U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said. "Today's grand pronouncements will soon fade and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded."

Calling the vote "meaningless," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of spreading "mendacious propaganda" against Israel in a speech he rejected as "defamatory and venomous."

"The resolution in the U.N. today won't change anything on the ground," Netanyahu said. "It won't advance the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather, put it further off."

With most U.N. members sympathetic to the Palestinians, there had been no doubt the resolution would be approved. A state of Palestine has already been recognized by 132 countries, and the Palestinians have 80 embassies and 40 representative offices around the world, according to the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

Still, the Palestinians lobbied hard for Western support, winning over key European countries including France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland, as well as Japan and New Zealand. Germany and Britain were among the many Western nations that abstained.

Joining the United States and Israel in voting "no" were Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

Despite Thursday's triumph, the Palestinians face enormous limitations. They don't control their borders, airspace or trade, they have separate and competing governments in Gaza and the West Bank and they have no unified army or police.

The vote grants Abbas an overwhelming international endorsement for his key position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. With Netanyahu opposed to a pullback to the 1967 lines, this should strengthen Abbas' hand if peace talks resume.

The U.N. action also could help Abbas restore some of his standing, which has been eroded by years of standstill in peace efforts. His rival, the Hamas militant group, deeply entrenched in Gaza, has seen its popularity rise after it responded with a barrage of rocket fire to an Israeli offensive earlier this month on targets linked to the militants.

In a departure from its previous opposition, Hamas, which rules Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel, said it wouldn't interfere with the U.N. bid for statehood, and its supporters joined some of the celebrations Thursday.

With its newly enhanced status, the Palestinians can now gain access to U.N. agencies and international bodies, most significantly the International Criminal Court, which could become a springboard for going after Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

However, in the run-up to the U.N. vote, Abbas signaled that he wants recognition to give him leverage in future talks with Israel, and not as a tool for confronting or delegitimizing Israel, as Israeli leaders have claimed.

Speaking stridently at times Thursday, Abbas accused the Israelis of "colonial occupation" that institutionalizes racism and charged that the Jewish state is continuing to perpetuate "war crimes."

Still, he said the Palestinians did not come to terminate "what remains of the negotiations process" but to try "to breathe new life into the negotiations" and achieve an independent state.

"We will act responsibly and positively in our next steps," he said.

The Palestinians turned to the General Assembly after the United States announced it would veto their bid last fall for full U.N. membership until there is a peace deal with Israel. Abbas made clear that this remains the Palestinians' ultimate goal — hopefully soon.

The vote grants the Palestinians the same status at the U.N. as the Vatican, and they will keep their seat next to the Holy See in the assembly chamber.

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Associated Press writers Michael Astor and Peter Spielmann at the United Nations, Haitham Hamad and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, Robert Burns and Bradley Klapper in Washington and Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Rapper PSY wants Tom Cruise to go ‘Gangnam Style’

BANGKOK (AP) — The South Korean rapper behind YouTube’s most-viewed video ever has set what might be a “Mission: Impossible” for himself.

Asked which celebrity he would like to see go “Gangnam Style,” the singer PSY told The Associated Press: “Tom Cruise!”

Surrounded by screaming fans, he then chuckled at the idea of the American movie star doing his now famous horse-riding dance.

PSY’s comments Wednesday in Bangkok were his first public remarks since his viral smash video — with 838 million views — surpassed Justin Bieber‘s “Baby,” which until Saturday held the record with 803 million views.

“It’s amazing,” PSY told a news conference, saying he never set out to become an international star. “I made this video just for Korea, actually. And when I released this song — wow.”

The video has spawned hundreds of parodies and tribute videos and earned him a spotlight alongside a variety of superstars.

Earlier this month, Madonna invited PSY onstage and they danced to his song at one of her New York City concerts. MC Hammer introduced the Korean star at the American Music Awards as, “My Homeboy PSY!”

Even President Barack Obama is talking about him. Asked on Election Day if he could do the dance, Obama replied: “I think I can do that move,” but then concluded he might “do it privately for Michelle,” the first lady.

PSY was in Thailand to give a free concert Wednesday night organized as a tribute to the country’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 85 next month. He paid respects to the king at a Bangkok shopping mall, signing his name in an autograph book placed beside a giant poster of the king. He then gave an outdoor press conference, as screaming fans nearby performed the pop star’s dance.

Determined not to be a one-hit wonder, PSY said he plans to release a worldwide album in March with dance moves that he thinks his international fans will like.

“I think I have plenty of dance moves left,” he said, in his trademark sunglasses and dark suit. “But I’m really concerned about the (next) music video.”

“How can I beat ‘Gangnam Style’?” he asked, smiling. “How can I beat 850 million views?”

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Associated Press writer Thanyarat Doksone contributed to this report.

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Obama takes “fiscal cliff” battle to Twitter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama opened a new front on Wednesday in the battle between Democrats and Republicans over the best way to avoid the year-end “fiscal cliff” – Twitter.

The web-savvy Obama administration launched a social media campaign that asks Twitter users to add the “#my2k” hashtag to messages with examples of what $ 2,000 means to them.

The amount is roughly what a middle-class family of four would have to pay extra in taxes next year if Congress cannot strike a deal to remove the threat of roughly $ 600 billion in tax hikes and federal spending cuts.

The fast-paced social networking site known for its zippy 140-character comments is a tried-and-true method of reaching Americans. The latest call for such searchable references is an effort to pressure Congress into finding compromise on long-held partisan views.

Obama announced the new Twitter hashtag campaign at a news conference on Wednesday. He and fellow Democrats, who oppose significant cuts to U.S. “entitlement” programs such as Medicare as a way of balancing the budget, have been trying to break Republican opposition to hiking taxes on anyone, including the wealthy.

Promotions of “#my2k” quickly went out to millions of followers of the White House Twitter account and scores of Democratic backers, including former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Soon, “my2k” was a top-trending subject.

“#My2K means food for a year, the remainder of my student loan paid off or a full month of child care. $ 2200 can make or break a family,” wrote Twitter user Katrina Burchett.

In the anarchic spirit of social media, Republicans, who also polished their Twitter hashtag skills during the bitter 2012 presidential campaign, pounced quickly.

The conservative Heritage Foundation bought the promotional tweet that pops up at the top of the list if one searches for “#my2k” mentions, where the think tank offered its own take on solutions to the fiscal cliff.

House Speaker John Boehner and scores of fellow Republican lawmakers started sharing examples they hoped would put the blame for the lack of a resolution on the Democrats.

“We in the House took steps this summer to avert #fiscalcliff and stop #my2K tax hikes,” wrote Representative Mike Turner. “It’s time for @whitehouse and @SenateDems to act.”

‘BEING AWARE OF WHAT’S GOING ON’

Users on Twitter can sign up to follow one another’s messages, making searchable hashtags a helpful way to sort by subject or theme.

Marcus Messner, who studies social media at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Twitter was a perfect environment to reignite Obama’s base swiftly and gauge public engagement on the issue.

The Obama administration has used Twitter hashtags as part of lobbying campaigns to keep student loan rates low with #dontdoublemyrate and to extend payroll tax cuts with #40dollars, which was their estimate of how much the cuts saved an average family each year.

White House Social Media Director Macon Phillips later called the $ 40dollars hashtag “one of the most significant campaigns we ran on Twitter.”

“It’s about being aware of what’s going on and understanding that in the age of social media, you’re just a participant,” he told an Entrepreneur.com blogger in February. “It’s not something that you can control.”

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

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