'Harry Potter' Faces Final Shot At MTV Movie Awards Glory

'Deathly Hallows, Part 2,' with six nominations, is up against 'Twilight' and 'Hunger Games' for Movie of the Year.
By Josh Wigler

Daniel Radcliffe in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2"
Photo: Warner Bros.

"The Boy Who Lived, come to thrive?" That could well be the case at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards.

Just as Harry Potter bravely walked through the Forbidden Forest to meet his maker at Voldemort's hands, so too does Team Potter approach its final chance at Golden Popcorn glory come the June 3 broadcast. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," the eighth and last film in the Warner Bros. fantasy series, has scored six nominations, including nods for Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, a Best Kiss nomination for Watson and Rupert Grint, and a coveted shot at Movie of the Year.

Will this be the year "Potter" finally brings that top award home? With a big target out of the way, it just might be.

For years at the Movie Awards, magic has succumbed to bloodsucking in the battle between "Potter" and "Twilight." But with "Breaking Dawn - Part 1" netting only two nominations this year — one for Movie of the Year, another for Best Kiss — the path is considerably clearer for the boy wizard and his companions to make a run at the six awards for which it's nominated. With a reduced "Twilight" presence at this year's show, perhaps the odds are in Harry's favor, to borrow a phrase from another fan-backed franchise.

Then again, besting that franchise — "The Hunger Games," if you're one of two people who didn't catch the reference — could prove trickier than destroying one of He Who Must Not Be Named's Horcruxes for "Potter" fans. Breaking past $600 million at the global box office, "Hunger Games" brings both commercial and critical firepower to this particular race, leading the Movie Awards nominations with eight.

The Jennifer Lawrence-led film managed second place during the MTV Movie Brawl 2012, scoring 1.7 million votes. "Potter" wasn't eligible for that competition, of course, but it's no slouch in the tournament department: Last year, netted more than 7 million votes all told.

Clearly, there are a lot of fans of both franchises, and there's a strong case to be made for both series. For "Potter," it's the end of an era, the last hoorah in one of the most celebrated fantasy stories of all time. For "Hunger Games," it's the beginning of something fantastic and new, an occasion worth honoring.

Will the passion behind the "Potter" finale surpass the passion behind the "Hunger Games" debut, or vice versa? Will the two cancel each other out, leaving the way for a surprise first-place finish from the twice-nominated "Breaking Dawn," the comedy smash "Bridesmaids" or the Oscar-nominated "The Help"?

Whether or not "Potter" trumps "Hunger Games," "Twilight" or any one of its other many rivals is a matter that won't be resolved today. For now, here's what we do know: This is the last opportunity for "Potter" fans to make magic happen at the MTV Movie Awards. If ever there was a time to cast "Accio Golden Popcorn!" that time is certainly now.

Head over to MovieAwards.MTV.com to vote for your favorite flicks now! The 21st annual MTV Movie Awards air live Sunday, June 3, at 9 p.m. ET.

How will "Harry Potter" fare at the MTV Movie Awards? Share your predictions below!

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Secret Service closes ranks in sordid scandal

FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 file photo, Secret Service agents stand guard as President Barack Obama meets with the neighbors of homeowners Jose and Lissette Bonilla in Las Vegas. The Secret Service has been tarnished by a prostitution scandal that erupted April 13, 2012 in Colombia involving 12 Secret Service agents, officers and supervisors and 12 more enlisted military personnel ahead of President Barack Obama's visit there for the Summit of the Americas. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 file photo, Secret Service agents stand guard as President Barack Obama meets with the neighbors of homeowners Jose and Lissette Bonilla in Las Vegas. The Secret Service has been tarnished by a prostitution scandal that erupted April 13, 2012 in Colombia involving 12 Secret Service agents, officers and supervisors and 12 more enlisted military personnel ahead of President Barack Obama's visit there for the Summit of the Americas. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? After two weeks of disturbing revelations about a tawdry prostitution scandal, the Secret Service and its supporters are circling the wagons to restore the "secret" part of its mission.

Retired agents have been instructed to stop talking to reporters. Secret Service agents are dismantling Facebook accounts, hanging up on reporters and notifying headquarters ? even calling police ? when journalists knock on their doors at home for interviews about the investigation.

"What purpose do these revelations, true or exaggerated, serve? What ever happened to one's pride in being discreet and keeping a confidence?" asked the president of the Association of Former Agents of the U.S. Secret Service, Pete Cavicchia, in an email to members. Cavicchia, head of a New York-based security and investigations firm, praised retired agents who declined interviews, urged others to "exercise the proper caution" and added, "We as an organization and individually do not have to add to the damage and speculation at this time."

Cavicchia said Monday that the email speaks for itself.

The scandal and what it's revealed about the culture inside the Secret Service have been a shock to an agency that is famously discreet. More than a dozen Secret Service agents contacted by The Associated Press have abruptly hung up or declined to return multiple messages to discuss their agency and former coworkers. One reported it to headquarters when an AP reporter visited his home in the evening; some retired officials who were interviewed quickly notified headquarters about what questions reporters were asking.

A police officer came to the Annapolis, Md., home of Greg Stokes ? one of the employees who already has lost his job in the scandal ? and directed an AP reporter to leave his property. At the home in Virginia of another employee who also lost his job, David Chaney, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office parked a patrol car ? sometimes two of them. A deputy reprimanded reporters who came to the front door.

Chaney made his Facebook account inaccessible after he was identified as one of the officers involved, but not before reporters found it. Chaney joked on the account about his work with former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while he was protecting her in 2008. The AP published a photograph it took of Chaney working in Palin's protective detail in October 2008 during a campaign rally in Carson, Calif.

A former agent, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to protect relationships with current agents, said senior officials have kept a tight rein on information about the continuing investigation about what happened in Colombia.

The silence shouldn't be surprising for an agency whose job involves keeping secrets, said Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, a former general counsel for the House Committee on Homeland Security who is now a partner with a Washington consulting firm. "It's a discreet organization. That's part of its mission," she said. "If you are dealing with the Secret Service or any type of intelligence agency you are going to see the same kind of response."

In Washington, where Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan has briefed members of Congress and President Barack Obama about the investigation, the Secret Service has issued only limited public statements since the April 12 incident, which implicated a dozen agents, officers and supervisors and 12 other U.S. military personnel in a night of heavy drinking in Cartagena, Colombia, before Obama's visit to the Summit of the Americas. Some were accused of bringing prostitutes back to their hotel rooms.

The Secret Service already has forced eight employees from their jobs and was seeking to revoke the security clearance of another employee, which would effectively force him to resign. Three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing. The military was conducting its own, separate investigation but canceled the security clearances of all 12 enlisted personnel.

A spokesman for the Secret Service, Edwin Donovan, said he was not familiar with instructions to former agents not to agree to interviews with reporters. Donovan said longstanding rules prohibit current employees from speaking with reporters unless it's authorized by supervisors or the public affairs office in Washington.

Cavicchia said the April 16 email was nothing more than a reminder to let "cooler heads" prevail when thinking about discussing the agency's inner workings or discussing current or former "protectees."

More secrets won't remain that way for long. Congressional hearings are expected to start within weeks. This week, lawmakers are expecting answers to dozens of detailed questions they submitted about the scandal. Most important, according to the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., are assurances that the women in Colombia were not associated with narcotics or terror groups or a foreign government.

___

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Sarah Breitenbach in Annapolis, Md., contributed to this report.

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap

Associated Press

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Routine Kidney Disease Screening Not Worthwhile, Experts Say

MONDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- As many as one in 10 Americans have chronic kidney disease, but most don't know it and for most it is not a problem, experts say.

However, there has been debate about whether healthy people should be screened for the condition. Now, a statement released Monday by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) says no.

"The evidence is insufficient to make a definitive recommendation about whether or not it's effective to screen healthy people for chronic kidney disease," said committee chairwoman Dr. Joy Melnikow, director of the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research at the University of California, Davis. "I was surprised how little evidence there was about screening healthy people."

There were no studies of the effectiveness of the blood or urine tests for creatinine, a marker of kidney function, in identifying who has chronic kidney disease, Melnikow said.

"In addition, we don't know if we intervene in healthy people with chronic kidney disease, if intervention would change its course," she noted.

Most chronic kidney disease is mild and asymptomatic, Melnikow said. "The rate of chronic kidney disease increases with age and, fortunately, for most people it doesn't affect them. But, in some people, it progresses to serious chronic disease, which can require dialysis," she explained.

The USPSTF statement also calls for studies on identifying and treating chronic kidney disease, she added.

"This statement only relates to screening healthy people, not to those at high risk for kidney disease such as people with diabetes or high blood pressure," Melnikow stressed.

Dr. Ajay Singh, clinical chief of the renal division and director of dialysis at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said that "the key point that the USPSTF makes is that their recommendation of not screening patients for chronic kidney disease applies to asymptomatic patients without risk factors."

The statement does acknowledge that there is evidence to support screening of high-risk groups, Singh added.

"The real message is that, sadly, we have only a limited toolbox of interventions to prevent progression of kidney disease once we identify someone with chronic kidney disease. Yes, we can debate who should or should not be screened, but what we really need are better interventions," Singh said.

Another expert, Dr. David Roth, clinical director of the division of nephrology and hypertension at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, added that "the evidence is not there that large-scale screening of asymptomatic patients, especially elderly patients, is going to change the outcome for that patient."

Roth agreed that people in high-risk populations, such as those with diabetes and/or high blood pressure, and blacks, should be screened.

"Kidney disease tends to be a silent disease until it's in much more advanced stages. For years, one can have kidney disease and not have a clue, and you can lose a great percentage of kidney function before it's finally picked up," Roth said.

Because most people lose kidney function with age, Roth thinks mass screening of healthy people would find a lot of kidney disease, but that would only worry people and wouldn't change their medical care.

A study published in the April 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine came to the same conclusion.

In that study, researchers said that whether screening and monitoring people in the earlier stages of the disease provides a benefit just isn't clear.

More information

For more on kidney disease, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Earnings Preview: Viacom 2Q seen up amid TV worry

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The nation's weather

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Workers demand pay hikes at Asia's May Day marches

MANILA, Philippines (AP) ? May Day moved beyond its roots as an international workers' holiday to a day of international protest Tuesday, with rallies throughout Asia demanding wage increases and marches planned across Europe over government-imposed austerity measures.

Thousands of workers protested in the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan and other Asian nations, with the demand for wage hikes amid soaring oil prices a common theme. They said their take-home pay could not keep up with rising consumer prices, while also calling for lower school fees and expressing a variety of other gripes.

In debt-crippled Greece, more than 2,000 people marched through central Athens in subdued May Day protests centered on the country's harsh austerity program. Other Europeans will also take to the streets to protest measures to cut spending that are being blamed for a big jump in the number of unemployed, particularly in Spain, where one in four people is now out of work.

In the United States, demonstrations, strikes and acts of civil disobedience are planned, including what could be the country's most high-profile Occupy rallies since the anti-Wall Street encampments came down in the fall.

Around 100,000 people in Moscow ? including President Dmitry Medvedev and president-elect Vladimir Putin ? took part in the main May Day march through the city center.

Television images showed the two leaders happily chatting with participants on the clear-and-cool spring day.

Many banners and placards criticized the Russian opposition movement that has become more prominent in Moscow over the past half-year. One read "spring has come, the swamp has dried up," referring to Bolotnaya (Swampy) Square, the site of some of the largest opposition demonstrations in recent months.

In Asia, workers demanded wage increases in peaceful but noisy protests.

In the Philippine capital, Manila, more than 8,000 members of a huge labor alliance, many clad in red shirts and waving red streamers, marched under a brutal sun for 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the heavily barricaded Mendiola bridge near the Malacanang presidential palace, which teemed with thousands of riot police, Manila police chief Alex Gutierrez said.

Another group of left-wing workers later burned a huge effigy of President Benigno Aquino III, depicting him as a lackey of the United States and big business. A few hundred workers marched to the U.S. Embassy, but were stopped by riot police about a block away. The protesters burned a mock U.S. flag and went away.

Aquino rejected their calls for a $3 daily pay hike, which he warned could worsen inflation, spark layoffs and turn away foreign investors.

Aside from pay hikes, protest leader Josua Mata from the Alliance of Progressive Labor urged Aquino to back proposed legislation against the widespread practices by businesses of contracting out certain operations to other companies to save on costs and prevent workers from organizing trade unions.

In Indonesia, thousands of protesters demanding higher wages paraded through traffic-clogged streets in the capital, Jakarta, where 16,000 police and soldiers were deployed at locations including the presidential palace and airports.

In Taiwan, several thousand anti-government protesters marched through downtown Taipei, demanding higher wages, lower school tuition and better conditions for foreign workers. Workers waving the Thai flag rallied in Bangkok for better pay.

"It is always the case that low-income groups across Asia feel a disproportionately larger impact of rising prices," said Wai Ho Leong, a Singapore-based economist with Barclays Capital. "Coupled with rising inflation expectations, the case is building to do more for lower income (workers). Minimum wages are one way."

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, some 500 people rallied, calling for a higher minimum wage than the one announced Monday by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Najib's plan for the country's first-ever minimum wage calls for minimum monthly pay of 900 ringgit ($297) for private-sector workers in peninsular Malaysia and 800 ringgit ($264) in two poor eastern states. The move is expected to benefit 3.2 million low-income workers, who account for about a third of the country's workforce.

The protesters marched from a market to the headquarters of Maybank, the nation's largest bank, calling for a minimum monthly wage of 1,500 ringgit ($496) a month.

In Hong Kong, more than 1,000 joined a protest march to demand that the city's minimum wage, which was introduced exactly a year ago, be raised to 33 Hong Kong dollars ($4.25) per hour from HK$28 ($3.60), according to local broadcaster RTHK. They also want the government of the southern Chinese financial hub to implement a 44-hour work week.

In nearby Macau, about 500 people marched for workers' rights and full democracy in the legislature, the broadcaster said.

___

Associated Press writers Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong, Peter Enav in Taipei, Taiwan, Jim Heintz in Moscow Nicholas Paphitis in Athens and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta contributed to this report.

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A Scientific American

My father didn?t go to college, but he was a scientist. After he died, I inherited his old copies of Scientific American?dating from the 1960s to the early 2000s. My father could be a prickly man, and we were estranged when he died. His death came as a surprise to all of us because we thought he was made of more durable stuff. I?d hoped there would be time to mend things.

Soon after he died, my mother presented me with a trove of my father?s magazines, saying, ?He would have wanted you to have these.? I gasped as I thumbed through each dusty issue and recalled how my father had planted the seeds of a scientist?s curiosity in my young brain, seeds that would blossom years later when I returned to school to study for a Ph.D. in genetics.

I remembered some of the covers?the gull experiment picture on the cover of the October 1967 issue, the pre-Columbian medallion on the cover of the April 1966 issue and the salmon in a water tunnel on the cover of the August 1965 issue. I recalled how each magazine would sit proudly on our coffee table until the next month?s issue arrived.

As I examined my father?s collection, I saw on each cover?recorded in his handwriting?notes about the stories that most interested him. Each note elicited a memory or revealed something new about my father. ?Holograms? he scrawled on the February 1980 cover. He and a buddy invented an aircraft trainer?the first that used holographic images he would tell me.

My father was trained in the Navy as an electronics technician. His first job after receiving his discharge papers was with AMF, the company that invented the electronic pin spotter. He mastered calculus, physics and optics on his own. Along the way he worked his way into the aerospace industry. Eventually he became a licensed engineer and by the end of his career his business card said ?Senior Project Scientist?.

My father?s favorite section of Scientific American was ?The Amateur Scientist?. ?Seismomoter? [sic] he wrote on the cover of the September 1975 issue. Inside at page 183 was the design for a seismometer, which my father might have used to build the ?earthquake detector? in the backyard of his Southern California home.

Notes about lasers appeared on the covers of a number of issues. In our living room for many years sat what he called his ?laser?. I never saw a demonstration, but I have no doubt that it worked. When he died, my father had over a dozen patents in his name and the name of whatever company he worked for at the time each invention was conceived.

Some of the notes were cryptic: ?Lemon meringue pie?, ?Judo?, ?Sailing?, ?Hang gliding?. The pie was probably a reference to my father?s favorite desert, which my mother often baked. Were the other notes about dreams unfulfilled? I will never know now, but when I pick up one of the brittle magazines, I can imagine how excited he must have felt when a new, shiny issue of Scientific American arrived in the mail.

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