Constance Marie Blogs: I Confess - I Was Anti-Princess

Look who’s back! We’re thrilled to say hello again to Constance Marie, our original celebrity blogger!

The actress, mom to daughter Luna Marie, 4 on Tuesday, with fiancé Kent Katich, stars on Switched at Birth, airing Mondays at 8 p.m. ABC Family.

She’s also one of the celebrity voices narrating beloved children’s stories for Little Golden Records, available now at Walmart.

Marie, 47, can also be found online on Facebook and @goconstance on Twitter. If you’ve missed any of her past posts, check them out here.

In her latest blog, the actress explains why she decided to drop her anti-princess stance and accept it instead.

Getting lippy with my girl – Courtesy Constance Marie

Oftentimes, my blogs start with a confession. This one is no different. My name is Constance Marie and I am anti-princess.

That’s right, I said it. I am anti-princess. Well, I guess the more correct statement would be: I was anti-princess.

And here is my reasoning: Many of the old princess stories emphasize beauty, wardrobe and much too much emphasis on how you look on the outside! To me, this was a recipe for shallow thinking and way too many opportunities for me to squander my money on accessories.

So when Luna Marie was young, I thought, “I am not having any of that!” I was a tomboy as a child! I much wanted my daughter to be a scrapper and not so dainty.

But then I was snapped back to reality. I realized my daughter did not live in a bubble. She wasn’t so little anymore and she heard princess stories EVERYWHERE!!! All her friends, all the kids from school … everyone had dress-up clothes, tiaras, wands, plastic shoes, stickers and books.

Like I said — EVERY-frickin-where!!! It was like a princess avalanche that I could not stop, no matter how much I tried to avoid it. Oh yes. It was a losing battle … I did not stand a chance.

So, I set myself down and had a good think. I mean, all her friends were on the princess train. I didn’t want my daughter to feel left out. We’re not Amish for gosh sakes! So I sucked it up and started with one princess dress. Then of course, I saw another one in a different color. And then there was this sparkly one that was SO cute!

It was as if I had been bitten by the princess bug too! I thought to myself, “Okay, I’ll just dabble a little. Not too much princess. I’ll balance it with a little bit of doctor dress-up and superhero dress-up. I even succeeded in distracting her with a Wonder Woman outfit — ka-pow! I was so impressed with myself! At least for a little while.

My little Wonder Woman – Courtesy Constance Marie

Then … it happened. We were invited to a party and lo and behold, it was — you guessed it — a princess-themed party. With a real, live, human princess dressed in all the sparkle and flowery regalia that they wear! My daughter and I were done for. Seriously, she walked around like a dazed zombie just staring at this princess, adoring her from afar because she was too shy to go up close. Princesses 1, Mama 0.

Once again I sat down and had a good think. I realized this anti-princess battle was not going to be won by me.

FYI — I don’t take losing very well. I was a tomboy, remember — a scrapper. In all honesty, I loved to win! These princesses were not going to take me down! At least not without a proper battle.

I may have not be able to avoid this princess vortex, but I was going to find a way to spin this princess thing to my advantage — even if I had to choke down a tiara or two.

After many hours of analyzing my options, I realized most often the princesses started in non-fancy clothes, had to deal with a lot of adversity, and in the end they always came out on top. They may not have looked like princesses on the outside, but inside their behavior was totally princess-like.

Ha ha, I said to myself. I have my hook! Being a princess is all about how you behave and how you are on the INSIDE! I mean they weren’t all bad … most often them have a positive attitude. They are kind to animals. They are brave. They work hard. They tolerate adversity pretty well. And they have excellent manners! So I decided to teach my daughter that being a princess was more than what you wear or how you look.

I forgot to mention that this princess thing happened at around age 3.5. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we never got the terrible twos, but we got HIT by the terrible threes!

As luck would have it, I found a book called Polite as a Princess. It was perfect. Every parent’s dream! It had all the well-known princesses and it talked about how they had manners. They said, “Please” and “Thank you,” they didn’t interrupt, they shared — yada yada yada. The terrible threes were about to be over! (Insert diabolical laughter here).

Reading with wings – Courtesy Constance Marie

As parents, we have to use every tool that we can find, right?! We’re way older and don’t have as much stamina as they do!

So I implemented my plan. If I couldn’t fight the princesses, I was going to use them to help squash the terrible threes.

I read this book to my daughter at every opportunity. At the dinner table, in the car, before bed, potty time. She (and I) had it memorized. NOW I was ready to do battle!

At any time there was behavior that was basically driving me insane — behavior that I had tried to correct like 300 times before, but to no avail — I could quote the princess book. “Does Snow White get up in the middle of a meal?” “Is Ariel good at sharing?” etc.

This line of questioning would stop my daughter in her tracks. Luna Marie wanted NOTHING MORE than to be like a princess! She would look at me stunned/tortured as if I had some kind of special power.

And like a brainwashed little soldier, she immediately behaved like a proper princess. She would sit still,, she would use her napkin,, she would share. It was amazing! I was almost drunk with power!!! Princess 1 – Mama 47!

I know … it does sound a little “evil step mother-y” but come on, a mama’s gotta do what a mama’s gotta do.

So now, when we are out getting our playdate on, or somewhere in public, strangers often compliment me on my daughter’s manners. To which I look at them, and say a polite princess, “Thank you” and then with a little twinkle in my eye I say, “Let me tell you about my philosophy, but more importantly this book!”

Meeting a princess in person – Courtesy Constance Marie

The parent’s response? “I REALLY gotta go get that book!”

So now, I’m just trying to pay it forward. Sadly, word on the street is that there is no boy equivalent for this book, like Polite as a Prince or Polite as a Pirate — wait, that last one doesn’t make sense.

Anyhoo, maybe some day there will be! Till then, Stay strong Mommies and Daddies!

– Constance Marie

More from Constance’s PEOPLE.com blog series:

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Parole Board urges Brown to release former Charles Manson follower

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California's governor has been asked to make the final decision on whether a former Charles Manson follower will be released on parole after serving more than 40 years in prison.

The state's Board of Parole Hearings submitted to Gov. Jerry Brown its recommendation that Bruce Davis is suitable for parole.

The 70-year-old Davis was convicted with cult leader Manson and another man in the killings of a musician and a stuntman. He was not involved in the infamous Sharon Tate murders.

California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton says the board had until Monday to deliver legal documents to Brown, but they submitted the package Friday.

Brown has up to 30 days to act on the parole decision. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a previous parole recommendation for Davis.

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The Lede Blog: Two Iranian Space Monkeys Got Confused, an Official Says

A senior official at Iran’s space agency confirmed on Saturday that state media reports on the launching of a monkey into the thermosphere had used images of two different monkeys. The official insisted, however, that the monkey had survived the journey and that Iran was not trying to cover up a failed flight.

As The Lede explained on Friday, doubts about Iran’s claim that the monkey had survived the journey spread after journalists noticed that the monkey pictured in the first reports from state-run news organizations had a prominent mole over its right eye, before the launch, but had clear skin when it showed up at postflight celebrations broadcast on Iranian television the next day.

Video from Iranian television of the monkey that Iran says it launched into space.

The space agency official, Mohammad Ebrahimi, told The Associated Press in Tehran that the first images provided to Iran’s official news outlets to illustrate their reports had mistakenly shown another of the five monkeys that trained for the flight at the space agency — the one with the mole — and not the one that had actually taken part.

A report from Press TV, Iran’s English-language satellite news channel, broadcast on Monday used the still images of the first monkey.

A report on simian space travel broadcast on Monday on Press TV, Iran’s state-run news channel.

The second monkey was featured in a Press TV report broadcast on Tuesday.

A report on Iran’s space monkey broadcast on Tuesday by Press TV.

In his interview with The A.P., Mr. Ebrahimi insisted that the monkey that had made the flight was in good health and said that of several monkeys that had been trained for the flight, the one that seems least stressed for the journey had been chosen at the last moment. One of the photographs of the monkey with the mole over its eye did appear to show the monkey in distress while strapped into a launch seat.

The space agency did not, apparently, offer to disprove rumors that one of the monkeys had died by showing them both to the A.P. reporter on Saturday.

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BlackBerry Z10 Smartphone Already Going for $1,500 on eBay

The new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone won’t be out for weeks, but you can already get your hands on it via eBay for about $ 1,500.

BlackBerry — the company formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM) — announced the new smartphone at an event earlier this week and handed out samples to guests and members of the press in attendance. It didn’t take long for the Z10, which could potentially turn around the struggling company, to pop up on eBay.

[More from Mashable: BlackBerry’s Secret Weapon: Women]

One page notes “this particular device was given to all attendees of the Jan. 30, 2013 product launch.”

[More from Mashable: Don’t Hold Your Breath for More BlackBerry Tablets]

BlackBerry didn’t tell attendees what they can or can’t do with the device, which comes unlocked, according to the listing, and without a SIM card.

Four units are currently being sold on eBay, with bids starting at $ 800 and rising quickly. The auction for the one going for $ 1,500, which has eight bids so far, will end this afternoon.

Images by Mashable and via eBay, eBay

Click here to view the gallery: BlackBerry Z10 Review

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Jennifer Hudson & Alicia Keys Deliver Powerful Super Bowl Performances

By Maggie Coughlan

02/03/2013 at 06:45 PM EST

And Super Bowl XLVII begins. Minutes before kickoff, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys took to the field to deliver powerful performances of their own.

Accompanied by a children's chorus from Sandy Hook elementary school, Hudson sang "America the Beautiful." Then, Keys belted out her rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" while playing piano.

With Beyoncé's halftime show just a few plays away, the big game seems more like a concert than a football game.

Tell us in the comments which songstress stole your heart.

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

___

Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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Anonymous artist makes Oakland his gnome town

OAKLAND — This is a story about Oakland.

It has nothing to do with crime, or the rivalry with its flashier sister city across the bay. It's not even about medical marijuana.

This is about gnomes. Gnomes and community.

More than a year ago, a mysterious man wanted to do something nice for his neighbors near Lake Merritt. So he got some small wooden blocks, about 6 inches tall, and painted the fanciful creatures on them. Then he screwed them to wooden utility poles, at sidewalk level.

Some people took notice — the ones who looked down or were close to the ground (i.e., children).

Wonder ensued.

Oaklander David Colburn blogged about the beings, saying they "offer yet another occasion for pointing out how much we miss if all our transit time is spent inside a car."

Emily Colter, of fairyroom.com, observed that gnomes close to the lake wore pants, while those up the hill donned kilts. "The gnomes of Oakland's higher elevations are plainly Highlanders," she wrote last summer.

About 2,300 gnomes with pointy hats and white beards now live in Oakland. One resembles Santa Claus in a monk's robe. Others wave or appear to be doing a little disco dance.

Yet until late last month, they had pretty much managed to keep their presence on the down low. Even Pacific Gas & Electric, whose poles are gnome homes, was unaware of their existence.

Then San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carolyn Jones blew their cover. PG&E spokesman Jason King said he had never noticed them, although he jogs around the lake. Sticking to the company playbook, he told her a crew would be dispatched to remove them.

His exact words: "We can't have anything that would compromise the integrity of our equipment. The concern is that the gnomes could inspire additional people to place things on our property."

A "Save the Lake Merritt Gnomes" Facebook page popped up. Calls poured in. The Twittersphere exploded. Negotiations ensued.

"We saw an opportunity," King said, a gag gift of a foot-tall garden gnome on his desk. "Oakland is such a cool, quirky city.... We were trying to find a way to keep them part of the neighborhood."

A summit with the gnomes' creator took place Tuesday in "a secret mushroom patch in the rose garden near City Hall," said Zac Wald, chief of staff to Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney.

(The artist, whom King described as a "dear man," has insisted on anonymity, saying he was just trying to do something to make residents happy and didn't want the focus to shift to him.)

Wald said the city wants to "keep the gnomes in their existing homes." King said PG&E is open to that, but also hopes residents can come up with gentle ways to relocate them. They could be moved to fence posts, for example, or affixed to benches. Suggestions can be submitted via Facebook or Twitter: #savethegnomes.

For now, "we've declared the poles 'gnome man's land,'" King said.

In a community known for its grass-roots art scene, the phenomenon and the man behind it have been widely embraced.

The artist is cranking out 100 gnomes a week "out of nothing more than love for the positive impact he's having on the community," Wald said. "And I think there are a lot of people working every day for nothing but the love of Oakland and Oaklanders. They are all to be commended.""

Staffers at Fairyland, a storybook theme park that opened in 1950 on the shores of Lake Merritt, are gleeful. The park's credos: no straight lines, and a surprise around every corner.

The gnomes embody the latter.

Shannon Taylor, Fairyland's director of arts and restoration, had designed tiny wooden doors to place around the outside of the park even before she came across the gnomes. Now their creator has been invited to place some of the little guys inside the gates.

"We'll have our little doors, and our little gnomes," said Fairyland's executive director, C.J. Hirschfield.

Despite all the recent publicity, some residents in solid gnome territory are surprisingly oblivious to them. One young man in a baseball cap lowered his sunglasses and stared in confusion when his attention was directed downward.

Others hold them dear. Fernando Sanchez, a DJ who wheels an amp around town playing music for strangers, noticed the gnomes as soon as they appeared and has tracked their outfits of varying colors and styles.

"I really love them," he said. "Someone took the time to touch people. Oakland is that way. … Underground .… Equalizing."

lee.romney@latimes.com

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Egypt’s Government Apologizes After a Beating Is Televised

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

A funeral protest on Saturday in Cairo for Mohammed Hussein Korani, 23, who died Friday night in clashes with the police. More Photos »

CAIRO — Egypt’s interior minister offered a rare apology on Saturday after officers under his command were seen on television beating a naked man two blocks from the presidential palace. But under what his family said was police coercion, the victim, Hamada Saber, said in an interview later that the officers had been helping rather than attacking him.

The spectacle of the beating quickly revived fury at Egypt’s police force, whose record of brutality helped set off the revolt against Hosni Mubarak, the former president, and served as a reminder that nearly two years later, the new president, Mohamed Morsi, had taken few steps to reform the police.

Mr. Morsi’s office issued a statement saying it was “pained by the shocking footage.”

More than 50 people have been killed over the last 10 days in fighting in several Egyptian cities, in some of the worst violence since the fall of Mr. Mubarak in 2011. The beating of Mr. Saber has provoked a different kind of outrage, crystallizing for many the collapse of order and civility that has derailed Egypt’s transition from its authoritarian past.

In the shifting versions of the attack given on Saturday, it was hard to know exactly what happened.

In video images, a group of riot police officers are heard cursing at Mr. Saber on Friday night as they beat him on the ground and drag him across a street to an armored vehicle. A witness, Mai Sirry, said that when she saw Mr. Saber, his pants were around his knees. In its initial statement, the Interior Ministry said it regretted the beating and called it an “individual attack” that did not reflect police doctrine.

Later, though, in a television interview, Mr. Saber gave an account of the beating from his hospital bed in which he said the officers had come to help as he was running from a group of protesters who had stripped and robbed him. They had apparently thought he was an officer, he said, and left him alone after deciding he was “just an old man.”

“I was afraid,” he said, adding that as he ran away from the protesters, officers came to help. He ran from them too, but they pulled him back, he said, telling him he would die if he did not let them help him.

A woman who identified herself as Mr. Saber’s daughter Randa, speaking Saturday on another Egyptian channel, said her father was being prompted to lie during the interview and was “afraid to talk.”

“We were with him” when he was attacked on Friday, she said. “They took his clothes off and started kicking him, beating him,” she said, referring to the police. “They dragged him and put him in the car. All this happened. What he says are lies.”

Speaking to local news media on Saturday, the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, said that after Mr. Saber was released from the hospital, he would invite him to the ministry’s offices to offer his apologies. He repeated Mr. Saber’s account, though he still acknowledged that the officers’ conduct was “excessive” and said he had ordered an investigation.

The latest violence deepened the sense of crisis in Egypt, and it undermined efforts by the country’s quarreling political forces to settle their differences. After the clashes, supporters and opponents of President Morsi blamed each other.

On Saturday, just days after leaders of a secular-leaning opposition coalition sat down at a rare meeting with representatives of Mr. Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, the opposition group released a statement saying it was “aligned” with those who want “to topple the regime of tyranny, and domination of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In Tahrir Square early on Saturday morning, Mr. Morsi’s prime minister, Hesham Qandil, bore the brunt of the antigovernment anger. He was forced to cut short his visit to protest tents in the square after he was heckled, according to state media. His office said Mr. Qandil left to avoid creating a “pretext” for violence.

In a speech later in the day, the prime minister acknowledged the widespread perception that both the government and opposition were losing control. “Let us admit that the government, all the political forces, all the parties failed in containing the youth,” he said. “This is something that we all have to work on.”

At least one person was killed in the clashes on Friday, which broke up what had been a peaceful afternoon sit-in, when a small group of protesters, some wearing masks, tried to ram the gates of the presidential palace, according to video of the episode.

David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting.

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Sony likely to unveil next PlayStation on Feb. 20

NEW YORK (AP) — Sony is poised to unveil the next PlayStation game console on Feb. 20, a date that would give the Japanese electronics company a head start over Microsoft‘s expected announcement of an Xbox 360 successor in June.

Sony Corp. invited journalists to an evening press event in New York City. The company has not said what it plans to show off, but signs indicate that it’ll be the PlayStation 4. Sony would only say that it “will deliver and speak about the future PlayStation business.”

Such a console would follow Nintendo‘s Wii U, which launched last fall, and precede Microsoft Corp.‘s next Xbox game console, which will likely be unveiled in June at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said it’s a “super smart” move for Sony to pre-empt Microsoft. This way, the PlayStation 4 will get the spotlight without much competition.

The currently available PlayStation 3 went on sale in 2006, a year after the Xbox 360. But Xbox 360 has been more popular, largely because of its robust online service, Xbox Live, which allows people to play games with others online. The Wii is still the top seller among the three consoles, though it has lost momentum in recent years.

The Wii U was the first of the newest generation of video game consoles to launch, but sales so far have been disappointing. Nintendo Co.’s president, Satoru Iwata, acknowledged recently that the Wii U and the handheld Nintendo 3Ds didn’t do well over the holidays, but he ruled out a price cut for the new console.

All three console makers are trying to position their devices as entertainment hubs that go beyond games as they try to stay relevant in the age of smartphones and tablet computers. Such hubs can deliver TV shows, movies and music. The Wii U has a TV-watching feature called TVii. With it, the console’s touch-screen GamePad controller becomes a remote control for your TV and set-top box. TVii groups your favorite shows and sports events together, whether it’s on live TV or an Internet video service such as Hulu Plus. And it offers water-cooler moments you can chat about on social media.

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