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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football

WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.

Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid policy can face a team whose players have repeatedly tested positive.

An investigation by The Associated Press — based on dozens of interviews with players, testers, dealers and experts and an analysis of weight records for more than 61,000 players — revealed that while those running the multibillion-dollar sport believe the problem is under control, that is hardly the case.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.

___

The sport’s near-zero rate of positive steroids tests isn’t an accurate gauge among college athletes. Random tests provide weak deterrence and, by design, fail to catch every player using steroids. Colleges also are reluctant to spend money on expensive steroid testing when cheaper ones for drugs like marijuana allow them to say they’re doing everything they can to keep drugs out of football.

“It’s nothing like what’s going on in reality,” said Don Catlin, an anti-doping pioneer who spent years conducting the NCAA‘s laboratory tests at UCLA. He became so frustrated with the college system that it drove him in part to leave the testing industry to focus on anti-doping research.

Catlin said the collegiate system, in which players often are notified days before a test and many schools don’t even test for steroids, is designed to not catch dopers. That artificially reduces the numbers of positive tests and keeps schools safe from embarrassing drug scandals.

While other major sports have been beset by revelations of steroid use, college football has operated with barely a whiff of scandal. Between 1996 and 2010 — the era of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong — the failure rate for NCAA steroid tests fell even closer to zero from an already low rate of less than 1 percent.

The AP’s investigation, drawing upon more than a decade of official rosters from all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, found thousands of players quickly putting on significant weight, even more than their fellow players. The information compiled by the AP included players who appeared for multiple years on the same teams, making it the most comprehensive data available.

For decades, scientific studies have shown that anabolic steroid use leads to an increase in body weight. Weight gain alone doesn’t prove steroid use, but very rapid weight gain is one factor that would be deemed suspicious, said Kathy Turpin, senior director of sport drug testing for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, which conducts tests for the NCAA and more than 300 schools.

Yet the NCAA has never studied weight gain or considered it in regard to its steroid testing policies, said Mary Wilfert, the NCAA’s associate director of health and safety. She would not speculate on the cause of such rapid weight gain.

The NCAA attributes the decline in positive tests to its year-round drug testing program, combined with anti-drug education and testing conducted by schools.

“The effort has been increasing, and we believe it has driven down use,” Wilfert said.

Big gains, data show

The AP’s analysis found that, regardless of school, conference and won-loss record, many players gained weight at exceptional rates compared with their fellow athletes and while accounting for their heights. The documented weight gains could not be explained by the amount of money schools spent on weight rooms, trainers and other football expenses.

Adding more than 20 or 25 pounds of lean muscle in a year is nearly impossible through diet and exercise alone, said Dan Benardot, director of the Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State University.

The AP’s analysis corrected for the fact that players in different positions have different body types, so speedy wide receivers weren’t compared to bulkier offensive tackles. It could not assess each player’s physical makeup, such as how much weight gain was muscle versus fat, one indicator of steroid use. In the most extreme case in the AP analysis, the probability that a player put on so much weight compared with other players was so rare that the odds statistically were roughly the same as an NFL quarterback throwing 12 passing touchdowns or an NFL running back rushing for 600 yards in one game.

In nearly all the rarest cases of weight gain in the AP study, players were offensive or defensive linemen, hulking giants who tower above 6-foot-3 and weigh 300 pounds or more. Four of those players interviewed by the AP said that they never used steroids and gained weight through dramatic increases in eating, up to six meals a day. Two said they were aware of other players using steroids.

“I just ate. I ate 5-6 times a day,” said Clint Oldenburg, who played for Colorado State starting in 2002 and for five years in the NFL. Oldenburg’s weight increased over four years from 212 to 290, including a one-year gain of 53 pounds, which he attributed to diet and two hours of weight lifting daily. “It wasn’t as difficult as you think. I just ate anything.”

Oldenburg told the AP he was surprised at the scope of steroid use in college football, even in Colorado State’s locker room. “College performance enhancers were more prevalent than I thought,” he said. “There were a lot of guys even on my team that were using.” He declined to identify any of them.

The AP found more than 4,700 players — or about 7 percent of all players — who gained more than 20 pounds overall in a single year. It was common for the athletes to gain 10, 15 and up to 20 pounds in their first year under a rigorous regimen of weightlifting and diet. Others gained 25, 35 and 40 pounds in a season. In roughly 100 cases, players packed on as much 80 pounds in a single year.

In at least 11 instances, players that AP identified as packing on significant weight in college went on to fail NFL drug tests. But pro football’s confidentiality rules make it impossible to know for certain which drugs were used and how many others failed tests that never became public.

What is bubbling under the surface in college football, which helps elite athletes gain unusual amounts of weight? Without access to detailed information about each player’s body composition, drug testing and workout regimen, which schools do not release, it’s impossible to say with certainty what’s behind the trend. But Catlin has little doubt: It is steroids.

“It’s not brain surgery to figure out what’s going on,” he said. “To me, it’s very clear.”

Football’s most infamous steroid user was Lyle Alzado, who became a star NFL defensive end in the 1970s and ’80s before he admitted to juicing his entire career. He started in college, where the 190-pound freshman gained 40 pounds in one year. It was a 21 percent jump in body mass, a tremendous gain that far exceeded what researchers have seen in controlled, short-term studies of steroid use by athletes. Alzado died of brain cancer in 1992.

The AP found more than 130 big-time college football players who showed comparable one-year gains in the past decade. Students posted such extraordinary weight gains across the country, in every conference, in nearly every school. Many of them eclipsed Alzado and gained 25, 35, even 40 percent of their body mass.

Even though testers consider rapid weight gain suspicious, in practice it doesn’t result in testing. Ben Lamaak, who arrived at Iowa State in 2006, said he weighed 225 pounds in high school and 262 pounds in the summer of his freshman year on the Cyclones football team. A year later, official rosters showed the former basketball player from Cedar Rapids weighed 306, a gain of 81 pounds since high school. He graduated as a 320-pound offensive lineman and said he did it all naturally.

“I was just a young kid at that time, and I was still growing into my body,” he said. “It really wasn’t that hard for me to gain the weight. I had fun doing it. I love to eat. It wasn’t a problem.”

In addition to random drug testing, Iowa State is one of many schools that have “reasonable suspicion” testing. That means players can be tested when their behavior or physical symptoms suggest drug use.

Despite gaining 81 pounds in a year, Lamaak said he was never singled out for testing.

The associate athletics director for athletic training at Iowa State, Mark Coberley, said coaches and trainers use body composition, strength data and other factors to spot suspected cheaters. Lamaak, he said, was not suspicious because he gained a lot of “non-lean” weight.

“There are a lot of things that go into trying to identify whether guys are using performance-enhancing drugs,” Coberley said. “If anybody had the answer, they’d be spotting people that do it. We keep our radar up and watch for things that are suspicious and try to protect the kids from making stupid decisions.”

There’s no evidence that Lamaak’s weight gain was anything but natural. Gaining fat is much easier than gaining muscle. But colleges don’t routinely release information on how much of the weight their players gain is muscle, as opposed to fat. Without knowing more, said Benardot, the expert at Georgia State, it’s impossible to say whether large athletes were putting on suspicious amounts of muscle or simply obese, which is defined as a body mass index greater than 30.

Looking solely at the most significant weight gainers also ignores players like Bryan Maneafaiga.

In the summer of 2004, Maneafaiga was an undersized 180-pound running back trying to make the University of Hawaii football team. Twice — once in pre-season and once in the fall — he failed school drug tests, showing up positive for marijuana use. What surprised him was that the same tests turned up negative for steroids.

He’d started injecting stanozolol, a steroid, in the summer to help bulk up to a roster weight of 200 pounds. Once on the team, where he saw only limited playing time, he’d occasionally inject the milky liquid into his buttocks the day before games.

“Food and good training will only get you so far,” he told the AP recently.

Maneafaiga’s coach, June Jones, meanwhile, said none of his players had tested positive for doping since he took over the team in 1999. He also said publicly that steroids had been eliminated in college football: “I would say 100 percent,” he told The Honolulu Advertiser in 2006.

Jones said it was news to him that one of his players had used steroids. Jones, who now coaches at Southern Methodist University, said many of his former players put on bulk working hard in the weight room. For instance, adding 70 pounds over a three- to four-year period isn’t unusual, he said.

Jones said a big jump in muscle year-over-year — say 40 pounds — would be a “red light that something is not right.”

Jones, a former NFL head coach, said he is unaware of any steroid use at SMU and believes the NCAA is doing a good job testing players. “I just think because the way the NCAA regulates it now that it’s very hard to get around those tests,” he said.

The cost of testing

While the use of drugs in professional sports is a question of fairness, use among college athletes is also important as a public policy issue. That’s because most top-tier football teams are from public schools that benefit from millions of dollars each year in taxpayer subsidies. Their athletes are essentially wards of the state. Coaches and trainers — the ones who tell players how to behave, how to exercise and what to eat — are government employees.

Then there are the health risks, which include heart and liver problems and cancer.

On paper, college football has a strong drug policy. The NCAA conducts random, unannounced drug testing and the penalties for failure are severe. Players lose an entire year of eligibility after a first positive test. A second offense means permanent ineligibility from sports.

In practice, though, the NCAA’s roughly 11,000 annual tests amount to just a fraction of all athletes in Division I and II schools. Exactly how many tests are conducted each year on football players is unclear because the NCAA hasn’t published its data for two years. And when it did, it periodically changed the formats, making it impossible to compare one year of football to the next.

Even when players are tested by the NCAA, people involved in the process say it’s easy enough to anticipate the test and develop a doping routine that results in a clean test by the time it occurs. NCAA rules say players can be notified up to two days in advance of a test, which Catlin says is plenty of time to beat a test if players have designed the right doping regimen. By comparison, Olympic athletes are given no notice.

“Everybody knows when testing is coming. They all know. And they know how to beat the test,” Catlin said, adding, “Only the really dumb ones are getting caught.”

Players are far more likely to be tested for drugs by their schools than by the NCAA. But while many schools have policies that give them the right to test for steroids, they often opt not to. Schools are much more focused on street drugs like cocaine and marijuana. Depending on how many tests a school orders, each steroid test can cost $ 100 to $ 200, while a simple test for street drugs might cost as little as $ 25.

When schools call and ask about drug testing, the first question is usually, “How much will it cost,” Turpin said.

Most schools that use Drug Free Sport do not test for anabolic steroids, Turpin said. Some are worried about the cost. Others don’t think they have a problem. And others believe that since the NCAA tests for steroids their money is best spent testing for street drugs, she said.

Wilfert, the NCAA official, said the possibility of steroid testing is still a deterrent, even at schools where it isn’t conducted.

“Even though perhaps those institutional programs are not including steroids in all their tests, they could, and they do from time to time,” she said. “So, it is a kind of deterrence.”

For Catlin, one of the most frustrating things about running the UCLA testing lab was getting urine samples from schools around the country and only being asked to test for cocaine, marijuana and the like.

“Schools are very good at saying, ‘Man, we’re really strong on drug testing,’” he said. “And that’s all they really want to be able to say and to do and to promote.”

That helps explain how two school drug tests could miss Maneafaiga’s steroid use. It’s also possible that the random test came at an ideal time in Maneafaiga’s steroid cycle.

Enforcement varies

The top steroid investigator at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joe Rannazzisi, said he doesn’t understand why schools don’t invest in the same kind of testing, with the same penalties, as the NFL. The NFL has a thorough testing program for most drugs, though the league has yet to resolve a long-simmering feud with its players union about how to test for human growth hormone.

“Is it expensive? Of course, but college football makes a lot of money,” he said. “Invest in the integrity of your program.”

For a school to test all 85 scholarship football players for steroids twice a season would cost up to $ 34,000, Catlin said, plus the cost of collecting and handling the urine samples. That’s about 0.2 percent of the average big-time school football budget of about $ 14 million. Testing all athletes in all sports would make the school’s costs higher.

When schools ask Drug Free Sport for advice on their drug policies, Turpin said she recommends an immediate suspension after the first positive drug test. Otherwise, she said, “student athletes will roll the dice.”

But drug use is a bigger deal at some schools than others.

At Notre Dame and Alabama, the teams that will soon compete for the national championship, players don’t automatically miss games for testing positive for steroids. At Alabama, coaches have wide discretion. Notre Dame’s student-athlete handbook says a player who fails a test can return to the field once the steroids are out of his system.

“If you’re a strength-and-conditioning coach, if you see your kids making gains that seem a little out of line, are you going to say, ‘I’m going to investigate further? I want to catch someone?’” said Anthony Roberts, an author of a book on steroids who says he has helped college football players design steroid regimens to beat drug tests.

There are schools with tough policies. The University of North Carolina kicks players off the team after a single positive test for steroids. Auburn’s student-athlete handbook calls for a half-season suspension for any athlete caught using performance-enhancing drugs.

Wilfert said it’s not up to the NCAA to determine whether that’s fair.

“Obviously if it was our testing program, we believe that everybody should be under the same protocol and the same sanction,” she said.

Fans typically have no idea that such discrepancies exist and players are left to suspect who might be cheating.

“You see a lot of guys and you know they’re possibly on something because they just don’t gain weight but get stronger real fast,” said Orrin Thompson, a former defensive lineman at Duke. “You know they could be doing something but you really don’t know for sure.”

Thompson gained 85 pounds between 2001 and 2004, according to Duke rosters and Thompson himself. He said he did not use steroids and was subjected to several tests while at Duke, a school where a single positive steroid test results in a yearlong suspension.

Meanwhile at UCLA, home of the laboratory that for years set the standard for cutting-edge steroid testing, athletes can fail three drug tests before being suspended. At Bowling Green, testing is voluntary.

At the University of Maryland, students must get counseling after testing positive, but school officials are prohibited from disciplining first-time steroid users. Athletic department spokesman Matt Taylor denied that was the case and sent the AP a copy of the policy. But the policy Taylor sent included this provision: “The athletic department/coaching staff may not discipline a student-athlete for a first drug offense.”

By comparison, in Kentucky and Maryland, racehorses face tougher testing and sanctions than football players at Louisville or the University of Maryland.

“If you’re trying to keep a level playing field, that seems nonsensical,” said Rannazzisi at the DEA. He said he was surprised to learn that what gets a free pass at one school gets players immediately suspended at another. “What message does that send? It’s OK to cheat once or twice?”

Only about half the student athletes in a 2009 NCAA survey said they believed school testing deterred drug use.

As an association of colleges and universities, the NCAA could not unilaterally force schools to institute uniform testing policies and sanctions, Wilfert said.

“We can’t tell them what to do, but if went through a membership process where they determined that this is what should be done, then it could happen,” she said.

‘Everybody around me was doing it’

Steroids are a controlled substance under federal law, but players who use them need not worry too much about prosecution. The DEA focuses on criminal operations, not individual users. When players are caught with steroids, it’s often as part of a traffic stop or a local police investigation.

Jared Foster, 24, a quarterback recruited to play at the University of Mississippi, was kicked off the team in 2008 after local authorities arrested him for giving a man nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, according to court documents. Foster pleaded guilty and served jail time.

He told the AP that he doped in high school to impress college recruiters. He said he put on enough lean muscle to go from 185 pounds to 210 in about two months.

“Everybody around me was doing it,” he said.

Steroids are not hard to find. A simple Internet search turns up countless online sources for performance-enhancing drugs, mostly from overseas companies.

College athletes freely post messages on steroid websites, seeking advice to beat tests and design the right schedule of administering steroids.

And steroids are still a mainstay in private, local gyms. Before the DEA shut down Alabama-based Applied Pharmacy Services as a major nationwide steroid supplier, sales records obtained by the AP show steroid shipments to bodybuilders, trainers and gym owners around the country.

Because users are rarely prosecuted, the demand is left in place after the distributor is gone.

When Joshua Hodnik was making and wholesaling illegal steroids, he had found a good retail salesman in a college quarterback named Vinnie Miroth. Miroth was playing at Saginaw Valley State, a Division II school in central Michigan, and was buying enough steroids for 25 people each month, Hodnik said.

“That’s why I hired him,” Hodnik said. “He bought large amounts and knew how to move it.”

Miroth, who pleaded no contest in 2007 and admitted selling steroids, helped authorities build their case against Hodnik, according to court records. Now playing football in France, Miroth declined repeated AP requests for an interview.

Hodnik was released from prison this year and says he is out of the steroid business for good. He said there’s no doubt that steroid use is widespread in college football.

“These guys don’t start using performance-enhancing drugs when they hit the professional level,” the Oklahoma City man said. “Obviously it starts well before that. And you can go back to some of the professional players who tested positive and compare their numbers to college and there is virtually no change.”

Maneafaiga, the former Hawaii running back, said his steroids came from Mexico. A friend in California, who was a coach at a junior college, sent them through the mail. But Maneafaiga believes the consequences were nagging injuries. He found religion, quit the drugs and became the team’s chaplain.

“God gave you everything you need,” he said. “It gets in your mind. It will make you grow unnaturally. Eventually, you’ll break down. It happened to me every time.”

At the DEA, Rannazzisi said he has met with and conducted training for investigators and top officials in every professional sport. He’s talked to Major League Baseball about the patterns his agents are seeing. He’s discussed warning signs with the NFL.

He said he’s offered similar training to the NCAA but never heard back. Wilfert said the NCAA staff has discussed it and hasn’t decided what to do.

“We have very little communication with the NCAA or individual schools,” Rannazzisi said. “They’ve got my card. What they’ve done with it? I don’t know.”

___

Associated Press writers Ryan Foley in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; David Brandt in Jackson, Miss.; David Skretta in Lawrence, Kan.; Don Thompson in Sacramento, Calif.;and Alexa Olesen in Shanghai, China; and researchers Susan James in New York and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.

Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Midwest storm sparks 25-vehicle crash

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The first widespread snowstorm of the season began a slow crawl across the Midwest on Thursday, creating treacherous driving conditions that, in Iowa, led to a 25-vehicle pileup that killed one person.

Drivers were blinded by blowing snow and didn't see vehicles that had slowed or stopped on Interstate 80 about 60 miles north of Des Moines, state police said. A chain reaction of crashes involving semitrailers and passenger cars closed down a section of the highway.

Drivers throughout the Midwest were harried by heavy snow and strong winds that combined for blizzard conditions in areas from Kansas to Wisconsin. Those who planned to fly before the Christmas holiday didn't fare much better. Snow, wind and thunderstorms forced delays and cancellations at some of the nation's busiest airports, including those in Dallas and Chicago. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people lost power as heavy snow and strong winds pulled down lines.

While the snow had tapered off by sunrise in Des Moines, Iowa transportation officials had advised drivers to stay off highways until midnight, and police repeated that warning after the crash north of the city.

"It's time to listen to warnings and get off the road," said Col. David Garrison, of the Iowa State Patrol. "Iowa's highways and interstates remain in poor condition for travel."

Conditions weren't much better on city streets. Thomas Shubert, a clerk at a store in Gretna near Omaha, said his brother drove him to work in his 4-by-4 truck but that some of his neighbors weren't so fortunate.

"I saw some people in my neighborhood trying to get out. They made it a few feet, and that was about it," Shubert said. "I haven't seen many cars on the road. There are a few brave souls out, but mostly trucks and plows."

The heavy, wet snow made some unplowed streets in Des Moines nearly impossible to navigate in anything other than a four-wheel drive vehicle. Even streets that had been plowed remained snow-packed and slippery. Jackknifed semitrailers were reported on sections of Interstates 80 and 35 east and north of the city, with portions of the roads closed until the accidents could be cleared.

While the snow had tapered off by sunrise in Des Moines, transportation officials warned drivers to stay off highways until midnight. Strong winds were creating whiteout conditions. The airport at Creston, Iowa, recorded the highest winds, with a gust of 53 mph, said Kevin Skow, a National Weather Service meteorologist in the city.

Strong wind contributed to tens of thousands of power outages in Arkansas, Iowa and Nebraska. While snow pulled down most lines in Iowa, others were felled by big gusts, said Justin Foss, a spokesman for Alliant Energy, which had 13,000 customers without power in central Iowa.

"The roads have been so bad our crews have not been able to respond to them," said Justin Foss, a spokesman for Alliant Energy, which had 13,000 customers without power in central Iowa. "We have giant four-wheel-drive trucks with chains on them so when we can't get there it's pretty rough."

Utilities reported more than 33,000 customers without power in the Des Moines area, more than 36,000 outages in eastern Nebraska and more than 41,000 without power in Arkansas, where thunderstorms took out lines. Smaller outages were reported in Alabama, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Louisiana.

Meteorologist Scott Dergan said the snow cover would drag temperatures much lower in Nebraska and Iowa.

"We're talking single digits," Dergan said. "We may even see some sub-zero temperatures in Nebraska. This cold weather will stick around for several days, maybe until the day after Christmas. So we're definitely going to have a white Christmas."

Before the storm, several cities in the Midwest had broken records for the number of consecutive days without measurable snow.

Chicago commuters began Thursday with heavy fog and cold, driving rain, and forecasters said snow would hit the Midwestern metropolis by mid-afternoon. Officials at O'Hare International Airport reported some flight delays and more than 90 cancellations. United Airlines said it would waive change fees for travelers who have to change their plans for travel through O'Hare because of the storm.

American Airlines reported 120 cancellations in Dallas because of thunderstorms there. There also were delays, most involving smaller regional planes that have more flight restrictions, spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said.

"We are trying to delay as much as we can, instead of canceling, because we know that we have many customers who are trying to make their holiday travel plans," Huguely said.

Along with Thursday's fatal accident in Iowa, the storm that swept through the Rockies earlier in the week was blamed for deaths in Wisconsin and Utah. At least two people died Wednesday in a fatal crash on slick roads in southeastern Wisconsin, sheriff's officials said. In southeastern Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died Tuesday night. Search and rescue crews on snowmobiles found her buried in the snow just a few miles from her car.

The owner of the Norske Nook restaurant and bakery in Osseo, a town in west-central Wisconsin that woke up to at least 10 inches of snow, said "blizzardy" conditions were not unusual for the area and that the weather would not upset her business.

"It's our policy to stay open for the customers," said Jean Zingshiem. "In case someone is stranded they'll have somewhere to go."

Bill Riggins, of Madison, Wis. said he wouldn't let a little blizzard stop him from riding his bike into work on the University of Wisconsin campus, about five miles from his house. Riggins said his metal-studded snow tires did the trick for the early morning commute at 4:45 a.m.

"I honestly think it would have been more trouble to drive," Riggins said. The ride, which normally takes about 25 minutes, took 40 in the snow. As conditions worsen during the day, Riggins said he expected the ride home to take about an hour.

On the southern edge of the storm system, high winds damaged homes and downed trees in central Arkansas, the weather service said. A powerful storm peeled the roofs off buildings and toppled trucks in Mobile, Ala., but injured no one. Tornado warnings remained in effect in parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama early Thursday.

Hundreds of schools across the Midwest canceled classes Thursday because of heavy overnight snow. Government offices in Iowa and Nebraska were closed.

The moisture was welcome to farmers in the drought-parched region, but Meteorologist Kris Sanders said the storm wouldn't make much of a dent. In Kansas, for example, some areas are more than 12 inches below normal precipitation for the year.

"It's not going to have a big effect, maybe only a half-inch of liquid precipitation. It's not helping us out much," Sanders said.

Sanders said another storm similar to the current one could bring additional snow on Christmas or the day after.

Blake Landau, a cook serving eggs, roast beef sandwiches and chili to hungry snow plow drivers at Newton's Paradise Cafe in downtown Waterloo, Iowa, said he has always liked it when it snows on his birthday. He turned 27 on Thursday.

"It's kind of one of those things where it's leading up to Christmas time," Landau said. "We don't know when we get our first snowfall, and I hope we get it by my birthday. It's nice to have a nice snowy Christmas."

___

Beck reported from Omaha, Neb. Associated Press writers Scott Mayerowitz in New York; Dinesh Ramde and Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis.; Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo.; Carla K. Johnson and Jason Keyser in Chicago; Jill Bleed in Little Rock, Ark.; and Ryan J. Foley in Iowa City, Iowa contributed to this report.

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State Department security chief leaves post over Benghazi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday its security chief had resigned from his post and three other officials had been relieved of their duties following a scathing official inquiry into the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

Eric Boswell has resigned effective immediately as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a terse statement. A second official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Boswell had not left the department entirely and remained a career official.

Nuland said that Boswell, and the three other officials, had all been put on administrative leave “pending further action.”

An official panel that investigated the incident concluded that the Benghazi mission was completely unprepared to deal with the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The unclassified version of the report, which was released on Tuesday, cited “leadership and management” deficiencies, poor coordination among officials and “real confusion” in Washington and in the field over who had the authority to make decisions on policy and security concerns.

“The ARB identified the performance of four officials, three in the Bureau of the Diplomatic Security and one in the Bureau of (Near Eastern) Affairs,” Nuland said in her statement, referring to the panel known as an Accountability Review Board.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accepted Boswell’s decision to resign effective immediately, the spokeswoman said.

Earlier, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Boswell, one of his deputies, Charlene Lamb, and a third unnamed official has been asked to resign. The Associated Press first reported that three officials had resigned.

PANEL STOPS SHORT OF BLAMING CLINTON

The Benghazi incident appeared likely to tarnish Clinton’s four-year tenure as secretary of state but the report did not fault her specifically and the officials who led the review stopped short of blaming her.

“We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks,” retired Admiral Michael Mullen, one of the leaders of the inquiry, told reporters on Wednesday.

The panel’s chair, retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, said it had determined that responsibility for security shortcomings in Benghazi belonged at levels lower than Clinton’s office.

“We fixed (responsibility) at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look for where the decision-making in fact takes place, where – if you like – the rubber hits the road,” Pickering said after closed-door meetings with congressional committees.

The panel’s report and the comments by its two lead authors suggested that Clinton, who accepted responsibility for the incident in a television interview about a month after the Benghazi attack, would not be held personally culpable.

Pickering and Mullen spoke to the media after briefing members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind closed doors on classified elements of their report.

Clinton had been expected to appear at an open hearing on Benghazi on Thursday, but is recuperating after suffering a concussion, dehydration and a stomach bug last week. She will instead be represented by her two top deputies.

Clinton, who intends to step down in January, said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations, which include stepping up security staffing and requesting more money to fortify U.S. facilities.

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which is expected to go to Congress for final approval this week, includes a measure directing the Pentagon to increase the Marine Corps presence at diplomatic facilities by up to 1,000 Marines.

Some Capitol Hill Republicans who had criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks said they were impressed by the report.

“It was very thorough,” said Senator Johnny Isakson. Senator John Barrasso said: “It was very, very critical of major failures at the State Department at very high levels.” Both spoke after the closed-door briefing.

Others, however, took a harsher line and called for Clinton to testify as soon as she is able.

“The report makes clear the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad,” Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Senator Bob Corker, who will be the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the new Congress is seated early next year, said Clinton should testify about Benghazi before her replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

Republicans have focused much of their firepower on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on TV talk shows after the attack and suggested it was the result of a spontaneous protest rather than a premeditated attack.

The report concluded that there was no such protest.

Rice, widely seen as President Barack Obama’s top pick to succeed Clinton, withdrew her name from consideration last week.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

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“Gangnam Style” in line for UK dictionary inclusion

LONDON (Reuters) – He has the most-watched video in Youtube history, become a pop sensation with a horse-riding dance craze that has swept the world and now Korean singer Psy may cement his place in popular culture with recognition from a British dictionary.

“Gangnam Style,” Psy’s signature song, has been chosen along with “fiscal cliff” and “Romneyshambles” as some of Collins Dictionary‘s words of the year.

“We were looking for words that told the story of the year,” said Ian Brookes, the dictionary‘s consultant editor.

“Some words are from events that have been and gone and so are not likely to stick around … but others are probably here to stay.”

Other headline entries centered on American politics.

“Fiscal cliff” has drawn a lot of attention as the deadline for Congress and President Obama to agree on government spending and tax plans draws nearer.

While the term “Romneyshambles” entered the British public’s consciousness after Mitt Romney‘s gaffe-ridden visit to London in July in which he questioned Britain’s readiness to host the Olympics.

The inclusion of “47 percent” on the list after a leaked video showed Romney telling donors that 47 percent of Americans would definitely vote for Obama because of their dependency on the government capped off a bad year for the losing presidential candidate.

Collins received over 7,000 submissions on its online database.

Twelve words of the year – one for each month – were then selected on the basis of the frequency with which they were spoken, how many places they appeared and their longevity in public discourse.

Appearing on the Collins words of the year list is no guarantee of insertion in the next dictionary.

But Gangnam Style stands a very good chance, Brookes said.

“It’s obviously a craze, so there’s the possibility it will go away. But it’s been heard by so many people that I think it’s probably earned the right to go into the dictionary.”

Other words of the year include “mummy porn” after the popularity of the “Fifty Shades of Grey” books, and “superstorm” after Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc along the east coast of America in October.

(Reporting By Peter Schwartzstein, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Wii U finally gets Nintendo’s TVii service on December 20th

After a month-long delay, Nintendo (NTDOY) will launch its Nintendo TVii service for the Wii U on December 20th in the U.S. and Canada. Nintendo TVii is the company’s take on organizing all of the various video streaming and DVR services a user might subscribe to and then displaying them in an easy-to-navigate touchscreen-based interface on the Wii U GamePad. With Nintendo TVii, Nintendo hopes to make content discovery an easier task, rather than a chore. At the same time, Nintendo TVii will offer new “second-screen” experiences (similar to Xbox SmartGlass) with built-in social sharing options to Facebook (FB), Twitter and the Wii U console’s Miiverse.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

[More from BGR: LG’s woeful comeback attempt]

Nintendo TVii will support Amazon (AMZN) Instant Video, Hulu Plus and cable and satellite providers on Thursday, but Netflix (NFLX) and TiVo (TIVO) support won’t hit the U.S. until “early 2013.” Nintendo didn’t state when TVii support for the latter two will hit Canada.

For the consumer’s sake, we hope the download for Nintendo TVii doesn’t take as long as past system updates.

Nintendo’s press release follows below.

Nintendo Makes TV Smart and Social – Nintendo TVii Launches Dec. 20

New Wii U Service Gives Every Member of the Family His or Her Own Personalized, Easy-to-Use Second-Screen Viewing Experience

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The company that changed how we play is about to change how we watch. On Dec. 20, Nintendo will introduce Nintendo TVii, a free, integrated service for the recently launched Wii U console that combines what you watch and how you watch into one seamless, second-screen experience on the revolutionary new Wii U GamePad controller.

The rapid increase in both the quality and availability of video entertainment content – hundreds of satellite and cable channels, a seemingly endless amount of video-on-demand options – has made finding something to watch a complex and occasionally frustrating process. The solution to this problem is coming from perhaps an unexpected place: a video game console.

“After Dec. 20, you’ll never look at your TV the same way again,” said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime. “Wii U owners have already experienced the transformative effect that the GamePad has on game play and social interaction. Nintendo TVii shows how the integrated second screen of the GamePad can also transform and enhance the TV viewing experience. Welcome to the new world of TVii.”

Nintendo TVii maximizes Wii U owners’ current cable, satellite and video-on-demand services by pulling all of their available content sources – such as a Comcast cable package or Hulu Plus subscription – into one place. This empowers Wii U owners to focus on whatthey want to watch and not how they want to watch. And once users find the show, sporting event or movie they want, they press an icon and Nintendo TVii does the rest.

In addition to greatly simplifying finding and watching video content, Nintendo TVii also includes a series of social features that enable Wii U owners to share experiences and exciting moments with friends as they are happening on live TV. People can engage with others by commenting and sharing on Miiverse, Facebook and Twitter. Or they can comment, post or tweet about an incredible touchdown, a remarkable performance or a shocking plot twist, all using the personal screen of the Wii U GamePad.

Nintendo TVii requires no additional equipment and can be enjoyed with very little setup, demonstrating what’s possible when the second screen is truly integrated with the TV. Wii U owners can also discover more information about what they’re watching by easily accessing information on the GamePad via an Internet connection, including cast details, movie reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and sports data such as live stats and scores.

Nintendo TVii launches in the United States and Canada on Dec. 20. At launch, the service will support cable and satellite providers in both regions, as well as direct integration with Amazon Instant Video and Hulu Plus subscriptions in the United States. Further integration with Netflix subscriptions and TiVo are expected in early 2013 in the United States. Wii U owners with a Netflix subscription can still access the Netflix application from the Wii U system’s main menu and enjoy their favorite content accordingly.

All elements of the Nintendo TVii service are included in the purchase price of the Wii U system. Users will define which services they currently subscribe to – including the channel lineup in their cable package and video-on-demand service subscriptions – as part of the setup process.

Nintendo TVii observes the Wii U system parental controls, and additional options specific to the Nintendo TVii features can be chosen in the Nintendo TVii settings. Every member of the family can create a different viewing profile. For more information about this and other features, visit http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Drugs group Lundbeck’s shares hit by profit warning

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Shares in Danish drugs firm Lundbeck fell to their lowest level in over 12 years on Wednesday after it cut its profits forecast for the next two years as European sales slow and spending on new products rise to combat generic competition.

The company has already warned that earnings would stall until 2015 due to cheap generic competition for its existing drugs, meaning new products will be vital for future earnings.

But Chief Executive Ulf Wiinberg said on Wednesday that the negative impact on revenue from healthcare reforms in Europe had also been bigger than expected in the last two years and that slowing European sales and generic competition were hurting.

As a result the company said operating profits would fall further than previously forecast in 2014 as it increases investments in its late-stage drugs development pipeline and product launches.

Lundbeck is working to find new drugs to replace lost revenue from products coming off patent protection such as its antidepressant Cipralex, which is sold as Lexapro in the United States and Japan, and Alzheimer’s drug Ebixa.

Wiinberg said 2014 would be the company’s peak investment year for the new products pipeline, offering it a solid foundation for growth starting in 2015.

“You only get one chance to launch a product and we have to do it well,” Wiinberg said at a briefing for investors.

He was commenting after the company warned in a statement that it now expects revenue in 2014 of about 14 billion Danish crowns ($ 2.5 billion) and an operating profit of between just 0.5 billion and 1 billion crowns.

Analysts have on average been forecasting a profit of over 2.5 billion crowns for 2014 on turnover of over 14.7 billion crowns, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S Estimates.

Two years ago Lundbeck predicted its annual revenues over the period 2012-2014 would exceed 14 billion crowns a year while earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) would exceed 2 billion crowns a year.

Next years’ revenue is now forecast to be in the range of 14.1 billion and 14.7 billion crowns to produce an operating profit of 1.6 billion to 2.1 billion crowns, with no change to the company’s forecast for 2012.

Analysts’ forecasts for this year are for operating profit to drop 41 percent to 1.99 billion crowns on revenue down 8 percent at 14.7 billion crowns, while for 2013 they predict a profit of 2.26 billion crowns on revenue of 14.5 billion crowns.

Lundbeck’s shares were trading down 17 percent at 79.90 crowns at 12.44 p.m. British time, dropping below 80 crowns for the first time since April 2000.

“In the short term, earnings are under pressure,” Sydbank analyst Soren Hansen said.

Lundbeck said that it expects a dividend payout ratio of about 35 percent of net profits in the 2012-14 period. Last year it paid 3.49 crowns on basic earnings per share of 11.64 crowns, a payout ratio of 30 percent.

Analysts have been predicting a 27-30 percent cut this year to 2.53-2.28 crowns, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.

But a number of analysts doubt that revenue from new products will be enough to secure revenue growth in 2015, compensating for lost revenue from Cipralex, Lexapro and Ebixa which together accounted for about 70 percent of group revenue in 2011.

Lundbeck is working on new products such as antidepressant Brintellix in Europe and the United States for launch at the end of next year or start of 2014, as well as alcohol dependency treatment Selincro in Europe in mid 2013.

“It is difficult to see revenue from the smaller products compensating for the large products,” said Hansen.

“They have a lot of new products in the portfolio and a lot of products in the pipeline, but revenue growth in 2015 is not very likely,” he said. ($ 1=5.6458 Danish crowns)

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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'Constant reminder': Newtown holds third day of funerals

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — For a third straight day Wednesday, funeral processions rolled through a grieving Connecticut town trying to make sense of the massacre of 20 first-graders and six adults in an elementary school less than two weeks before Christmas.

Dr. Joseph Young, an optometrist, said he has already been to one funeral and plans to attend two or three more.

"The first few days, all you heard was helicopters and now at my office all I hear is the rumble of motorcycle escorts and funeral processions going back and forth throughout the day," he said. "It's difficult. It's just a constant reminder."

Most students in Newtown went back to school Tuesday except those from Sandy Hook Elementary, where a gunman armed with a military-style assault rifle slaughtered the children and six teachers and administrators Friday. He also killed his mother at her home. If police know why, they have not said.

Students at Sandy Hook, which serves kindergarten through fourth grade, will resume classes in a formerly shuttered school in a neighboring community in January.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday pressed Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. He also called for stricter background checks for people who seek to purchase weapons and limited high capacity clips.

"This time, the words need to lead to action," said Obama, who set a January deadline for the recommendations.

In the meantime, mourners overlapped at back-to-back funerals that started Monday and will continue all week.

The first of Wednesday's funerals in Newtown was for 7-year-old Daniel Barden, a gap-toothed redhead and the youngest of three children whose family described him as "always smiling, unfailingly polite, incredibly affectionate, fair and so thoughtful towards others, imaginative in play, both intelligent and articulate in conversation: in all, a constant source of laughter and joy."

Hundreds of firefighters formed a long blue line outside St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church as bells sounded and bagpipes played. Daniel wanted to join their ranks one day, and many came from New York, where his family has relatives who are firefighters.

Family friend Laura Stamberg of New Paltz, N.Y., whose husband plays in a band with Daniel's father, Mark, said Daniel was a thoughtful boy who held doors for people and would sit with another child if he saw one sitting alone.

She said that on the morning of the shooting, Mark Barden played a game with his son and taught him a Christmas song on the piano.

"They played foosball and then he taught him the song and then he walked him to the bus and that was their last morning together," Stamberg said.

At the same time, in the town of Stratford, family and friends gathered to say goodbye to Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old teacher who has been hailed as a hero for dying while trying to shield her students, some of whom managed to escape.

"She had the perfect job. She loved her job," said Vicky Ruiz, a friend of Soto's since first grade. Every year, she said, Soto described her students the same way. "They were always good kids. They were always angels," even if, like typical first-graders, they might not always listen, Ruiz said.

Students Charlotte Bacon and Caroline Previdi were to be laid to rest later Wednesday, and calling hours were being held for popular 47-year-old principal Dawn Hochsprung. She and school psychologist Mary Sherlach rushed toward Lanza in an attempt to stop him and paid with their lives.

The massacre continued to reverberate around America as citizens and lawmakers debated whether Newtown might be a turning point in the often-polarizing national discussion over gun control.

Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday it plans to sell its stake in Freedom Group, maker of the Bushmaster rifle, following the school shootings. In Pittsburgh, Dick's Sporting Goods said it is suspending sales of modern rifles nationwide because of the shooting. The company also said it's removing all guns from display at its store closest to Newtown.

Lawmakers who have joined the call to consider gun control as part of a comprehensive, anti-violence effort next year included 10-term House Republican Jack Kingston, a Georgia lawmaker elected with strong National Rifle Association backing.

The National Rifle Association, silent since the shootings, said in a statement that it was "prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again." It gave no indication what that might entail.

And no indication has been made publicly about the motive of 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who, clad all in black, broke into Sandy Hook Elementary and opened fire on students and staff.

Authorities say the horrific events of Friday began when Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, at their home, and then took her car and some of her guns to the nearby school.

Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.

___

Zezima reported from Stratford. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed, Helen O'Neill, John Christoffersen and Pat Eaton-Robb in Newtown; Michael Melia in Hartford; Larry Margasak in Washington and AP Business Writer Joshua Freed in Minneapolis.

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Canada serial killer inquiry finds “systemic bias” by police

(Reuters) – Police made critical errors in pursuing Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton partly because of “systemic bias” against his victims, sex trade workers from a rough Vancouver neighborhood, according to the final report from a public inquiry released on Monday.

Commissioner Wally Oppal was asked by the British Columbia government to investigate, in effect, why Pickton was not caught sooner. Women disappeared from the Downtown Eastside neighborhood for more than a decade before the pig farmer’s 2002 arrest.

“The investigations of missing and murdered women were characterized by blatant police failures, and by public indifference,” Oppal said at a press conference in Vancouver that was frequently interrupted by protesters.

Pickton was convicted of six murders, but prosecutors believe he killed many more – 20 other charges were stayed after he received the maximum possible sentence.

Oppal outlined a string of police errors, from failing to take proper reports when women went missing and communicate adequately with families, to ineffective coordination across jurisdictions. He called his more than 1,200-page report, which is based on eight months of hearings, “Forsaken”.

“After reviewing the evidence of the investigations, I have come to the conclusion that there was systemic bias by the police,” he said.

Oppal recommended that the provincial government establish a compensation fund for the children of the victims and consider creating a regional police force for Vancouver, instead of the patchwork of jurisdictions currently in place.

After Oppal’s announcement, B.C. Minister of Justice Shirley Bond wiped away tears as she spoke to victims’ families.

“I want you to know that, however inadequate these words sound, we are sorry for your loss,” she said. “We will work hard to prevent these circumstances from being repeated in our province.”

She announced the appointment of a former lieutenant governor, Steven Point, to serve as the report’s “champion”, guiding implementation. Bond said the government would immediately give new funding to WISH, a drop-in center for women who work in the Downtown Eastside’s sex trade.

POLICE RESPOND

The Vancouver Police Department said in a short statement that it is committed to learning from its mistakes and will study the report.

“We know that nothing can ever truly heal the wounds of grief and loss but if we can, we want to assure the families that the Vancouver Police Department deeply regrets anything we did that may have delayed the eventual solving of these murders,” it said.

Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens, who commands the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said in a statement that his force will review the report.

Oppal said many individual police officers were diligent, and he commended several by name. But he said that as a system, the authorities failed because of bias against Pickton’s victims, many of whom were poor and addicted to drugs.

“Would the reaction of the police and the public have been any different if the missing women had come from Vancouver’s (more affluent) west side? The answer is obvious,” he said.

Aboriginal women were overrepresented among the victims, and Oppal repeatedly referred to the broader “marginalization” of aboriginal people in Canada.

“There has to be community responsibility for what has taken place,” he said, highlighting poverty and the conditions on the Downtown Eastside. “The social reality is that racism and gender bias are prevalent within Canadian society, and we must do something to eradicate those.”

Victims’ families and activists were on hand for Oppal’s press conference, and he stopped speaking several times as audience members shouted criticism, chanted and played drums.

The provincial government did not offer funding to a number of community organizations that said they needed support to participate in the lengthy and complex inquiry. In protest, other groups boycotted the process.

In November, several organizations, including the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, released their own report, criticizing the inquiry for, among other things, excluding too many aboriginal women, sex trade workers and drug users.

Bond, the justice minister, said she did not regret the decision not to fund those groups, but said she saw them participating in the future. “I think going forward this is room for us to include other voices.” (Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Eric Beech)

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A Minute With: Jessica Chastain on “Zero Dark Thirty”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jessica Chastain carries the weight of starring in one of the year’s most anticipated films, “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the decade-long hunt and eventual killing of Osama bin Laden.

Critics say Chastain pulls it off seamlessly as “Maya,” based on a real-life CIA agent who played a major role in tracking down bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan.

As the film opens in limited U.S. release on Wednesday, Chastain, who is tipped as a likely best actress Oscar nominee for the role, talked to Reuters about playing a character she could not meet and why the film is an important look at America’s role in a dark war.

Q. What did you think when you saw this film finished?

A. “It is a tough one for me to watch, because there is so much responsibility with playing this woman. I find her to be incredible. And I didn’t want to change her story or make her a Hollywood version, with a lot of makeup. I didn’t want to trivialize what she did … I want her to like it, but I don’t know if she will ever see it.”

Q. How did you play someone you had never met?

A. “There was three months of working with (screenplay writer) Mark Boal, doing research, reading lists and talking to people. And then anything I could not solve through research, like what is her favorite candy – ’cause when we are all overseas we have something we do when we are homesick – I had to answer that question myself.”

Q. Boal hasn’t gone into too much detail about her?

A. “We have to protect her because she is an undercover CIA operative, still working.”

Q. What else did you know about her?

A. “When we finished the movie, when the Navy Seal book ‘No Easy Day’ came out. I raced to go read it, because I was like, ‘I need to know if my character is in the book!’ And they talk about Jen, the young CIA girl. Well, everything matched up. She was the only one that said 100 percent ‘he is there.’… They talked about how she had been on it close to a decade and they were only on it for 40 minutes. They said she was crying on the airplane afterwards.”

Q. During filming, were you ever worried about your safety, that the film might be misconstrued?

A. “As an actor you always worry about that. Because you think, maybe someone will see a film and they won’t understand the difference between acting and reality. The good thing is, what (director Kathryn Bigelow) and Mark have done, is that they have not made a propaganda film. They tried to make it as authentic as possible and respectful of the actual historical event as they could. That includes showing the intense interrogation techniques that were used. The end of the film – it’s not a lot of fist pumping and saying, ‘Here is our journey over 10 years and it was so difficult and we finally did it.’ It ends actually on a very different note.”

Q. Can you elaborate on that?

A. “Well, for me the whole thing is about the arc of this woman. She shows up in the beginning and she is wearing her best suit. She thinks she knows what she is in for, and she is completely out of her element. But over the 10 years, this woman, who has been trained to be unemotional and analytically precise … we see her struggling to keep it contained for 10 years and as she descends down the rabbit hole of the world she is in.

“So finally at the end when she is asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ there is no way to answer that question. … She has no idea where she belongs, now that this is done. But not only does it speak in terms of that, but the movie ends with that question – where do you want to go? Where do we go now as a country? Where do we go as a society? It is not a movie that ends with an answer, and I find that powerful.”

Q. How did you cope with filming the torture scenes?

A. “We filmed in a real Jordanian prison, in the middle of nowhere. The environment wasn’t great, especially as a woman.

“They had a lot of trust between the actors, nothing was dangerous or unsafe. There was a lot of discussion to make sure that we weren’t doing something that was going to be salacious. They just wanted it to be accurate.

“I know I am playing a character who has trained to be unemotional. But I have spent my entire life allowing myself to be emotional, and allowing myself to feel everything. … There was actually one day that we were doing a scene, and I said, ‘I am sorry’ and I just had to walk away, and I just started crying … it was a very intense experience.”

Q. You are a top chance for Oscar nomination. Would that be more or less rewarding for this role?

A. “Because she is still an active member of the CIA and undercover, she can’t take credit for what she’s done. … And by making this film, it is my idea as a way of thanking her. It would be very emotional because of that.”

Q. You compare your character to getting lost down a CIA rabbit hole. What about your own dizzying rise as an actress?

A. “That’s a good question. I do think that next year I need to go somewhere for a month and be in a room by myself and be like, ‘Ok, what now Jessica?’ But I am nowhere near where she was at the end of this mission.”

(Reporting By Christine Kearney, editing by Jill Serjeant and Doina Chiacu)

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