Disney to make new ‘Star Wars’ films, buy Lucas co

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A decade after George Lucas said “Star Wars” was finished on the big screen, a new trilogy is destined for theaters after The Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it was buying Lucasfilm Ltd. for $ 4.05 billion.


The seventh movie, with a working title of “Episode 7,” is set for release in 2015. Episodes 8 and 9 will follow. The new trilogy will carry the story of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia beyond “Return of the Jedi,” the third film released and the sixth in the saga. After that, Disney plans a new “Star Wars” movie every two or three years. Lucas will serve as creative consultant in the new movies.





















“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said Lucas, chairman and CEO of Lucasfilm Ltd. “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.”


Disney CEO Bob Iger said Lucusfilm had already developed an extensive story line on the next trilogy, and Episode 7 was now in early-stage development.


The Walt Disney Co. announced the blockbuster agreement to buy Lucasfilm in cash and stock Tuesday. The deal includes Lucasfilm’s prized high-tech production companies, Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, as well as rights to the “Indiana Jones” franchise.


Iger said in a statement that the acquisition is a great fit and will help preserve and grow the “Star Wars” franchise.


“The last ‘Star Wars’ movie release was 2005′s ‘Revenge of the Sith’ — and we believe there’s substantial pent-up demand,” Iger said.


Kathleen Kennedy, the current co-chairman of Lucasfilm, will become the division’s president and report to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn.


The deal brings Lucasfilm under the Disney banner with other brands including Pixar, Marvel, ESPN and ABC, all companies that Disney has acquired over the years. A former weatherman who rose through the ranks of ABC, Iger has orchestrated some of the company’s biggest acquisitions, including the $ 7.4 billion purchase of animated movie studio Pixar in 2006 and the $ 4.2 billion acquisition of comic book giant Marvel in 2009.


Disney shares were not trading with stock markets closed due to the impact of Superstorm Sandy in New York.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Sandy's death toll climbs; millions without power

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NEW YORK (AP) — Millions of people from Maine to the Carolinas waited wearily for the power to come back on Tuesday, and New Yorkers found themselves all but cut off from the modern world as the U.S. death toll from Superstorm Sandy climbed to 40, many of the victims killed by falling trees.

The extent of the damage in New Jersey, where the storm roared ashore Monday night with hurricane-force winds of 80 mph, began coming into focus: homes knocked off their foundations, boardwalks wrecked and amusement pier rides cast into the sea.

"We are in the midst of urban search and rescue. Our teams are moving as fast as they can," Gov. Chris Christie said. "The devastation on the Jersey Shore is some of the worst we've ever seen. The cost of the storm is incalculable at this point."

As the storm steamed inland, still delivering punishing wind and rain, more than 8.2 million people across the East were without power. Airlines canceled more than 15,000 flights around the world, and it could be days before the mess is untangled and passengers can get where they're going.

The storm also disrupted the presidential campaign with just a week to go before Election Day.

President Barack Obama canceled a third straight day of campaigning, scratching events scheduled for Wednesday in swing state Ohio. Republican Mitt Romney resumed his campaign, but with plans to turn a political rally in Ohio into a "storm relief event."

Sandy will end up causing about $20 billion in property damage and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost business, making it one of the costliest natural disasters on record in the U.S., according to IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm.

Lower Manhattan, which includes Wall Street, was among the hardest-hit areas after the storm sent a nearly 14-foot surge of seawater, a record, coursing over its seawalls and highways.

Water cascaded into the gaping, unfinished construction pit at the World Trade Center, and the New York Stock Exchange was closed for a second day, the first time that has happened because of weather since the Blizzard of 1888. The NYSE said it will reopen on Wednesday.

A huge fire destroyed as many as 100 houses in a flooded beachfront neighborhood in Queens on Tuesday, forcing firefighters to undertake daring rescues. Three people were injured.

New York University's Tisch Hospital evacuated 200 patients after its backup generator failed. About 20 babies from the neonatal intensive care unit were carried down staircases and were given battery-powered respirators.

A construction crane that collapsed in the high winds on Monday still dangled precariously 74 floors above the streets of midtown Manhattan, and hundreds of people were evacuated as a precaution. And on Staten Island, a tanker ship wound up beached on the shore.

Some bridges into New York reopened, but some tunnels were closed, as were schools, Broadway theaters and the metropolitan area's three main airports, LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark.

With water standing in two major commuter tunnels and seven subway tunnels under the East River, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was unclear when the nation's largest transit system would be rolling again. It shut down Sunday night ahead of the storm.

Joseph Lhota, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the damage was the worst in the 108-year history of the New York subway.

Similarly, Consolidated Edison said it could take at least a week to restore electricity to the last of the nearly 800,000 customers in and around New York City who lost power.

Millions of more fortunate New Yorkers surveyed the damage as dawn broke, their city brought to an extraordinary standstill.

"Oh, Jesus. Oh, no," Faye Schwartz said she looked over her neighborhood in Brooklyn, where cars were scattered like leaves.

Reggie Thomas, a maintenance supervisor at a prison near the overflowing Hudson River, emerged from an overnight shift, a toothbrush in his front pocket, to find his Honda with its windows down and a foot of water inside. The windows automatically go down when the car is submerged to free drivers.

"It's totaled," Thomas said with a shrug. "You would have needed a boat last night."

Around midday, Sandy was about 120 miles east of Pittsburgh, pushing westward with winds of 45 mph, and was expected to make a turn into New York State on Tuesday night. Although weakening as it goes, the storm will continue to bring heavy rain and flooding, said Daniel Brown of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

In a measure of the storm's immense size and power, waves on southern Lake Michigan rose to a record-tying 20.3 feet. High winds spinning off Sandy's edges clobbered the Cleveland area early Tuesday, uprooting trees, cutting power to hundreds of thousands, closing schools and flooding major roads along Lake Erie.

In Portland, Maine, gusts topping 60 mph scared away several cruise ships and prompted officials to close the port.

Sandy also brought blizzard conditions to parts of West Virginia and neighboring Appalachian states, with more than 2 feet of snow expected in some places. A snowstorm in western Maryland caused a pileup of tractor-trailers that blocked part of Interstate 68 on slippery Big Savage Mountain.

"It's like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs up here," said Bill Wiltson, a Maryland State Police dispatcher.

The death toll climbed rapidly, and included 17 victims in New York State — 10 of them in New York City — along with five each in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Sandy also killed 69 people in the Caribbean before making its way up the Eastern Seaboard.

In New Jersey, Sandy cut off barrier islands and wrecked boardwalks up and down the coast, tearing away a section of Atlantic City's world-famous promenade. Atlantic City's 12 waterfront casinos came through largely unscathed.

Jersey City was closed to cars because traffic lights were out, and Hoboken, just over the Hudson River from Manhattan, was hit with major flooding.

A huge swell of water swept over the small New Jersey town of Moonachie, near the Hackensack River, and authorities struggled to rescue about 800 people, some living in a trailer park. And in neighboring Little Ferry, water suddenly started gushing out of storm drains overnight, submerging a road under 4 feet of water and swamping houses.

Police and fire officials used boats and trucks to reach the stranded.

"I looked out and the next thing you know, the water just came up through the grates. It came up so quickly you couldn't do anything about it. If you wanted to move your car to higher ground you didn't have enough time," said Little Ferry resident Leo Quigley, who with his wife was taken to higher ground by boat.

___

Hays reported from New York and Breed reported from Raleigh, N.C.; AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington. Associated Press writers David Dishneau in Delaware City, Del., Katie Zezima in Atlantic City, Emery P. Dalesio in Elizabeth City, N.C., and Erika Niedowski in Cranston, R.I., also contributed.

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Pole gets 30 years for killing 6 on Channel Island

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LONDON (AP) — A Polish builder who killed six people, including his wife and children, on the British Channel Island of Jersey has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.


Damian Rzeszowski, 31, carried out the knife attack in August 2011 at his home. He was said to have become depressed after his wife admitted to an affair.





















Rzeszowski was convicted of six counts of manslaughter but cleared of murder. On Monday, Judge Michael Birt sentenced him to 30 years in jail for each victim, but the sentences are to run concurrently.


Rzeszowski’s victims were his wife Izabela Rzeszowska, 30; 5-year-old daughter, Kinga; 2-year-old son, Kacper; father-in-law, Marek Gartska, 56; his wife’s friend Marta De La Haye, 34; and her 5-year-old daughter, Julia.


Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Apple software, retail chiefs out in sweeping overhaul

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook on Monday replaced the heads of its software and retail units in the company's most sweeping executive shake-up in a decade following embarrassing problems with its new mapping program and unpopular store-related decisions.


Software chief Scott Forstall, who oversaw the launch of the flawed mapping software and much criticized Siri voice-enabled assistant, will leave Apple next year and serve as an advisor to Cook in the meantime.


Forstall, seen as a polarizing figure inside Apple, had been billed as one of the future candidates to take the top job at Apple. He was the executive behind the panned Apple Maps app that the company announced with much fanfare in summer.


The moves, which come a little more than a year into Cook's tenure as CEO, were described by Apple as a way to increase "collaboration" across its hardware, software and services business.


"These changes show that Tim Cook is stamping his authority on the business," Ben Wood, analyst with CCS Insight, said. "Perhaps disappointed with the Maps issues, Forstall became the scapegoat."


Critics of the maps debacle, which led Cook to apologize to customers, had been calling for Forstall's head. "Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?" Fortune editor Philip Elmer Dewitt wrote on Sept 29.


The moves hand over substantially more responsibility to Cue, the head of Internet Software and Services who helped create the iTunes music store and App Store. The 23-year Apple veteran already is in charge of Cloud services and will take on Apple Maps and Siri.


Apple said a search is underway for a new retail chief to replace John Browett and that the retail team would report directly to Cook. Browett had riled up the retail store staff when he decided to reduce the number of retail employees.


Browett took over as head of Apple's retail stores earlier this year, replacing Ron Johnson, who went on to become the CEO of JC Penney.


Last week Apple delivered a second straight quarter of disappointing financial results, and iPad sales fell short of Wall Street's targets, marring its record of consistently blowing past investors' expectations.


(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)


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Anderson Cooper’s daytime show to end after two seasons

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Anderson Cooper‘s venture into daytime is coming to an end after just two seasons after failing to find an audience in the crowded daytime talk show market.


Warner Bros Television, which syndicates “Anderson”, said on Monday the show will not be renewed after the current season ends in the summer of 2013.





















“The series will not be coming back for a third season in a marketplace that has become difficult to break through,” Warner Bros said in a statement.


The CNN anchor launched “Anderson,” subsequently retitled “Anderson Live,” in September 2011. But the show has struggled in the ratings despite retooling in the face of competition from veteran daytime hosts such as Ellen DeGeneres, and newcomers such as Katie Couric and “Survivor” host Jeff Probst.


“Anderson Live,” is attracting an average audience of about 1.4 million viewers, compared with around 4 million for “Dr. Phil” and about 2.3 million for “Katie,” according to TV ratings data.


Cooper issued a statement on Monday saying, “I am very proud of the work that our terrific staff has put into launching and sustaining our show for two seasons,” and added that he looked forward “to doing more great shows this season … I’m sorry that we won’t be continuing.”


TV stations carrying the show were first informed on Friday that the producers were not seeking renewal for another season.


Cooper, 45, and the winner of multiple Emmy award and a Peabody Award, continues as host of the CNN news program “Anderson Cooper 360” and has hosted the network’s New Year’s Eve special from Times Square for several years running.


Warner Bros is owned by Time Warner Inc.


(Reporting by Chris Michaud, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Hurricane Sandy begins battering the East Coast

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NEW YORK/REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware (Reuters) - Hurricane Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States, lashed the densely populated East Coast on Monday, shutting down transportation, forcing evacuations in flood-prone areas and interrupting the presidential campaign.


Fierce winds and flooding racked hundreds of miles of Atlantic coastline and heavy snows were forecast farther inland at higher elevations as the center of the storm moves ashore along the coast of southern New Jersey or Delaware on Monday evening.


U.S. stock markets were closed for the first time since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and will remain shut on Tuesday. The federal government in Washington was closed and schools were shut up and down the East Coast.


The storm's target area included big population centers such as New York City, Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.


More than a million customers already were without power by early evening and millions more could lose electricity. One disaster forecasting company predicted economic losses could ultimately reach $20 billion, only half of it insured.


In Washington, President Barack Obama appealed to the tens of millions of people in the hurricane's path to follow directions given to them by authorities.


"If the public's not following instructions, that makes it more dangerous for people, and it means that we could have fatalities that could have been avoided," Obama said at the White House, adding that people should expect long power outages and idled transportation systems.


New York City evacuated neighbors of a 90-story super luxury apartment building under construction after its crane partially collapsed in high winds, prompting fears the entire rig could crash to the ground.


PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN INTERRUPTED


The storm interrupted the U.S. presidential campaign with eight days to go before the election, as President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney canceled events. Both men acted cautiously to avoid coming across as overtly political while millions of people are imperiled by the storm ahead of the November 6 election.


New York and other cities closed their transit systems and schools, ordering mass evacuations from low-lying areas ahead of a storm surge that could reach as high as 11 feet.


Sandy was moving quickly toward New Jersey and Delaware. At 5 p.m. (2100 GMT), the hurricane was 30 miles east-southeast of Cape May, New Jersey, and about 40 miles south of Atlantic City, New Jersey, the National Hurricane Center said.


Sandy picked up speed as it raced northwest toward the U.S. coast at 28 miles per hour (45 km per hour), with top sustained winds at 90 mph, it said. Forecasters said Sandy was a rare, hybrid "super storm" created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm.


The combination of those two storms would have been bad enough, but meteorologists said there was a third storm at play - a system coming down from Canada that would effectively trap the hurricane-nor'easter combo and hold it in place.


Moreover, the storm was coming ashore at high tide, which was pulled even higher by a full moon.


While Sandy does not have the intensity of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it has been gathering strength. It killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding U.S. coastal areas as it moved north.


An AccuWeather meteorologist said Sandy "is unfolding as the Northeast's Katrina."


Forecasters said Sandy could be the largest storm to hit the mainland in U.S. history.

Off North Carolina, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew members who abandoned the replica tall ship HMS Bounty, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts. The Coast Guard continued to search for two missing crew members, including the captain.


Joe Connelly, 52, a trucker from the Bronx, was leaving the City Island Marina after checking on his two motor boats. He said he watched the water from the first storm-driven high tide swamp a nearby dock.


"We were concerned that the whole dock was going to float away and out to sea," he said. "It had about four feet to go before that happened."


All U.S. stock markets were closed on Monday and will remain shut on Tuesday, with a plan to re-open on Wednesday that depends on conditions after the storm passes.


(Additional reporting by Greg Roumeliotis, Edith Honan, Janet McGurty, Scott DiSavino and Martinne Geller in New York, Barbara Goldberg in New Jersey, Mary Ellen Clark and Lynnley Browning in Connecticut, Daniel Lovering in Boston, Ian Simpson in West Virginia, Susan Heavey in Washington, Jane Sutton in Miami; Writing by Paul Thomasch and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Will Dunham)


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Ukraine’s opposition doing well in election

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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) —


Ukraine’s opposition parties performed strongly in Sunday’s parliamentary vote, according to an exit poll, but President Viktor Yanukovych‘s party could still retain control of the legislature as its members are likely to sweep individual races across the country.





















The West is paying close attention to the conduct of the vote in the strategic ex-Soviet state, which lies between Russia and the European Union, and serves as a key conduit for transit of Russian energy supplies to many EU countries. An election deemed unfair would likely turn Ukraine further away from the West and toward Moscow.


Opposition parties alleged widespread violations on election day, such as vote-buying and a suspiciously high amount of home voting, but a local election monitor said those violations were isolated. Authorities insisted the election was honest and democratic.


The Fatherland party, led by the jailed charismatic former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the Udar (Punch) of world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko and a nationalist party together received more than 50 percent of the vote on party lists, outnumbering Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and its traditional ally, the Communist Party.


Both Yanukovych’s and Tymoshenko’s parties claimed victory, saying the election showed the voters trust them to lead the country.


However, only half of the parliament’s 450 seats are split proportionately between the winning parties. The other half is filled by the winners of single-mandate races, where Yanukovych loyalists are expected to make a strong showing. In the election, each voter had two ballots, one with party names and one with the name of candidates in specific constituencies. No exit poll numbers were available for the individual races.


With Yanukovych under fire over the jailing of his top rival, Tymoshenko; rampant corruption and slow reforms, the opposition made a strong showing.


Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party is poised to get about 25 percent of the proportional vote, the Udar (Punch) led by world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is set to get around 15 percent and the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party receives some 12 percent. The Party of Regions polled 28 percent and the Communists nearly 12 percent.


If the three opposition groups unite, they could get 127 parliament seats versus 98 seats gained by the Regions and Communists. The distribution of the remaining 225 seats is expected to be clear Monday.


Opposition forces hope to garner enough parliament seats to weaken Yanukovych’s power and undo the damage they say he has done: the jailing of Tymoshenko and her top allies, the concentration of power in the hands of the president, the snubbing of the Ukrainian language in favor of Russian, waning media freedoms, a deteriorating business climate and growing corruption.


The strong showing by the far-right Svoboda (Freedom) party which campaigns for the defense of the Ukrainian language and culture but is also infamous for xenophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric emerged as a surprise and showed the widespread disappointment and anger with the ruling party.


It remains to be seen whether Tymoshenko’s group, Klitschko’s party and Svoboda can forge a strong alliance and challenge Yanukovych.


The election tainted by Tymoshenko’s jailing on charges of abuse of office has also been compromised by the creation of fake opposition parties, campaigns by politically unskilled celebrities, and the use of state resources and greater access to television by Yanukovych’s party.


___


Yuras Karmanau in Kiev contributed to this report.


Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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SAP eyes "long" period of high sales growth: report

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Meningitis Outbreak: Pharmacy Staffers May Have Known Dangers Beforehand

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Earlier this month, TakePart reported on a lethal meningitis outbreak stemming from pain medication mixed at one pharmacy in New England. With the death toll increasing and the rate of ill patients rapidly rising, this fungal meningitis resurgence has become one of the country’s worst drug-related health crises in recent years. Worse still, are new reports that staffers at the pharmacy knew of the impending danger and did nothing to stop it.


So far, 338 people have been fallen ill from fungal meningitis, while 25 more have died from it, the Associated Press reports. In all cases, patients received an injection of tainted pain medication made in the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Framingham, Mass.





















Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed that a mysterious black fungus found in the vials of the tainted medication was the same fungus responsible for the outbreak.


This week, the FDA released a preliminary report stating that the pharmacy itself appears contaminated with mold and fungus, which could have played a role in corrupting the medicine.


Among the health and safety violations, the agency found contaminants in and around what should have been sterile rooms.


The report noted abnormalities like “green and yellow discolorations,” standing water from a leaky boiler, and visible dust filtering through the air conditioning system courtesy of a nearby recycling plant.


Machinery used to sterilize vials was also found to contain a mysterious residue, and against guidelines, staffers would routinely turn off the air conditioning at night, rendering the drugs less stable.


The FDA emphasized that the report is based on “initial observations” and that the agency’s investigation is ongoing.


Nonetheless, the NECC also made major documented missteps at the distribution and testing levels of its medication. The AP reports that vials of the pain medicine were shipped out two weeks before the pharmacy had even received its standard confirmation that those vials passed inspection.


And according to The New York Times, the one lot tested by the lab came back normal, but when 50 lots were recently tested by the FDA, all came back as contaminated.


Sarah Sellers, a former FDA officer who left amid frustrations the agency wasn’t doing more to increase regulations of pharmacies like NECC, says she’s not surprised by the outbreak at this particular company. She told the AP, “The entire pharmacy was an incubator of bacteria and fungus. The pharmacy knew this through monitoring results, and chose to do nothing.”


If that’s true, it’s startling to imagine what must have been an institutionalized kind of apathy. An entire group of people working in tandem to deliver drugs to the masses― drugs that are injected into people’s bloodstreams― every day chose to walk past discolored walls, residue-tainted machinery, moldy patches, and did nothing.


Now about 14,000 more people who were exposed to meningitis through the NECC’s apathy are waiting to see if they develop the disease as well. This may just be one horrific living example of what happens “when good men do nothing.”


If you’re concerned that you or someone you know came in contact with any injectable medication made by NECC, visit the FDA’s fungal meningitis page to view its lists of patient names and read the agency’s latest updates. Symtpoms of the disease include fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea and vomiting, photophobia (sensitivity to light) and altered mental status. 


What do you think caused staffers at NECC to so blatantly disregard health and safety rules? Let us know in the Comments.


Related Stories on TakePart:


• Americans Struggling to Pay for Prescription Drugs


• Clip of the Day: How Do Painkillers Work Their Magic? (VIDEO)


• Fewer Young Adults are Abusing Prescription Drugs



A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a web editor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com


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Sandy: East Coast braces for epic hurricane, ‘life-threatening’ storm surge

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Waves crash into a pier in Nags Head, N.C., Oct. 27, 2012. (Gerry Broome/AP)


[UPDATED: 6:00 p.m. ET]


"Superstorm." "The Perfect Storm." "Frankenstorm."


Whatever you want to call it, the East Coast is bracing for Hurricane Sandy, a "rare hybrid storm" that is expected to bring a life-threatening storm surge to the mid-Atlantic coast, Long Island Sound and New York harbor, forecasters say, with winds expected to be at or near hurricane force when it makes landfall sometime on Monday.


According to the National Hurricane Center, the Category 1 hurricane was centered about 270 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and 530 miles south of New York City early Sunday, carrying maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and moving northeast at 15 mph.


[Slideshow: Latest photos from Hurricane Sandy]


New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the immediate, mandatory evacuation for low-lying coastal areas, including Coney Island, the Rockaways, Brighton Beach, Red Hook and some parts of lower Manhattan along the East River.


"If you don't evacuate, you're not just putting your own life at risk," Mayor Bloomberg said at a news conference Sunday. "You're endangering first responders who may have to rescue you."


New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's message for residents was a bit more blunt. "Don't be stupid," Christie said Sunday afternoon, announcing the suspension of the state's transit system beginning at 12:01 a.m. Monday.


Earlier, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the suspension of all MTA service--including subways, buses, Long Island Railroad and Metro North--beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday. New York City Public Schools will be closed on Monday, the mayor said. The New York Stock Exchange said its trading floor will be closed on Monday, too--the first such shutdown in 27 years, according to the Wall Street Journal.


[Related: Superstorm could impact 60 million]


Sandy is expected to continue on a parallel path along the mid-Atlantic coast later Sunday before making a sharp turn toward the northwest and southern New Jersey coastline on Monday--with the Jersey Shore and New York City in its projected path.


But the path is not necessarily the problem.


"Don't get fixated on a particular track," the Associated Press said. "Wherever it hits, the rare behemoth storm inexorably gathering in the eastern U.S. will afflict a third of the country with sheets of rain, high winds and heavy snow."


(FEMA)


A tropical storm warning has been issued between Cape Fear to Duck, N.C., while hurricane watches and high-wind warnings are in effect from the Carolinas to New England. The hurricane-force winds extend 175 miles from the epicenter of the storm, while tropical storm-force winds extend 500 miles--or roughly 1,000 miles end to end, making Sandy one of the biggest storms to ever hit the East Coast.


"We're looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people," Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Associated Press.


"The size of this alone, affecting a heavily populated area, is going to be history making," Jeff Masters wrote on the Weather Underground blog.


President Barack Obama received a briefing on the storm at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington on Sunday. "My main message to everybody involved is that we have to take this seriously," President Obama said. "[We will] respond big and respond fast."


[Also read: Big storm scrambles presidential race schedules]


"I can be as cynical as anyone," Christie said on Saturday, announcing a state of emergency. "But when the storm comes, if it's as bad as they're predicting, you're going to wish you weren't as cynical as you otherwise might have been."


Meanwhile, emergency evacuations were being mulled by state officials in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and even Maine.


In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell said 20,000 homes there had already reported power outages.


(Weather.com)


"This is not a coastal threat alone," said FEMA director Craig Fugate said during a media briefing early Sunday. "This is a very large area."


Forecasters also fear the combination of storm surge, high tide and heavy rain--between 3 and 12 inches in some areas--could be life-threatening for coastal residents.


According to the National Hurricane Center summary, coastal water levels could rise anywhere between 1 and 12 feet from North Carolina to Cape Cod, depending on the timing of the "peak surge." A surge of 6 to 11 feet is forecast for Long Island Sound and Raritan Bay, including New York Harbor.


The storm surge in New York Harbor during Hurricane Irene in September 2011, forecasters noted, was four feet.


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