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What I saw was mean. It was violent. People were telling me to commit suicide, the now-25-year-old Ghyslain Raza said in an interview with MacLeans.

Back in 2003, Internet memes were few and far between. For context, YouTube did not launch until February 2005. Those were the days when a viral video had the online stage to itself for months at a time, as word of its existence spread through word-of-mouth chatter at the office or classroom.

Unlike most viral videos today, Raza did not post his own video online. The then 14-year-old high-school student had innocently made the video of himself on November 3, 2002, in anonymity as part of a school video club. Some of his classmates secretly posted the video online in April 2003, sparking a torrent of views.

By the end of 2006, an independent estimate said the . The video has more than 27 million views on YouTube alone and more than 100,000 viewer comments.

The video was parodied across mass media, including popular shows such as "Family Guy," "South Park" and "The Colbert Report." "Star Wars" creator George Lucas himself appeared on Colbert as part of a contest to see who could make the best version of a "Star Wars Kid" knockoff video starring host Stephen Colbert.

Curiously, none of the shows or numerous news outlets that covered the video ever tracked down the kid behind the phenomenon.

Thats because Raza did not seek out the attention. Instead, he found himself the victim of taunts and bullying at his school. The bullying became so bad that Raza was diagnosed with depression and ended up dropping out of school and being sent to a children's psychiatric ward.

In the common room, students climbed onto tabletops to insult me, he told Trudel. No matter how hard I tried to ignore people telling me to commit suicide, I couldnt help but feel worthless, like my life wasnt worth living.

against the families of the four students responsible for posting the video online. The family eventually dropped one of the cases and settled out-of-court for an undisclosed amount with the other three families.

Since then, Raza has attempted to move on with his life. He is now a law-school graduate who said he is speaking out to provide encouragement for other kids who are experiencing cyberbulling.

Youll survive. Youll get through it, he said. And youre not alone. You are surrounded by people who love you.

Anti-settlement group Peace Now, which monitors new construction, says Netanyahu has not approved new building tenders in the settlements since winning a new term in January elections.

The group says previously approved settlement building has continued.

Yigal Dilmoni, an official in the Yesha settlers group, says Netanyahu's office confirmed to him that the prime minister has stopped approving housing tenders.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel, a pro-settler hard-liner, met with Netanyahu met last week. The minister refused to comment on the reported settlement freeze in an Army Radio interview on Tuesday.

Netanyahu's office had no immediate comment on the reports.

Obama says that recognizing same-sex relationships in the bill is "the right thing to do." But he says it would be premature to telegraph what he will or won't do before lawmakers send him a bill.

Gay rights supporters are pushing for an amendment to the bill to allow gays to sponsor their partners to come to the U.S.

But Republicans, including some who helped draft the bill, have made it clear that amending the legislation in that fashion would cost their support.

Obama commented at a news conference Friday evening in San Jose, Costa Rica, with President Laura Chinchilla.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index both rose to record highs Friday after the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers added 165,000 workers last month and many more in February and March than previously estimated. The unemployment rate fell to 7.5 percent, which was the lowest level in four years.

The report counterbalanced weeks of mixed signals about manufacturing and corporate earnings and renewed hopes of a recovery in the world's largest economy.

"Markets just came back to life, helped by that strong reading from U.S. nonfarm payrolls. That number completely obliterated expectations," said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG in Melbourne.

Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.9 percent to 6,521.46. Germany's DAX was 0.1 percent higher at 8,133.68. France's CAC-40 was nearly unchanged at 3,912.64. Wall Street appeared headed for yet more gains, with Dow futures rising 0.1 percent to 14,919. S&P 500 futures rose 0.1 percent at 1,610.10.

In Asia, Malaysia's KLSE Composite surged 3.4 percent to 1,752.02 after the country's governing coalition won national elections, albeit with a weakened majority, to extend its unbroken, 56-year rule.

"We will likely see the (government) pay greater attention to fiscal consolidation after the string of populist handouts in the run-up to elections," analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a commentary.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1 percent to 22,915.09. Australia's S&P/ASX advanced 0.5 percent to 5,156.20. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia also rose, while the Philippines fell. South Korea's Kospi lost 0.2 percent to 1,962.25. Japan's stock market was closed for a public holiday.

Surging copper prices helped companies involved in producing the widely used industrial metal. Australia's OZ Minerals surged 9.5 percent.Hong Kong-listed Jiangxi Copper rose 5.2 percent. Australia's BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company, rose 2.8 percent.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was up 63 cents to $96.24 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.62 to close at $95.61 a barrel on the Nymex on Friday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3107 from $1.3110 late Friday in New York. The dollar rose to 99.35 yen from 99.04 yen.

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Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter athttp://twitter.com/pamelasampson

Clearwire shares, which fell about 6 percent in an initial reaction to the statement, recovered to trade just above the closing price of $3.38 on Friday.

"The Clearwire board has unanimously concluded that the proposed transaction with Sprint is the best strategic alternative for stockholders ... especially in light of the company's limited alternatives and the well-known constraints of its liquidity position," Clearwire said.

Four shareholders holding about 17 percent of Clearwire's shares said on Friday they would work together to seek a better deal for the wireless service provider.

Sprint offered to buy Clearwire in December for $2.2 billion but satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp announced a counterbid of $2.3 billion in January. Dish followed up in April by making a bid for Sprint.

Clearwire said in February it would evaluate Dish's bid but continued to recommend Sprint's offer.

(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is expected to clear Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry mobile devices for use on Defense Department networks in the next few weeks, part of an effort to ensure the military has access to the latest communications technology, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

The decision will set the stage for an intensified struggle for Pentagon customers among BlackBerry devices, Apple's iPhones or iPads and units using Google's Android platform such as Samsung Electronics' phones. The Pentagon currently has some 600,000 users of smart phones, computer tablets and other mobile devices.

The Pentagon unveiled a plan in February aimed at giving the military services a much broader range of choices among mobile devices. The department currently has 470,000 BlackBerry users, 41,000 Apple users and 8,700 people with Android devices. Most Apple and Android systems are in pilot or test programs.

"We are working towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of devices and operating systems, to include Samsung, Apple and BlackBerry," said Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman.

"A key objective of the plan is to establish a department-wide mobile enterprise solution that permits the use of the latest commercial technology such, as smart phones and tablets," he added.

Several mobile devices and operating systems are currently going through a security review and approval process with the Defense Information Systems Agency, Pickart said.

Once the devices have cleared the process for creating a STIG - for Security Technical Implementation Guide - Pentagon organizations will be able to order them knowing that they have the necessary security configuration to be used on the Defense Department's internal networks, he said.

Pickart said Samsung's Knox version of Android currently is going through the security review process, with a decision expected in the next two weeks.

A full security review for Apple's iOS 6 system is expected in early May, and BlackBerry has submitted security plans for its BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry Device Service, with a decision expected in two weeks.

The security reviews are part of the Commercial Mobile Device Implementation Plan unveiled by the Pentagon in February.

Major General Robert Wheeler, deputy chief information officer, told reporters at the time that the effort aimed to ensure the Pentagon's mobile devices, wireless infrastructure and mobile applications remain "reliable, secure and flexible enough to keep up with the fast-changing technologies of today."

(Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

It's possible, suggests a new study, which finds that as climates warm around the world, plants may respond by releasing more aerosol particles into the atmosphere.

The research, published online April 28 in the journal Nature Geoscience, finds that these natural aerosols can fuel cloud formation, which may help cool a warming climate. []

Aerosols are fine particles of solid or liquid matter, suspended in air. Most of the aerosol particles in Earth's atmosphere come from human activities such as vehicle exhaust, according to the environmental blog . Volcanic eruptions also contribute some aerosols to the atmosphere.

But a small percentage of atmospheric aerosols come from living plants, according to a news release from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), which co-sponsored the study.

Plants release gases such as water vapor and oxygen; these combine with the aerosols released from plants to form larger airborne particles that reflect sunlight and form cloud droplets.

"Everyone knows the scent of the forest," Ari Asmi, University of Helsinki researcher and co-author of the study, said in a statement. "That scent is made up of these gases."

To measure the cooling effect, researchers collected data from 11 sites around the world, measuring aerosol particle concentrations, plant gases and temperatures.

In warmer temperatures, it was revealed, plants emit more of the gases that stick to aerosol particles. These can lead to cloud formation and, as a result of cloud cover, cooler temperatures.

Other natural phenomenon may help to cool the planet: Some researchers believe that microscopic plants that drift on ocean currents may reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and lower the atmosphere's temperature.

Other research finds that , which also absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide and release water vapor that forms clouds, are critical to stabilizing atmospheric temperatures.

It's unclear how much cooling might actually occur as a result of so-called "biogenic" aerosols.

"This does not save us from climate warming," Pauli Paasonen, lead author of the study, said in the release.

Though in some areas, such as the forests of Finland and Canada, the cooling effect can be as large as 30 percent, the overall global effect is very small, offsetting only about 1 percent of global warming, according to the study.

Nonetheless, the impact of plant-based aerosol formation is an important element in fine-tuning climate forecast models, the researchers believe.

"Aerosol effects on climate are one of the main uncertainties in climate models," Paasonen said in the release. "Understanding this mechanism could help us reduce those uncertainties and make the models better."

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More than two-thirds of people with non-melanoma skin cancer underwent surgery to treat the condition, according to a new study - including patients who were at least 85 years old or had multiple other chronic diseases.

Researchers found 43 percent of those patients with limited life expectancies died within five years of their diagnosis - but none from skin cancer. Many of them reported poor wound healing after skin surgery or other treatment-related complications including pain, numbness and itching.

The study team said its findings suggest many older patients may not live long enough to benefit from treatment for non-melanoma skin cancers, but can still be harmed by it.

"For so many conditions we just use a standard treatment without thinking about the long-term (clinical) cost," said Dr. Ashish Jha, a health policy researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

"What I think doctors often underestimate is how often patients don't want aggressive care."

Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer. About 2.2 million Americans are diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancers - which include basal and squamous cell cancers - each year. But according to the American Cancer Society, only 2,000 people die annually from those cancers - less than 0.1 percent of the number diagnosed.

"Non-melanoma skin cancer in some ways is a classic example of a cancer that rarely kills people and it is something that can be treated in a variety of ways and (treatment) really should be customized," Jha, who wasn't involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

Researchers led by Dr. Eleni Linos from the University of California, San Francisco, followed 1,360 people who were diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer at one of two dermatology clinics in 1999 and 2000.

Those patients were 69 years old, on average. About one-quarter of them had a limited life expectancy because they were at least 85 or had more than one chronic health condition, including heart, lung or kidney disease, diabetes and dementia.

Most of those older, sicker patients said they weren't frequently bothered by their skin cancers. Some may not have even noticed them, Linos said.

Age and underlying health did not influence what type of treatment patients received, she and her colleagues reported Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. About 69 percent of all skin cancers were treated surgically - half with simple excisions and half with lengthier, more intensive procedures.

That was the case even for people who died within two years of getting skin cancer - from a heart attack or stroke, for example.

"We found that regardless of how old people were, how sick or frail they were, what their life expectancy was, they were getting similar treatment," Linos told Reuters Health. "We saw that as evidence that at the moment, we're not tailoring our treatment to specific patients."

She and her colleagues said that for some old and sick patients, just getting to the doctor and sitting in the waiting room may be trying - not to mention undergoing a three-hour surgery.

AGE DETERMINES TREATMENT?

Jha said he doesn't think age should be the determining factor behind who does or doesn't undergo surgery for non-melanoma skin cancer. Rather, patients should be given the relevant information about their diagnosis and underlying health and decide for themselves how aggressively their illness is treated.

"There are 80-, 85-year-olds who are extremely healthy (and) vigorous and my take is we should treat them as aggressively as they would like to be treated," he said, "whereas there are people in their 50s or 60s with advanced diseases who may have a much shorter lifespan."

Linos agreed.

"We would never want to restrict access to care based on age," she said.

"Our goal really is to involve patients in this decision and to be able to say, Here are the risks, here are the benefits, what do you want?'"

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/MbBLbb JAMA Internal Medicine, online April 29, 2013.

The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk.

Too much lead can harm developing brains and can mean a lower IQ. Lead poisoning used to be a much larger concern in the United States, but has declined significantly as lead was removed from paint and gasoline and other sources.

The new number translates to about 1 in 38 young children. That estimate suggests a need for more testing and preventive measures, some experts said, but budget cuts last year eliminated federal grant funding for such programs.

Those cuts represent "an abandonment of children," said David Rosner, a Columbia University public health historian who writes books about lead poisoning.

"We've been acting like the problem was solved and thiswas a thing ofthe past," he added.

Lead can harm a child's brain, kidneys and other organs. High levels in the blood can cause coma, convulsions and death. Lower levels can reduce intelligence, impair hearing and behavior and cause other problems.

Most cases of lead poisoning are handled by tracking and removing the lead source, and monitoring the children to make sure lead levels stay down. A special treatment to remove lead and other heavy metals is used only for extremely high levels.

Often, children who get lead poisoning live in old homes that are dilapidated or under renovation. They pick up paint chips or dust and put it in their mouth. Other sources include soil contaminated by old leaded gasoline, dust from industrial worksites and tainted drinking water

Lead has been banned in household paint since 1978 and was gone from gasoline by the late 1980s.

After lowering the standard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went back and looked at old blood tests from 1,653 children under 6 to determine how many would have lead poisoning under the new definition.

About 3 percent of them or about 50 kids had blood lead levels higher than the new threshold of 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. Using that result, CDC officials calculated that an estimated 535,000 young children have lead poisoning.

A year ago, when the threshold was 10 micrograms, experts estimated that somewhere between 77,000 and 255,000 young kids had high levels of lead.

These estimates have focused on children younger than 6, who have been considered most at risk of neurological problems due to lead.

Overall, the new CDC study found lead counts were higher on average in children who were poor or African-American, said the CDC's Mary Jean Brown, an author of the study.

Those kids are more likely to live in old housing or in neighborhoods with greater exposure to lead, she added.

The good news: Even with the lower threshold, lead poisoning appears to still be declining. Years ago, some local health departments began tracking the number of kids with blood levels at 5 or greater, and they say those numbers have been dropping steadily.

However, it's likely that many children with lead poisoning have not been diagnosed. In the CDC study, elevated lead levels were discovered for a third of the children only when they were tested by researchers.

"When you look for it, you find it," Columbia's Rosner said.

Once lead poisoning is diagnosed, doctors often refer parents to local health departments to get their homes checked out to try to find the source of the problem. But as demand for investigations grows, there's less money to pay for them. Congress last year cut CDC lead program's budget from about $29 million to $2 million. That ended CDC grants to local health departments for their programs.

Detroit's lead program was all but eliminated because of the federal cut and state and local funding problems, said Bob Scott of Michigan's lead poisoning prevention program.

Other places are struggling to keep up with lead work at the same time they are cutting staff. The Cleveland area has been aggressive about lead poisoning prevention but the loss of CDC funding hurt those efforts.

For example, Cuyahoga County which includes Cleveland saw its staff for blood testing of children and public education drop from 2 1/2 positions to 1.

"It's unsustainable," said Terry Allan, the county's health commissioner.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr