But businessman Matt Lombardi says just one day of the programs strenuous routine .

I simply wanted to get back in shape. I could have killed myself in the process, Lombardi writes on his site, .

Lombardi says he has always been an athlete and that he didnt wander recklessly into the program. Instead, he says he wanted to try P90X to help lose the 20 pounds he had gained while developing College Spun.

After completing only half of the first day of workouts, Lombardi said he woke up the next morning feeling sore and ill.

If youve done P90X, then you know that the first day (chest & back) is really, really difficult, he writes. Youre asked to do push-ups, then pull-ups, then push-ups, then pull-ups. I lost count of my how many of each I did but it was a lot. Eventually, my muscles just shut down.

Despite the pain, he decided to try day two of the program. Instead, he found himself back in bed. On the third day, he describes using the bathroom and being shocked when his urine looked like Coca-Cola.

After a quick Web search, Lombardi guessed he was experiencing rhabdomyolysis. The National Institutes of Health describes the condition as the breakdown of muscle fibers that leads to the release of muscle fiber contents (myoglobin) into the bloodstream. Myoglobin is harmful to the kidney and often causes kidney damage.

The condition is commonly brought on by excessive physical activity and results when excessive toxins are released into the bloodstream.

So, why did Lombardi end up in the hospital when thousands of other individuals, many without a background in athletic activity, have a positive experience with P90X? Several experts warn that jumping into P90X, or any intense workout routine, .

Of course, like any other trendy exercise program, P90X is not without its critics. In a YouTube video,jokes that the program has been great for his business, by increasing the number of patients who come to him with lower-back pain resulting from P90X.

I see a lot of people trying to do, or being asked to do, abdominal exercises that their abs are simply not strong enough to actually do, he says in the video.

Ill be honest P90X has a number of warnings about what strenuous exercise can do to your body, Lombardi wrote. But if Id specifically known about rhabdomyolysis, I dont think Id have ever even taken the plunge.

Lombardi then checked himself into an emergency room, where he says the levels of toxins in his bloodstream were literally off the charts.

My blood test came back with a CPK (creatine phosphokinase) level of over 16,800 (the max they can test for), he wrote. Normal CPK levels, I was told, usually run between 10-200 micrograms per liter. These levels are a huge indicator of severe rhabdomylolysis.

Doctors hooked him up to an IV, Lombardi wrote, and he spent the next several days under observation while doctors waited for the toxicity levels in his bloodstream to return to normal.

Going forward, he was told to approach future exercise routines with caution.

My two biggest takeaways from the entire ordeal? You cant put your muscles through a strenuous workout without leading up to it, and you need to recognize when youre body is telling you that there is something wrong, Lombardi writes. The first could have killed me, while the second may have saved me.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is considering pulling out all its troops from Afghanistan next year but is far from making a decision, White House and Pentagon officials said on Tuesday, but Afghan officials expressed skepticism that President Barack Obama would back a complete withdrawal.

Amid tensions between Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the path forward, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that a "zero option" of leaving no U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 is among the policy possibilities under consideration.

"This is not a decision that is imminent," Carney said.

Obama is committed to winding down U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The United States has been talking with officials in Afghanistan about keeping a small residual force there of perhaps 8,000 troops after 2014.

At the Pentagon, spokesman George Little played down friction with Karzai and expressed confidence that there was still "plenty of time and space" to negotiate a bilateral security pact allowing for U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan.

Karzai suspended talks on that pact in June, accusing Washington of mixed messages regarding peace talks with the Taliban. It was among the latest signs of deep tensions between U.S. officials and the Afghan leader. A June 27 video conference between Obama and Karzai aimed at lowering tensions was confrontational, officials said.

"I wouldn't say that we're frustrated. We continue to work through issues," Little said. "We realize that there are going to be points of contention from time to time. That's natural of any partnership. But we think we can get through them."

AFGHANS SKEPTICAL

Senior Afghan figures close to Karzai expressed skepticism that the United States would consider a complete withdrawal.

"Both sides understand how to pressure each other. But both the U.S. and Afghanistan fully understand the need for foreign troops, especially U.S. ones, to stay beyond 2014 and that it is vital for security here and in the wider region," a top palace official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"We don't think the U.S. will compromise on that, because past experience of abandoning Afghanistan was that the country descended into chaos," the official said, recalling the bitter civil war that raged after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal and subsequent toppling of the Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992.

Much of Kabul was gutted in the ensuing conflict between rival warlords until the Taliban seized control of the country in 1996 and introduced their austere Islamic regime.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi said there had been no decisions on the pace and scale of a U.S. withdrawal, and similar scenarios had circulated in the past.

A former Karzai political adviser, Nasrullah Stanikzai, said the Afghan government must pursue its own strategic and political interests in negotiations with the United States, but tense relations between Obama and Karzai were not helping.

"But U.S. officials saying they are considering leaving no troops behind after 2014 is just propaganda to put pressure on (the) Afghan government so Washington can get an outcome it wants in a bilateral security pact," Stanikzai said.

The negotiations on the future U.S. role in Afghanistan that were suspended by Karzai will cover vital basing issues and whether reduced numbers of U.S. troops may be able to continue attacks against al Qaeda and other extremist groups, including in neighboring Pakistan.

The United States also considered keeping a small force in Iraq after the broad troop withdrawal from that country, but talks with Iraqi leaders failed to yield such a deal.

The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan now around 63,000 already is set to decline to 34,000 by February. The White House has said the great majority of American forces will be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

U.S. troops have been in Afghanistan since 2001. The United States invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban rulers who had harbored the al Qaeda network responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States weeks earlier.

(Additional reporting by Rob Taylor, Hamid Shalizi and Mirwais Harooni in Kabul; Editing by Will Dunham)

ZURICH (Reuters) - Roche will stop development of a drug for treating diabetes partly due to its undesired side effects, marking a high-profile setback for the Swiss company outside its cancer drug comfort zone.

The diabetes treatment - aleglitazar - belongs to a class of drugs that rival pharmaceutical firms had already pulled back from, raising the question of why Roche had pressed on with what analysts had seen as a risky bet.

Patients in a late-stage trial of the drug suffered side effects affecting organs such as their kidneys and hearts, a spokesman for the Basel-based drugmaker said, adding Roche could not yet quantify the financial impact of the move.

Roche said in a statement on Wednesday it was working to support patients on the drug to move to other therapies.

AstraZeneca had scrapped development of a similar class of drug in 2006, the same year as Bristol-Myers Squibb ended development of another after regulatory setbacks.

Analysts at Kepler Chevreux said the consensus view for peak sales of the drug had only been 200 million francs.

"In hindsight it seemed odd how Roche put so many resources into a compound whose mechanism - given experience with at least 3 other drugs in the class - was at best questionable," they wrote in a note.

Roche shares were down 0.3 percent at 0749 GMT (3.49 a.m. EDT) , compared to a 0.2 percent rise in the European healthcare index.

"The fact is, Roche isn't particularly good in metabolic and cardiovascular drugs and should exit its research in these areas," Zuercher Kantonalbank analyst Michael Nawrath said.

Bank Vontobel, which had forecast 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.05 billion) in peak sales from aleglitazar, pruned its price target for Roche to 263 francs from 270 francs after the setback, but confirmed its "buy" rating.

As it went into the 7,000-patient late-stage study of aleglitazar, Roche took steps to reduce the possibility that its product might have the same problems as other medicines in the class. It particular, it conducted a renal safety study to ensure its product was free of the kidney problems that undermined AstraZeneca's.

Drugs like aleglitazar are designed to turn on two protein receptors known as PPARs, one that regulates glucose and another lipids. These dual PPAR drugs have long fascinated researchers as a potential way to help diabetics address multiple targets linked to heart disease.

The news is also a new blow for Roche's Basel research operations, known as pRED, which have languished in the shadow of the work done at Genentech acquired in 2009, whose labs cooked up Roche's four top-selling medicines in 2011.

"The news just raises more fundamental questions about the productivity of pRED," Kepler Chevreux analysts wrote.

Last year, Roche scrapped development of pRED's dalcetrapib - a medicine aimed at boosting levels of "good" high-density cholesterol - which some industry analysts had estimated could have achieved $10 billion in annual sales.

($1 = 0.9735 Swiss francs)

(Reporting By Katharina Bart, Paul Arnold and Ben Hirschler; additional reporting by Caroline Copley; editing by Jane Merriman and Emma Thomasson)

Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989 as the Berlin Wall crumbled, said the West was involved in "insidious" online spying that could change the way normal people use their computers.

The United States and Britain are facing domestic and international furor after a security contractor leaked documents that lifted the lid on previously secret American and British programs to spy on the Internet.

"In the Middle East, people have been given access to the Internet but they have been snooped on and then they have been jailed," Berners-Lee, 58, told The Times newspaper in an interview.

"It can be easy for people in the West to say 'oh, those nasty governments should not be allowed access to spy.' But it's clear that developed nations are seriously spying on the Internet," he said.

Berners-Lee said the revelations about U.S. and British spying could alter the way people use the internet, especially for younger generations who can use it in intimate ways.

"Teenagers who are unsure about their sexuality who need to contact others, or people being abused trying to find helplines... There are things that happen on the net that are very intimate, which people are going to be loath to do if they feel there is somebody looking over their shoulder."

He also questioned whether the governments could safeguard sensitive date once collected.

Berners-Lee made the comments before accepting a joint engineering prize awarded by Queen Elizabeth to five men -- including Robert Kahn, Vint Cerf, Louis Pouzin and Marc Andreessen -- who are considered to be the fathers of the Internet.

Cerf, Google vice president who is listed as "Chief Internet Evangelist" on the company's website, suggested computer scientists should work on ways to get around surveillance by creating encrypted web communication, The Times reported.

Documents leaked by former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chatrooms and video from large companies, including Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Ralph Boulton)

"Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," he said in a speech on energy policy at Georgetown University. "The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward."

The Keystone XL pipeline would carry oil from Canada to refineries in Texas.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; editing by Jackie Frank)

Ministry spokesman Khaled el-Khatib said initial reports also indicated at least 322 were wounded, although he gave no details on the circumstances of the killings.

Military spokesmen said gunmen opened fire on troops at the building, killing at least five supporters of Mohammed Morsi and one officer.

A spokesman from Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, Mourad Ali, and a witness at the scene however said military forces opened fire at dawn on the protesters outside the Republican Guard building. The different accounts could not be reconciled.

Satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera showed footage from a nearby field hospital of at least six dead bodies laid out on the ground, some with severe wounds. A medic from the area, Hesham Agami, said ambulances were unable to transport more than 200 wounded to hospitals because the military had blocked off the roads.

Al-Shaimaa Younes, who was at the sit-in, said military troops and police forces opened fire on the protesters during early morning prayers. "They opened fire with live ammunition and lobbed tear gas," she said by telephone. "There was panic and people started running. I saw people fall."

Women and children had been among the protesters, she said.

Morsi supporters have been holding rallies and a sit-in outside the Republican Guard building since the military deposed Morsi last week during massive protests against him. The military chief replaced Morsi with an interim president, until presidential elections are held. But Morsi's supporters refuse to recognize the change in leadership and insist Morsi be reinstated. Besides the Republican Guard sit-in, they are also holding thousands-strong daily rallies at a nearby mosque.

Morsi's opponents are also holding rival rallies. They say the former president lost his legitimacy by mismanaging the country and not ruling democratically, leading to a mass revolt that called on the army to push him from office.

Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said initial information indicates that gunmen affiliated with the Brotherhood tried to storm the Republican Guard building shortly after dawn, firing live ammunition and throwing firebombs from a nearby mosque and rooftops. One police officer on the scene was killed, he said. Another military spokesman, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said five from the Brotherhood side were killed.

A statement by the armed forces published on the state news agency said "an armed terrorist group" tried to storm the Republican Guard building, killing one officer and seriously injuring six. The statement said the forces arrested 200 attackers, armed with guns and ammunition.

After declaring the ouster of Morsi last Wednesday, the Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi replaced him with Egypt's chief justice and suspended the constitution until new presidential elections. The transition plan is backed by liberal and secular opponents of Morsi, and had been also supported by the ultraconservative Islamist Al-Nour party and both Muslim and Christian religious leaders.

Soon after the attack report however, Al-Nour party spokesman Nader Bakkar said on his Twitter account his party is withdrawing its support for the transition plan in response to the "massacre."

__________

Associated Press Writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report

The "Star Wars" saga is so ingrained in our collective consciousness that even a potato chip container is enough to spawn some hilarious and impressive fan films.

A few months ago, Pringles potato chips and Lucasfilm asked fans to create an original short film set in the Star Wars universe using the snack food as a centerpiece.

We looked for creativity that was rooted in a deep appreciation of the 'Star Wars' movies and the charactersreferences and details that could only come from a fan, and that could best be appreciated by other fans, Lucasfilms Global Integrated Promotions Manager Kelli Martin told Yahoo News.

Now, many "Star Wars" fans will roll their eyes at the idea of using their beloved franchise to sell potato chips. And to be sure, the theme has been worn thin in recent years. Nearly everyone with an Internet connection has their own takea Yoda pun here, a Darth Vader reference there. Theres so much "Star Wars" shoved in our faces these days that its hard for anything to feel fresh.

But the fans in this contest actually pulled it off. And part of the credit has to go to Lucasfilm, which selected the finalists that best represented "Star Wars."

The winning entry was , which reimagined the "Star Wars" villain as an overbearing office manager. The video has received 150,000 page views since it was first posted in May, along with the other contest finalists.

It's been a bit of a roller-coaster ride of emotions, and by mid-June we had convinced ourselves that we weren't going to win, said Erik Beck, whose team Indie Machines, produced the winning video.

We're also honored at how many people commented and shared the video, Beck told Yahoo News. No way we would have won without all their support.

And as part of their prize for winning the contest, Beck and his team will have their video aired as a national commercial by Pringles this fall.

The other finalists included a video about aand , including their potato chip container.

Fan films have been part of the 'Star Wars' experience from the very start, Martin told Yahoo. Beginning most famously with Hardware Wars in 1978, George Lucas set out to inspire young people to pursue their dreams with 'Star Wars,' and often that dream is to be a filmmaker.

The other finalist videos can be seen .

The leader of a Toledo, Ohio, Girl Scouts troop was arrested last week, charged with stealing more than $10,000 raised during a cookie drive.

Tarra Kopp-Headley, a 32-year-old volunteer troop manager, allegedly took $10,284.50 in cookie money, Lucas County Police say, and made more than $1,700 in unauthorized cash and check withdrawals from the troop's checking account between December and April.

"It was a large amount and it's something that we don't take lightly," said Girl Scouts spokeswoman Shonna King . "And after several attempts to recoup that money and resolve the situation with the leader, we had to take the next appropriate steps."

Kopp-Headley was supposed to deposit the cookie money in the Scout account and "made numerous promises to pay," according to the complaint, but never did. That led to a police investigation and Kopp-Headley's arrest on June 27, according to the Lucas County Sheriff's Office.

"Not only does this take money away from the troop, but it takes away money that they can use for their different activities," King said. "It also takes away money that's going back in the community for girls."

Kopp-Headley was released on $5,000 bond, and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday. She did not immediately return a request for comment.

It's not the first time Girl Scout cookies were at the center of a scandal. In March, two Girl Scout troops in Oregon say they were duped into fulfilling a $24,000 order from a local company for 6,000 boxes of cookies, only to find out the sale was a hoax.

"I contacted the company and they said, 'We have no idea what's going on,'" scout mother Jennifer Reed .

The troops held an "emergency sale" and were able to move the excess inventory.

Abbas said Friday that Jews should hear the Arab position on negotiations, which mirrors Palestinian demands.

Palestinians say they will not talk unless Israel stops building Jewish housing in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which they claim for their future state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Israel insists talks must resume without conditions and that settlements and other issues such as security concerns should be resolved through dialogue.

Abbas' comments in Beirut come days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in the region shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt to restart talks that collapsed in 2008.