SCE Chief Executive Andrew House added that the console will be available from November 15 in North America and will hit stores in Europe from November 29.

"The response we have received is nothing short of incredible," he said at a news conference on the sidelines of Gamescom, Europe's biggest videogames fair.

He added the console will be available in 32 countries worldwide during the holiday season.

Microsoft Corp has said it will start selling its latest console at some point in November, intensifying competition ahead of the year-end holidays and gift-giving season.

Sony has priced the PlayStation 4, its first new console in seven years, $100 lower than the new Xbox One by Microsoft at $399.

Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One in May, its first new gaming console in eight years, marking its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media content.

Microsoft Europe's Vice President of Interactive Entertainment Chris Lewis said on Tuesday preorders for the Xbox One were "unprecedented" but declined to give more details.

Sony said it would also cut the retail price for its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita devices to $199 in the United States and 199 euros ($270) in Europe.

Previously the Vita was 249 euros and the PlayStation 3 was 229 euros.

($1 = 0.7448 euros)

(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; editing by Christiaan Hetzner and Anthony Barker)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children who drink soda tend to score slightly higher on scales that measure aggressive behavior than kids who don't drink the carbonated beverages, according to a new study.

The study's lead author cautioned, however, that the increase may not be noticeable for individual children and the researchers can't prove soda caused the bad behaviors.

"It's a little hard to interpret it. It's not quite clinically significant," Shakira Suglia, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York, told Reuters Health.

Previous work by some of the study's authors had found connections between soda drinking and violent behavior, but the link had not been studied in young children.

For the new analysis, the researchers used an existing study of mothers and their 2,929 children from 20 large U.S. cities. The mothers and children were first recruited between 1998 and 2000 to be periodically interviewed and evaluated.

Mothers completed a checklist on children's behaviors over the previous two months to measure withdrawal, attention and aggression.

"It's things like how often does a child destroy his or her own belongings and how often do they destroy the belongings of others," Suglia said.

The mothers were also asked how many servings of soda their children drank per day and about other habits such as TV watching.

Overall, 43 percent of the kids drank at least one soda per day and 4 percent drank four or more servings.

Aggressive behavior was measured on a scale between 0 and 100 - with higher scores indicating more aggression. Suglia said the average score is 50, and 65 is usually used as a clinical marker of when children should be evaluated for a problem.

Kids who reportedly drank no soda scored 56 on the aggression scale, on average. That compared to 57 among kids who drank one serving per day, 58 among those who drank two servings, 59 among those who drank three servings and 62 for four soda servings or more per day.

After taking into account habits that may have influenced the results - such as how much TV the kids watched, how much candy they ate and their mother's race and education - the researchers still found that drinking two or four or more servings of soda per day was tied to higher aggression scores.

Overall, kids who drank four or more servings of soda per day were twice as likely to destroy other people's belongings, get into fights and physically attack people, compared to children who didn't drink soda.

Soda drinkers also scored higher on scales measuring signs of withdrawal and attention problems, write the researchers in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Suglia said that although the increased aggressive behavior may not be noticeable for each child, it's moving all kids closer to the scale's clinical threshold.

"Furthermore, if they're drinking this much soda, it's probably taking away from other nutritional things the child could be eating," she said.

The researchers write that they can't tell from their study what may explain the association between soda and behavior problems in children, but one possibility is that an ingredient in soda - like caffeine or high fructose corn syrup - could directly increase aggression.

Another possibility, however, is that an underlying condition - such as low blood sugar - could make kids more aggressive and make them crave soda and sweets, they add.

Suglia also said it's important to note that the results may not apply to the general population, because most of the mothers were single and African American or Latina.

Despite those limitations, Janet Fischel, director of developmental and behavioral pediatrics in the department of pediatrics at Stony Brook University School of Medicine in New York, said the study is a step in the right direction.

"I think it's really important and a giant first step in gathering an evidence base for what's becoming a very widespread dietary habit. I think that's really important," Fischel, who wasn't involved in the new study, said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1a8e2GA The Journal of Pediatrics, online August 16, 2013.

In a security message dated Tuesday, the U.S. Interests Section in Havana recommended visitors and U.S. citizens living on the island avoid untreated water, street food and under- or uncooked dishes such as ceviche.

"We urge you to follow public health recommendations and guidelines, such as safe food and water precautions and frequent hand washing to help prevent cholera infection," the diplomatic mission said in a statement published online.

The 51-year-old embargo against Cuba bars most American tourism to the island, but hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans make legal family visits each year and increasing numbers of U.S. citizens are visiting through licensed cultural exchanges.

According to the Pan American Health Organization there have been five confirmed cholera cases "associated with a history of travel to Cuba" in July and August: an Italian, two Venezuelans and two Chileans. At least three of them visited Havana.

Authorities last summer acknowledged a rare cholera outbreak originating in eastern Cuba after many years when it was unheard of on the island. They said at the time that the disease had run its course after afflicting 417 people and killing three.

In January the government announced 51 more nonfatal cases in the capital, but there has been no official word of new cases since then. Authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

In Havana, resident Carlos Rodriguez was not concerned.

"If there were to be cholera, the Health Ministry has an action plan with a super-strict system of isolating (infected) people," Rodriguez said. "So far I haven't had any news about there being cholera."

In the past, diplomats on the island have expressed dismay at what they called Cuba's lack of transparency on cholera statistics.

Tourism is a vital part of Cuba's wobbly economy, bringing in more than $2.5 billion in 2011 according to the most recent statistics available.

Cholera is a waterborne disease can kill its victims quickly through severe dehydration, but it is treatable if detected in time.

Cuba has a well-organized civil defense system and scrambled to fight last year's outbreak, with workers handing out chlorine and water purification drops and quarantining hospital patients with diarrhea. The government also mounted a campaign to raise awareness about good hygiene.

Meanwhile many Cuban doctors and nurses have experience diagnosing and treating cholera from aid missions in Haiti, where the disease has killed thousands in recent years.

"In Cuba, authorities maintain active and strict clinical-epidemiological surveillance of acute diarrheal diseases, studying every suspected case," the Pan American Health Organization said in its report.

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Associated Press journalist Milexsy Duran in Havana contributed to this report.

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Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

One of the top first-year players in the National Football League last season, Griffin had reconstructive surgery to repair torn lateral and anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL) suffered in a wildcard playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

"Doctors cleared me to practice. Coach is going to ease me in. Thank you for your support & See you in Richmond," tweeted Griffin, the 2011 Heisman Trophy winner.

The quarterback's comments, following a remarkably speedy recovery, backed up the confidence he expressed earlier this year about being fit for the team's training camp which starts on Thursday in Richmond, Virginia.

"One of my goals is to be on the field for training camp," Griffin told reporters in late May. 'It's just a matter of how my body feels when I get back from training camp on July 25th before we go down to Richmond. We'll go from there.

"I've said it a bunch of times, but I'm pretty confident that I'll be ready."

Griffin will join his teammates at training camp 200 days after having surgery which had been advised by his doctor, who had discovered a complete tear of the patellar graft that was used to repair the quarterback's torn ACL when he was at Baylor in 2009.

The Redskins are scheduled to start the regular season against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 9. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)

The bill, which passed in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly in June, would restrict licensed therapists from offering what is commonly referred to as conversion therapy. Christie is only the second governor to sign a law banning the practice for youths. California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed , which is currently .

In signing the bill into law, Christie issued a statement in which he cited the American Psychological Associationsthat recommended against the practice.

At the outset of this debate, I expressed my concerns about government limiting parental choice on the care and treatment of their own children. I still have those concerns, Christie said in a signing statement. Government should tread carefully into this area and I do so here reluctantly. I have scrutinized this piece of legislation with that concern in mind. However, I also believe that on issues of medical treatment for children we must look to experts in the field to determine the relative risks and rewards. The American Psychological Association has found that efforts to change sexual orientation can pose critical health risks including, but not limited to, depression, substance abuse, social withdrawal, decreased self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. I believe that exposing children to these health risks without clear evidence of benefits that outweigh these serious risks is not appropriate.

The decision by Christie, who is considered a possible contender to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, could become a point of debate during the party primary, as it was in the last election. In the run-up to the 2012 Republican primary season, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann came under fireoffered the conversion therapy.

The YouTube stream of the live chat will appear here at noon EDT. Questions may also be posted to .

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(Reuters) - Best Buy Co Increported its first quarterly profit in a year after keeping a tight lid on costs, further confirming that Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly's turnaround plan for the world's largest consumer electronics chain is working.

The news, which boosted Best Buy shares as much as 13 percent to three times their price at the end of 2012, came a year after the restructuring expert took the helm of the company.

Under Joly, Best Buy has lowered costs by removing layers of management, cutting jobs and closing some stores. It has also announced plans to shed noncore assets such as its stake in a European joint venture with Carphone Warehouse .

The efforts have boosted Best Buy's bottom line even as the company tries to reverse sales declines and fend off cutthroat competition from the likes of Wal-Mart Stores Incand Amazon.com Inc .

Joly told Reuters he saw more room to cut costs, but stressed that he would focus on saving money on goods sold rather than on reducing headcount.

The company has been matching rivals' online prices and dedicating more space to faster-growing products such as smartphones and tablets.

Best Buy is doing "some degree" of same-day delivery in some U.S. markets, Joly said. On Tuesday, it said it planned to extend its "ship from store" test to more than 200 locations in time for the holiday season.

The company has also invested in employee training, store revamps and its website.

Wall Street has cheered Best Buy's decision to let vendors such as Samsung Electronicsand Microsoft Corprun their own boutiques within the retailer's stores, saying this has helped solve such problems as excess square footage, customer service and pricing pressures.

While Best Buy is in talks with other vendors, Joly said he did not expect the stores to become just a collection of boutiques.

Net earnings rose to $266 million, or 77 cents a share in the second quarter ended August 4 from $12 million, or 4 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding a host of items, including certain legal settlements and a gain on the sale of Best Buy Europe, the company earned 32 cents a share, while analysts on average expected 12 cents.

"Best Buy's much better-than-expected second-quarter results further highlight the continued progress management has made under its Renew Blue turnaround plan," BB&T Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba said. "We find the results even more stunning given the myriad store disruptions and investments."

Best Buy's efforts to become more price-competitive and product warranty-related costs squeezed gross margin, but the 30-basis-point decline was less steep than what many on Wall Street expected.

Sales fell 0.4 percent to $9.30 billion, but topped the analysts' average estimate of $9.13 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Sales at stores open at least 14 months fell 0.6 percent, including a 0.4 decline domestically.

The company attributed the lower domestic same-store sales to "short-term disruptions," including the rollout of the Samsung and Microsoft Windows boutiques.

"The Windows stores-within-the-stores take several days to install," Best Buy spokesman Matt Furman said.

Best Buy shares were up 9.3 percent at $33.59 in afternoon trading after rising as high as $34.65 earlier in the day.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's core machinery orders fell in June and companies expect them to fall further in the current quarter, another sign that government stimulus has yet to boost capital spending as debate intensifies over how to address massive and growing public debt.

Weak capital spending is a source of concern for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who faces a tough decision on whether or not to go ahead with a sales tax increase to lift revenues and is reportedly now considering a cut in corporate taxes.

The 2.7 percent fall in core orders, which excludes those of ships and electric power utilities, compared with economists' median forecast of a 7.2 percent drop and followed a 10.5 percent jump in May, data from the Cabinet Office showed.

The machinery orders data, a leading indicator of capital spending, came a day after a slower-than-expected growth figures for the second quarter that showed capital expenditure fell for a sixth straight quarter.

The doubling of the 5 percent sales tax rate in two stages is seen as an important signal of intent on fixing Japan's public debt, which at more than 1,000 trillion yen ($10.4 trillion) is more than twice the size of its GDP.

But there are concerns the hike could stifle the economy, and Abe is considering a corporate tax cut as a way to offset the potential drag, the Nikkei economic daily reported.

ORDERS TO FALL FURTHER

Compared with a year earlier, core orders increased 4.9 percent in June against a forecast of a 2.4 percent gain.

In a worrying sign, companies forecast core orders would fall 5.3 percent in July-September from April-June, when they rose 6.8 percent to record the first increase in five quarters.

"The forecasts for July-September are a little disappointing," said Masayuki Kichikawa, chief Japan economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Securities.

"This will keep the government cautious about capital expenditure and increase the voices requesting measures to stimulate capital expenditure."

Minutes from the Bank of Japan board meeting last month, released on Tuesday, showed members thought the economy was beginning to recover but there were concerns about the outlook for capital spending and the global economy.

One board member said big manufacturers' capital expenditure wasn't strong, and that companies tended to focus more on overseas rather than domestic spending, the minutes showed. ($1 = 96.5650 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Leika Kihara, writing by Stanley White; Editing by John Mair)

The drug cut prostate cancer risk by 30 percent without raising the risk of dying of an aggressive form of the disease as earlier results hinted it might.

The new work could prompt a fresh look at using the drug for cancer prevention. Experts say it could prevent tens of thousands of cases each year, saving many men from treatments with seriously unpleasant side effects.

The drug is sold as Proscar by Merck & Co. and in generic form as finasteride to treat urinary problems from enlarged prostates. It's also sold in a lower dose as Propecia to treat hair loss.

A decade ago, the drug was found to cut the risk of prostate cancer. But there was a small rise in aggressive tumors among its users. Some researchers said that by shrinking the prostate, the drug was just making these tumors easier to find in a biopsy sample not causing them.

But the concern led the Food and Drug Administration to turn down the drug for cancer prevention and warnings were added to its label.

Now, with 18 years of follow-up from that earlier study, researchers report that men on the drug were no more likely to die than those not taking it.

That's reassuring because if the drug were truly spurring lethal tumors, there would have been more deaths among its users as time went on, said Dr. Michael LeFevre, a family physician at the University of Missouri.

LeFevre wrote an editorial that appears with the study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. He is one of the leaders of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of doctors who advise the federal government. The group has not taken a stance on finasteride for prevention but has advised against screening with PSA blood tests.

Screening does more harm than good, the panel has said, because although 240,000 new prostate cancers are diagnosed each year in the United States, only about 30,000 prove fatal. That means many men are treated for cancers that grow too slowly to be life-threatening, and often suffer sexual and urinary problems as a result.

The study, led by Dr. Ian Thompson at the Cancer Therapy and Research Center in San Antonio, was done to see whether finasteride could lower the risk of prostate cancer in men who were getting screened with annual PSA blood tests, as many still choose to do.

Researchers assigned 18,882 men 55 or older with no sign of prostate cancer on blood tests or a physical exam to take finasteride or dummy pills for seven years. When the study ended, those who had not been diagnosed with prostate cancer were offered biopsies to check for hidden signs of the disease.

For the new analysis, researchers tracked the study participants for a longer time 18 years in all since enrollment began. Only about 10 percent of men on finasteride developed prostate cancer versus 15 percent of those on dummy pills. Aggressive tumors were found in 3.5 percent of men on the drug versus 3 percent of the others. Yet 78 percent of both groups were alive after 15 years.

That means the drug cannot be recommended to prolong life, just to ease suffering by preventing disease, LeFevre said.

"You may be preventing cancers that don't need to be prevented" because so few are life-threatening, but screening is finding these tumors anyway and leading to unnecessary treatments, he said. Reducing that number is a valid reason to use a prevention drug, he said.

Finasteride's other impact is financial. Proscar and a similar drug, GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Avodart, cost about $4 a pill. Generic finasteride is available for less. Insurers cover it when prescribed to treat urinary problems but may not pay if it's used solely for cancer prevention.

The drug also can cause hot flashes, fatigue, weakness, low sex drive and trouble having sex.

"A man certainly needs to know what he's getting into if he decides to take this," LeFevre said.

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Follow Marilynn Marchione on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Lance Bass has joined as an executive producer on the documentary "Kidnapped for Christ," which sheds light on controversial behavior modification methods used on children - sent there by their parents - at an Evangelical Christian reform school.

"It is important for these hidden stories to be told," Bass said in a statement. "The world needs to see how damaging places like this can be to our youth."

In the film, director Kate Logan goes behind-the-scenes at Escuela Caribe, a "therapeutic Christian boarding school" in the Dominican Republic run by Americans. Logan gets unprecedented access to the school due to her former role as an Evangelical missionary, but in the course of filming she begins to question the school's methods for dealing with troubled teens for attitude problems to homosexuality.

Bass, best known as one of the members of boy band N'Sync, has also served as an executive producer on "Mississippi I Am," which documented his own gay coming out. He also executive produced on comedy "The Grand" and romantic comedy "Love Wrecked."

He joins executive producer, actor and MTV "Real World: D.C." alum Mike C. Manning on the film, as well as producers Paul A. Levin and Yada Zamora for RedThorn Productions.

"Parents think they're doing the right thing by sending their children to these places," Manning said. "We want to show them that these schools are not what they seem."