Downton Abbey Heartthrob Spoiler Alert - for Next Season
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
By Stephen M. Silverman
02/18/2013 at 01:20 PM EST
Tom Ellis, with Michelle Dockery (inset)
Bauer-Griffin
British TV heartthrob Tom Ellis reportedly had an impressive audition for the producers of Downton Abbey, to become what is being described as season 4's love interest for Lady Mary, played by Michelle Dockery.
According to the U.K. Mirror, an ITV source said of the 33-year-old, married father of three: "He really showed his versatility, and he's also incredibly popular with the female viewers."
Born in Wales, Ellis, whose wife is former EastEnders star Tamzin Outhwaite, appears in the comedy series Miranda. Neither show has made it to the U.S.
Sunday night during Downton's season 3 finale, America learned that Mary's husband Matthew Crawley, as played by Dan Stevens – who asked to be released from the series for professional reasons – came to a bloody end by crashing his sports car only minutes after meeting his newborn son and heir.
Apparently, the new mother and widow will not be lonely for long. Series' writer-creator Julian Fellowes drops a strong hint to that effect in Monday's New York Times, telling its TV writer Dave Itzkoff: "We begin Series 4 six months later. We don't have to do funerals and all that stuff. That's all in the past by then."
And since this is a series with a strongly devoted following that does not care for spoilers – which immediately started crossing the Atlantic once episodes started airing in its native country last fall, ahead of America's January 2013 season premiere on PBS – Fellows acknowledges, "I would vastly prefer that we all saw it together. The world is much more global. And so I look forward to the day when it changes, as I'm sure it will."
Good show.
Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior
Label: HealthSEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.
The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.
"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.
The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.
The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.
Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.
At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.
By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.
"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.
The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.
Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.
Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.
"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.
Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.
During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.
Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.
"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.
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Online:
Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org
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Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship
Yen resumes fall after G20, U.S. holiday thins trade
Label: BusinessLONDON (Reuters) - The yen resumed falling on Monday after Japan signaled it would push ahead with expansionist monetary policies having escaped criticism from the world's 20 biggest economies at the weekend.
Industrial metals also dipped and European shares were soft on lingering worries about the economic outlook, especially for the euro zone. While the risk of an inconclusive outcome in Italy's forthcoming election added to investor concerns.
However, activity was curtailed by the closure of markets in the United States for the Presidents' Day holiday.
The yen, which has dropped 20 percent against the dollar since mid-November, fell further after financial leaders from the G20 promised not to devalue their currencies to boost exports and avoided singling out Japan for any direct criticism.
The dollar rose 0.5 percent to 93.95 yen, near a 33-month peak of 94.47 yen set a week ago. The euro added 0.3 percent to 125.40 yen, to be midway between Friday's two-week low of 122.90 and a 34-month high of 127.71 yen hit earlier this month.
Strategists said the yen was likely to stay weak, though its decline could lose momentum until it becomes clear who will be taking the helm at the Bank of Japan when the current governor steps down on March 19.
"The yen probably will weaken a little further in anticipation of more aggressive easing under a new leadership team at the Bank of Japan," said Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is poised to nominate the new governor in the next few days. Sources have told Reuters that former financial bureaucrat Toshiro Muto, considered likely to be less radical than other candidates, was leading the field.
Meanwhile the euro dipped slightly against the dollar when European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said the currency's recent gains made any rise in inflation less likely and added that he had yet to see any improvement in the euro zone economy.
Speaking before the European Parliament, Draghi said the euro's exchange rate was not a policy target but was important for growth and stability, adding that appreciation of the euro "is a risk".
The comments left the euro down 0.2 percent at $1.3334.
Elsewhere in the currency market, sterling hit a seven-month low against the dollar, after a key policymaker made comments about the need for further weakness and recent poor data which has kept alive worries of another British recession.
Sterling fell 0.25 percent to $1.5476 having earlier touched $1.5438, its lowest since July 13.
DATA LOOMS
A big week for data on the outlook for the world's economy weighed on other riskier asset markets following the recent dire fourth-quarter growth numbers for the euro zone and Japan, along with Friday's soft U.S. manufacturing figures.
In European markets, attention is focused on the euro area Purchasing Managers' Indexes for February and German sentiment indices due later in the week which could affect hopes for a recovery this year.
Analysts expect Thursday's euro area flash PMI indices, which offer pointers to economic activity around six months out, to show growth stabilizing across the recession-hit region, leaving intact hopes for a recovery in the second half of 2013.
Concerns over an inconclusive outcome in the Italian election on Sunday and Monday have added to the weaker sentiment as a fragmented parliament could hamper a future government's efforts to reform the struggling economy.
The worries about the outlook for Italy were encouraging investors back into safe-haven German government bonds on Monday, with 10-year Bund yields easing 3.5 basis points to be around 1.63 percent.
"Political uncertainty will keep Bunds well bid this week," ING rate strategist Alessandro Giansanti said, adding that only better than expected economic data could create selling pressure on German debt in the near term.
Italian 10-year yields were 4 basis points higher on the day at 4.41 percent.
EARNINGS HIT
European equity markets were taking their lead from corporate earnings reports which have been reflecting the sluggish economic conditions across the region.
Danish brewer Carlsberg
The 5.8-percent drop for shares in the world's fourth biggest brewery helped send the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares down 0.2 percent. Germany's DAX <.gdaxi>, France's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Britain's FTSE-100 <.ftse> ranged between 0.4 percent up and 0.15 percent lower.
Earlier, the G20 statement and subsequent comment from Prime Minster Abe indicating a renewed drive to stimulate the Japanese economy lifted the Nikkei stock index <.n225> by 2.1 percent, near to its highest level since September 2008.
MSCI's world equity index <.miwd00000pus> was flat as markets extended a two-week period of consolidation that has followed the big run-up in January, when demand was buoyed by the efforts of central banks to stimulate the world economy.
Data from EPFR Global, a U.S.-based firm that tracks the flows and allocations of funds globally, shows investors pulled $3.62 billion from U.S. stock funds in the latest week, the most in 10 weeks after taking a neutral stance the prior week.
But demand for emerging market equities remained strong, with investors putting $1.81 billion in new cash into stock funds, the fund-tracking firm said.
CHINA RETURN
In the commodity markets, traders played catch-up after a week-long holiday last week in China, the world's second biggest consumer of many raw materials, which had kept activity subdued, with worries about the economic outlook weighing on sentiment.
Copper, for which China is the world's largest consumer, dipped to a near three-week low at $8,125.25 a metric ton (1.1023 tons) on the London futures market. Benchmark tin and nickel also touched three-week lows.
Gold managed to edge away from six-month lows as jewelers in China returned to the physical market after the Lunar New Year holiday but a lack of demand from U.S. markets saw the precious metal slip back to be down 0.1 percent to $1,607.06 an ounce.
Crude oil markets were mostly steady after the weak U.S. industrial production data on Friday [ID:nL1N0BF44A] was seen dampening demand, while tensions in the Middle East lent some support.
"We continue to see a mixed picture out of the United States. Industry output was lower than expected but that shouldn't affect the general upward direction," Olivier Jakob, analyst at Geneva-based Petromatrix, said.
Brent crude was down 20 cents at $117.46 a barrel after posting its first weekly loss since the first half of January. U.S. crude slipped 24 cents to $95.62.
(Additional reporting by Marius Zaharia and Ron Bousso; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald)
Israel Ex-Official Avigdor Lieberman’s Trial Starts
Label: World
JERUSALEM — Israel’s tough-talking former foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, pleaded not guilty on Sunday to charges of fraud and breach of trust in a criminal case that leaves his political future hanging in the balance.
An outspoken hard-liner and senior political partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Lieberman made his plea, through a lawyer, in a short court appearance that was mainly procedural as his trial opened. He is accused of having promoted Israel’s former ambassador to Belarus for another post after the ambassador had provided the foreign minister with classified information relating to a police investigation into Mr. Lieberman’s financial affairs.
As the trial opens, Mr. Netanyahu is engaged in delicate negotiations to form a new governing coalition after the January elections in which Mr. Lieberman ran as Mr. Netanyahu’s No. 2 on a joint rightist ticket.
“We are very pleased; we’ve passed the preliminaries,” one of Mr. Lieberman’s lawyers, Jacob Weinroth, told reporters after Sunday’s session, adding, “We want this to end quickly and we want it to end well.” The next four court sessions were set for late April and early May.
Mr. Lieberman will not be eligible for a ministerial post unless he is acquitted, but he has indicated that he intends to clear his name and return to the cabinet, preferably as foreign minister. Earlier this month he told Israeli television that the foreign affairs portfolio would remain with Mr. Netanyahu pending the conclusion of the trial.
Mr. Lieberman, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who rose to prominence as the leader of the ultranationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu, is currently serving as a member of Parliament and as temporary chairman of Parliament’s prestigious Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. But if he is convicted of offenses that include a finding of moral turpitude or receives a prison sentence of three months or more, he is likely to be forced to quit political life for several years.
Critics of the former foreign minister are asking how employees of the Foreign Ministry who may be called as witnesses by the prosecution can be expected to testify against Mr. Lieberman given the possibility that he may return to the ministry as their boss.
Israelis have almost gotten used to the spectacle of seeing senior public figures on the witness stand. A former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was acquitted last year of corruption charges in two major matters but was convicted of breach of trust in a third episode. He remains embroiled in another corruption case having to do with the construction of a huge residential complex while he was the mayor of Jerusalem. Moshe Katsav, a former president, is serving a seven-year prison term after being convicted of rape.
A highlight of the Lieberman trial is likely to be the testimony of the prosecution’s central witness — Danny Ayalon, who served as deputy foreign minister under Mr. Lieberman. Mr. Lieberman then dumped Mr. Ayalon from the party’s ticket shortly before the elections, for reasons that were not publicly specified.
Mr. Lieberman’s case is expected to rest partly on the argument that he did not intervene to promote the diplomat to the post of ambassador to Latvia but that the diplomat was the best candidate for the job.
According to the prosecution, Mr. Lieberman instructed Mr. Ayalon, who led the Foreign Ministry’s Appointments Committee, to advance the appointment of the diplomat to the post in Latvia and Mr. Ayalon did as he was asked.
Since his unexpected exclusion from the new Parliament Mr. Ayalon has become critical of Mr. Lieberman and his policies as foreign minister. On Saturday, Mr. Ayalon said in speech at a regional forum that Mr. Lieberman had tried to push through inappropriate diplomatic appointments that Mr. Ayalon said he had resisted, according to the newspaper Haaretz. He also said that Mr. Lieberman had failed to win the trust of foreign governments and should not serve another term as foreign minister.
“Anyone who wants to hear the testimony of outgoing Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon against Lieberman is going to have to order tickets,” Shalom Yerushalmi, a commentator, wrote Sunday in the newspaper Maariv. He added, “Ayalon is brimming with revenge.”
Kennedy on Auction
Label: LifestyleFifty years after JFK's death, a cache of rare mementos from his closest aide goes on sale Feb. 17 at John McInnis Auctioneers
Credit: David F. Powers Estate/John Mcinnis Auctioneers
Updated: Saturday Feb 16, 2013 | 06:00 AM EST
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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows
Label: HealthGENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.
U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.
Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.
He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.
Florida hit by "tsunami" of tax identity fraud
Label: BusinessMIAMI (Reuters) - Bruce Parton was only a few weeks from retirement after 30 years as a mail carrier in sunny Florida.
He never lived to fulfill his retirement plan of moving back to a quiet life in the Catskill mountains of New York, not far from where he grew up on Long Island.
Instead, he was gunned down on his daily mail route in December 2010 by members of an identity theft ring who stole his master key as part of a scheme to claim fraudulent tax refunds.
Using stolen names and Social Security numbers, criminals are filing phony electronic tax forms to claim refunds, exploiting a slow-moving federal bureaucracy to collect the money before victims, or the Internal Revenue Service, discover the fraud.
Parton was a victim of what officials say has ballooned into a massive, and dangerous, illegal industry that could cost the nation $21 billion over the next five years, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
While that is a relatively small sum compared to the $1.1 trillion collected from individual tax payers in the last fiscal year, the crime has been growing by leaps and bounds in the last three years.
"We are on the top of a national trend that is causing a hemorrhage of tax dollars," said Wifredo Ferrer, United States Attorney for south Florida. "It's a tsunami of fraud."
While the IRS says it has detected cases in every state except North Dakota and West Virginia, the fraud's epicenter is Florida, and it is mostly concentrated in Miami and Tampa.
Miami has 46 times the per-capita rate of false tax refund claims than the rest of the country, and 70 times the national average in dollar terms, Ferrer told Reuters.
"For whatever reason, we always tend to lead the nation when it comes to fraud," he said, noting that his office has been battling massive Medicare fraud in recent years that has since spread to other parts of the country.
Florida's high proportion of older residents, who can be more vulnerable to fraud, may be one reason for the high levels of fraud in the state.
Nationwide, the number of cases of tax identity theft detected by authorities sky-rocketed to more than 1.2 million cases in 2012 from only 48,000 in 2008, according to the Treasury Department.
The real number of phony tax filings is likely much higher as the fraud is hard to track, according to a November General Accountability Office report.
GANG LINKS
The tax ID theft problem is particularly troubling as, unlike Medicare fraud, it is associated with violent crime and armed gangs.
Tampa police first detected it in 2010 when officers discovered wanted street criminals engaged in tax fraud. "They were holed up in hotels with laptops churning out tax claims," said congresswoman Kathy Castor, who represents the area and is pressing the IRS to get tougher on the fraud.
When agents raided a Howard Johnson in East Tampa in late 2010, they found suspects smoking marijuana and four laptop computers being used to file fraudulent tax returns on Turbo Tax, the tax preparation software, according to police records.
The suspects had lists of personal information containing more than 1,000 names and confidential personal information, multiple re-loadable debit cards, and records of numerous financial transactions. The investigation revealed that the suspects had been camped out in the hotel room for more than a week filing claims.
Tax identity fraudsters are apparently drawn by the ease of the crime, officials say.
"The scheme is very basic, it works virtually the same in almost every case," said Ferrer. "All they need is your name and the tax ID number."
Armed with that information a refund claim can be filed electronically, making up other details on the form, including addresses, employer data, income and deductions.
Criminals obtain the vital numbers using various tactics, often by bribing office workers with access to personnel files inside companies, as well as large public institutions such as hospitals and schools, according to prosecutors.
Last summer a hacker stole 3.8 million unencrypted tax records from the South Carolina Department of Revenue in what is believed to be the largest security breach of a U.S. tax agency. Authorities say they do not know the hacker's motive.
One North Miami man, Rodney Saint Fleur, was charged last year with using the LexisNexis research service account at the law firm where he worked to access names and Social Security numbers of 26,000 people as part of an identity theft scheme, according to court documents.
Victims in Florida have varied from hospital patients, to Holocaust survivors at an elderly Jewish community center, as well as active duty military serving overseas.
In December, a former U.S. Marine from North Miami was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for stealing the identities of more than 40 fellow Marines stationed at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan as part of a plot to claim $54,000 in fraudulent income-tax refunds.
In Parton's case the criminals were after his master key that gives postal workers access to mail drop-off boxes and apartment mailboxes. He was shot twice in the chest by a gunman as part of a plot to steal identities in people's mail for tax refund fraud.
The gunman, Pikerson Mentor, 31, was sentenced last month to life plus 42 years.
More than 600 people turned up for Parton's funeral, including postal workers and people who got to know him on his route. "He had been doing that mail route for 10 years and he always had a smile for everyone," said his daughter, Nina Parton.
The criminals stay under the radar using identities of the elderly or the very young, who are unlikely to be filing for earned income, as well as the deceased. They typically claim small refunds, around $3,000, but use multiple identities, with payments often made to pre-paid debit cards.
FIGHTING BACK
The IRS said last week it is intensifying a crackdown on identify theft, with 3,000 agents devoted to tackling the problem, double the number assigned in 2011.
The number of IRS criminal investigations into identity theft more than tripled in the year to September 2012, and it was on pace to double again this year, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller told reporters.
The tax collection agency prevented $20 billion in attempted tax refund fraud in fiscal year 2012, up from $14 billion a year earlier, he said.
"It's one of the biggest challenges that faces the IRS today," Miller said. "We're doing much better on all fronts but we have much more to do."
Despite the increase in investigations, the agency still had a backlog of 300,000 cases of people waiting for legitimate refunds after they were victims of fraud. It takes an average of six months to resolve a case, Miller said.
"The IRS have put a lot of resources on it, but they always seem to be behind the curve," said Keith Fogg, a tax professor at Villanova University School of Law.
Electronic filing, which now accounts for 80 percent of returns and was introduced to speed up delivery of refunds, has made the system more vulnerable to fraud.
The IRS is seeking to speed up the loading of data from W-2 payroll forms issued at the beginning of the tax season, a time lapse which gives fraudsters a window of opportunity to file using false data.
The IRS is also looking for ways to authenticate the identity of tax filers at the time of filing to pre-empt fraud, as well as working with the Social Security Administration to limit access to a registry of social security data of deceased tax payers, the so-called "Death Master File", a frequent target of fraud.
"We will not be prosecuting our way out of this. That's not going to be the answer. We're going to have to make it more and more difficult for criminals to profit from this behavior," said Miller. "If they're not successful they will move onto something else."
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Claudia Parsons)
Syrian Kidnappings Raise Fear of Expanded Conflict
Label: World
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The tit-for-tat kidnappings of more than 140 people have provoked fears of expanded sectarian conflict in Syria’s northern Idlib Province in recent days, but one set of hostages was released in good condition on Saturday after negotiations between residents of two of the affected villages, according to a rebel commander.
Kidnappings for money or political reasons have become common in Syria as government control has eroded. The recent series of events demonstrated not only the high level of insecurity in the area, but also the determination of residents to defuse tensions.
The first kidnappings took place on Thursday, when 42 minority Shiite Muslims, mainly women and children, were seized from a bus traveling to Damascus, the capital, from their villages, Fouaa and Kfarya, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an antigovernment watchdog group based in Britain with a network of activists in Syria.
It was unclear who kidnapped them. Some elements of the mainly Sunni Muslim uprising have portrayed all Shiites as supporters of the government and its crackdown on the uprising, and some Shiite communities have provided gunmen to pro-government militias. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party, has also been accused of joining the conflict on the government’s side.
Later on Thursday, scores of people, mostly women from the mainly Sunni town of Saraqeb, were kidnapped by Shiite gunmen, apparently in retaliation, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a rebel commander, who was reached in Turkey. The group reported that 300 were taken hostage, while the commander said about 100 were abducted.
The kidnappings of civilians on both sides have raised fears that the sectarian conflict is escalating, and reports of women and girls being raped have become widespread. The United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, called for the women’s release.
The commander, who gave only his first name, Maysara, said the second set of kidnappings took place Thursday in a central square of the city of Idlib as workers prepared to commute home to Saraqeb and other villages.
“They were inside many minibuses,” he said. “The captors showed up suddenly.” He said they were pro-government militiamen from Fouaa, the hometown of most of the Shiite hostages.
“They captured the people in front of security forces and the army, who didn’t move or react,” he said.
On Saturday, most of the women from Saraqeb were released after negotiations, conducted through mediators, between residents of Saraqeb and Fouaa.
“I talked to one of them,” Maysara said. “The woman told me that the abductors treated them very well. They weren’t abused even verbally.”
The fate of the Shiite hostages was unclear on Saturday.
Fighting continued to rage Saturday around the main airport in the northern city of Aleppo, a major strategic prize for rebels that government troops are fiercely defending.
The Bachelor: Sean's Hometown Date with Desiree Gets Interrupted - By an Ex?
Label: LifestyleThe ex who pops back into the picture has been a common storyline in recent seasons of The Bachelor. And this season is no exception.
In this exclusive preview of Monday night's episode, Sean Lowe meets more of Desiree Hartsock's loved ones than he bargained for.
"As Des and I are getting dinner ready for her parents, I feel like we're a couple," says Sean. "And I'm excited for her family to get here because I want to meet these people."
Instead, the ex shows up at the door, asking if he and Des can talk. An awkward, you've-got-to-wonder-if-it's-scripted dialogue ensues. A sampling:
Ex: Des, I love you, OK?
Sean: Whoa.
Ex: I've been texting, calling, where they hell have you been?
Des: [Gestures toward Sean] "I've been busy.
Ex: We're together for two years and all of a sudden, just nothing? I love you more than anything.
Sean: I'm thinking, 'Maybe I just need to leave.'
Ex: You're going to be with this actor? This isn't real.
Sean: First of all, I'm standing right here. You want to talk to me, talk to me ... [To Des]: Do you want to talk to him? [To Ex]: Then leave please.
Ex: Can you give us a minute?
Sean: Don't put your hands on me …
The fireworks air on the new episode of The Bachelor Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
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