Some new iPhone 5S are having battery problems. Apple told the NY Times, "We recently discovered a manufacturing issue affecting a very limited number of iPhone 5S devices that could cause the battery to take longer to charge or result in reduced battery life." Those with crappy battery life will get a new phone.
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BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian state-run TV reported Friday the leader of a powerful al-Qaida-linked rebel group has been killed — a claim that if confirmed would be a huge blow to fighters trying to topple President Bashar Assad. At least one rebel commander denied the report.
Abu Mohammad al-Golani heads Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as Nusra Front, which has emerged as one of the most effective among rebel groups fighting Assad.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors the fighting in Syria, said senior Nusra Front leaders contacted by activists in Latakia and the eastern Deir el-Zour province denied al-Golani had been killed.
Other Nusra Front sources said they could not confirm or deny the report "because contact with al-Golani was cut," the Observatory said in a statement. A rebel commander in a Damascus suburb contacted by The Associated Press said he believed al-Golani was "alive and well" based on his contacts with other fighters including those from Nusra Front. He declined to elaborate or be identified for security concerns.
The report comes as the fragmented rebels have suffered significant losses on the battlefield.
Syrian troops killed at least 40 opposition fighters, including Nusra Front members, earlier Friday in an ambush near Damascus, the government said.
Assad's forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah gunmen also seized control of a rebel ammunition supply route on a highway linking the capital to its eastern suburbs — part of a blistering government offensive to bolster its position amid an international push for peace talks.
State TV said al-Golani was killed in the coastal province of Latakia. It did not say when or give other details. News of his death was not mentioned in the main headlines of the TV's late night news bulletin.
Al-Golani, who fought previously in Iraq, is a shadowy figure who is believed to have spent time recently in rebellious suburbs south of Damascus. Rebels have also gained footholds in mountainous regions of Latakia, which is largely loyal to Assad, and he may have gone there to direct fighting.
The Nusra Front is on a U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. The group has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings against government targets.
Al-Golani gained prominence in April when he rejected an attempted takeover of the group by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, revealing a growing rift within al-Qaida's global network.
Al-Golani at the time distanced himself from claims that the two groups had merged into a group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Instead, he pledged allegiance to al-Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahri.
He said that al-Baghdadi's announcement of the merger was premature and that his group will continue to use Jabhat al-Nusra as its name.
The group is more popular in Syria than the ISIL, which is largely made up of foreign fighters and has been criticized for its brutality and for trying to impose a strict version of Islamic law in areas under its control.
Al-Golani's death could strengthen ISIL at a time of growing infighting between al-Qaida extremists and the more moderate rebels from the mainstream Free Syrian Army.
Assad's forces have been gaining ground in rebel-held areas around the capital, the seat of his power, and have made progress against outgunned and fragmented fighters in several areas.
On Friday, the state-run news agency SANA said 40 rebels died in the ambush near Otaiba, adding that soldiers seized a large arms cache, including anti-tank rockets.
The area is part of a region known as Eastern Ghouta, which was the scene of a chemical weapons attack in August believed to have killed hundreds.
The state-run Al-Ikhbariya television station broadcast footage showing more than a dozen bodies near the largely dried-out Otaiba lake, some wearing flak jackets strapped with ammunition. Automatic rifles and hand grenades lay nearby.
An unidentified Syrian army officer in the area told Al-Ikhbariya that foreign fighters were among the dead and that the ambush followed an intelligence tip.
The Observatory said at least 24 fighters, some of them foreign, were killed in the ambush, but it gave no further details and the differing death tolls could not be immediately reconciled.
The offensive coincided with an international push for a peace conference to be held in Geneva. Both sides want to bolster their position on the ground ahead of the talks, expected next month. No final date has been set, however, and it is unclear whether the sides will reach an agreement on the agenda.
The Supreme Military Council, which brings together a collection of loosely-knit rebel brigades under the emblem of the Free Syrian Army, said Friday it refused to sit down with Syrian officials involved in killing Syrians. Comments carried by the Syrian National Coalition, the group's political wing, also dismissed the proposed talks for lacking a way to reach concrete results.
In other violence, a car bomb blew up near a mosque in in the village of Wadi Barada outside of Damascus shortly before Friday prayers ended. The Observatory said 40 people were killed in the blast and dozens wounded. SANA said the car blew up as it was being rigging with explosives. The agency said a number of people were killed.
The ambush near Damascus came hours after Assad's forces captured the town of Hatitat al-Turkomen south of the city, securing a key highway that links the capital with the Damascus International Airport.
North of Damascus, rebels and government forces clashed for a fifth consecutive day in the Christian town of Sadad. Al-Qaida-linked groups captured a checkpoint earlier this week that gave them control of the western part of the town.
Archbishop Silwanos Al-Nemeh told The Associated Press in a telephone interview as many as 3,000 civilians were trapped, and he appealed for international organizations to help civilians flee the area.
Also Friday, Norway rejected a U.S. request for it to receive the bulk of Syria's chemical weapons for destruction, saying it doesn't have the capabilities to complete the task by the deadlines set by an international chemical watchdog.
The United Nations has set a mid-2014 deadline for the destruction of Syria's arsenal — a deadline Brende said was too tight for Norway.
On Friday, the OPCW said its inspectors visited a site the day before and verified that all of its previous chemical weapons-related equipment has been dismantled. That brings to 19 the total number of sites visited by OPCW inspectors, of 23 that have been disclosed by Syria.
The Syrian conflict has left more than 100,000 people dead and driven nearly 7 million more from their homes.
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Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Elaine Ganley in Paris, Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Michael Corder in The Hague and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
Sarah Ball, a victim of cyber bullying during her high school years, sits for a portrait at her home on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Spring Hill, Fla. Ball, now a student at a nearby community college, maintains a Facebook site called "Hernando Unbreakable", an anti-bullying page and mentors local kids identified by the schools as victims of cyberbullying. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Sarah Ball, a victim of cyber bullying during her high school years, sits for a portrait at her home on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Spring Hill, Fla. Ball, now a student at a nearby community college, maintains a Facebook site called "Hernando Unbreakable", an anti-bullying page and mentors local kids identified by the schools as victims of cyberbullying. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Sarah Ball, a victim of cyber bullying during her high school years, poses for a portrait at her home on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Spring Hill, Fla. Ball, now a student at a nearby community college, maintains a Facebook site called "Hernando Unbreakable", an anti-bullying page and mentors local kids identified by the schools as victims of cyberbullying. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Sarah Ball, a victim of cyber bullying during her high school years, sits for a portrait at her home on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Spring Hill, Fla. Ball, now a student at a nearby community college, maintains a Facebook site called "Hernando Unbreakable", an anti-bullying page and mentors local kids identified by the schools as victims of cyberbullying. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sarah Ball was a 15-year-old high school sophomore at Hernando High School in Brooksville, Fla., when a friend posted on Facebook: "I hate Sarah Ball, and I don't care who knows."
Then there was the Facebook group "Hernando Haters" asking to rate her attractiveness, plus an anonymous email calling her a "waste of space." And this text arrived on her 16th birthday: "Wow, you're still alive? Impressive. Well happy birthday anyway."
It wasn't until Sarah's mom, who had access to her daughter's online passwords, saw the messages that the girl told her everything.
More young people are reaching out to family members after being harassed or taunted online, and it's helping. A poll released Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV found incidents of "digital abuse" are still prevalent but declining somewhat. It found a growing awareness among teenagers and young adults about harm from online meanness and cyberbullying, as well as a slight increase among those willing to tell a parent or sibling.
"It was actually quite embarrassing, to be honest," remembers Ball, now an 18-year-old college freshman. But "really, truly, if it wasn't for my parents, I don't think I'd be where I'm at today."
The survey's findings come a week after two Florida girls, ages 12 and 14, were arrested on felony charges for allegedly bullying online a 12-year-old girl who later killed herself by jumping off a tower at an abandoned concrete plant.
The AP-NORC/MTV poll found that some 49 percent of young people ages 14 through 24 in the U.S. said they have had at least one brush with some kind of electronic harassment, down from about 56 percent in 2011. Of those who have encountered an incident, 34 percent went to a parent, compared with 27 percent just two years ago. And 18 percent — up from 12 percent in 2011 — asked a brother or sister for help.
"I feel like we're making progress," said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and professor at Florida Atlantic University. "People should be encouraged."
When asked what helped, 72 percent of those encountering digital abuse responded that they changed their email address, screen name or cell number and it helped, while 66 percent who talked to a parent said it helped too. Less than one-third of respondents who retaliated found that helpful, while just as many said it had no effect, and 20 percent said getting revenge actually made the problem worse.
Girls were more likely than boys to be the targets of online meanness — but they also were more likely to talk to reach out for help.
The poll also indicated that young people are becoming more aware of the impact of cyberbullying. Some 72 percent, up from 65 percent in 2011, said online abuse was a problem that society should address. Those who think it should be accepted as a part of life declined from 33 percent to 24 percent.
Hinduja credits school programs that are making it "cool to care" about others and increased awareness among adults who can help teens talk through their options, such as deactivating an account or going to school administrators for help in removing hurtful postings.
That was the case for Ball, whose parents encouraged her to fight back by speaking up. "They said this is my ticket to helping other people," she said.
With their help, Ball sent copies of the abusive emails, texts and Facebook pages to school authorities, news outlets and politicians, and organized an anti-bullying rally. She still maintains a Facebook site called "Hernando Unbreakable," and she mentors local kids identified by the schools as victims of cyberbullying.
She said she thinks if other teens are reaching out more for help, it's as a last resort because so many kids fear making it worse. That was one reason Jennifer Tinsley, 20, said she didn't tell her parents in the eighth grade when another student used Facebook to threaten to stab and beat her.
"I didn't want them to worry about me," Tinsley, now a college student in Fort Wayne, Ind., said of her family. "There was a lot of stress at that time. ... And I just didn't want the extra attention."
According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, every state but Montana has enacted anti-bullying laws, many of which address cyberbullying specifically. Most state laws are focused on allowing school districts to punish offenders. In Florida, for example, the state Legislature this year passed a provision allowing schools to discipline students harassing others off campus.
In Florida's recent cyberbullying case, the police took the unusual step of charging the two teen girls with third-degree felony aggravated stalking. Even if convicted, however, the girls were not expected to spend time in juvenile detention because they didn't have criminal histories.
The AP-NORC Center/MTV poll was conducted online Sept. 27 through Oct. 7 among a random national sample of 1,297 people between the ages of 14 and 24. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Funding for the study was provided by MTV as part of its campaign to stop digital abuse, "A Thin Line."
The survey was conducted by the GfK Group using KnowledgePanel, a probability-based online panel. Respondents were recruited randomly using traditional telephone and mail sampling methods. People selected who had no Internet access were given it for free.
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AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
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Follow Anne Flaherty on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AnneKFlaherty
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-24-Poll-Online%20Bullying/id-4127f7d92633479790f6a36174bca0efBy Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Netflix Inc CEO Reed Hastings said on Monday he was hopeful the company would reach a deal with Comcast Corp and other pay television providers to offer his company's movie and TV streaming service through cable set-top boxes.
"I'm really hopeful we can do that with Comcast and others in the industry," Hastings told analysts on a video webcast after Netflix released quarterly earnings.
A Comcast spokeswoman had no comment on Hastings' remarks.
In September, Netflix announced it would be an option on TiVo Inc set-top boxes offered through pay television service Com Hem in Sweden and Virgin Media in Britain, allowing subscribers to watch the streaming service's shows and movies through an app without having to switch to another device.
Hastings, in an interview with Reuters, said he would like to reach similar arrangements with cable operators in the United States next year. The companies have been leery of potential competition from Netflix and other Silicon Valley newcomers.
Hastings said he believed U.S. cable operators would watch to see if the addition of Netflix helped Virgin, owned by John Malone's Liberty Global Plc, to sign up new customers.
"I think Virgin was willing to bet on their instinct that they should focus on a better experience," Hastings said. "If that works out, and they grow, then they will be very happy. And I think the other guys will follow."
(Editing by Stephen Coates)
In Kill Your Darlings, Dane DeHaan (left) plays Lucien Carr, a man whose charm and wit quickly command the attention of the young Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) in their time at Columbia University. John Krokidas' film chronicles the "Libertine Circle" they inhabited — Ginsberg's nickname — and the events that would shatter it.
In Kill Your Darlings, Dane DeHaan (left) plays Lucien Carr, a man whose charm and wit quickly command the attention of the young Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) in their time at Columbia University. John Krokidas' film chronicles the "Libertine Circle" they inhabited — Ginsberg's nickname — and the events that would shatter it.
Clay Enos/Sony Pictures ClassicsKill Your Darlings
Rated R for sexual content, language, drug use and brief violence.
(Recommended)
Hollywood's been trying to get a handle on the Beat Poets for years. Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac led wild — and influential — lives. But films about them, like Naked Lunch and On the Road, have never really clicked with audiences. Kill Your Darlings may fare better, partly because it stars Daniel Radcliffe, and partly because the story centers as much on murder as on poetry.
It's 1943, time for student orientation at Columbia University, and incoming freshman Allen Ginsberg is on a quiet, dignified tour of the campus library when a student with the face of a choirboy leaps on a table with a book.
It's Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and the passage that student reads outrages the librarian enough to get him hauled away by guards, with Ginsberg — as played by Radcliffe with not a hint of Harry Potter about him — grinning broadly.
Truth be told, young Ginsberg is kind of smitten both by the handsome Lucien Carr and by his literary passion. He's soon hanging out with Carr in the dorm, talking poetry and fantasizing about a closer relationship.
Carr (Dane DeHaan), a young man who's anything but a choirboy, and entirely aware of the effect he has on others, soon introduces Ginsberg to a stoned young "Willie" Burroughs (a nice piece of impersonation by actor Ben Foster) and later to Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). All of them are dreaming of changing the world, but not sure quite how to go about it.
Carr's formidable charisma becomes something of a problem when David (Michael C. Hall), his former lover and professor, won't let go.
Carr's formidable charisma becomes something of a problem when David (Michael C. Hall), his former lover and professor, won't let go.
Jessica Miglio/Sony Pictures ClassicsThey want to supplant Yeats' "Vision" with a "New Vision," but because they're college kids, their literary ambitions often take a back seat to drugs, drinking and pranks, including an elaborately planned but startlingly mild escapade at the Columbia library that gets them in all kinds of trouble.
Bigger trouble, though, is following Carr in the person of an obsessive admirer (Michael C. Hall), a former lover and professor who's long been writing Carr's papers for him — and who has recently been reduced to following him around like a puppy. How Carr deals with that situation gives the story its spine and also a startling climax.
First-time director John Krokidas doesn't make Kill Your Darlings terribly linear. When its heroes go on drug-fueled binges, so does his camera — at one point freezing other patrons at a jazz club in place so the amphetamine-buzzed poets can flit around them. And the director does some flitting of his own, through time with flashbacks, through space with abrupt switches in perspective, and through an eyebrow-notcher of a sequence that conflates three significant penetrations: Burroughs shooting heroin, Ginsberg's first sexual encounter, and the stabbing that will put a period on one fraught situation while creating another one entirely.
In writing circles, the phrase "kill your darlings" usually gets deployed by an editor as advice for a writer who's polished and labored over a favorite sentence so long that all the life has gotten squeezed out of it. "Kill your darling" means get rid of that treasured bit, and find a more natural way to say what you want to say.
The movie Kill Your Darlings is about budding artists who applied that advice to every element of their lives, abolishing rhyme and meter, declaring war on rules, traditions, even people who had the temerity to love them. They flail and they thrash, and Krokidas' film is just like them — as jazz-inflected and freewheeling as the Beat poetry these guys were about to unleash on the world. (Recommended)
A documentary called Ai Pioppi, released by Fabrica, directed (and scored) by Coleman Guyon, and written by Luiz Romero, documents the incredible story of Bruno, an Italian restauranteur who, in his spare time, is hand-building an entire amusement park in the woods.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/a-hand-built-amusement-park-in-the-middle-of-the-italia-1444784078THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Efforts to eliminate chemical weapons won a Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for the global watchdog trying to destroy Syria's stockpiles of nerve gas and other poisonous agents.
By giving its prestigious prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee turned the spotlight both on Syria's devastating civil war and on a type of weapon that has horrified nations since World War I.
The reaction in Syria was notably polarized. A senior Syrian rebel called the award a "premature step" that will divert the world's attention from "the real cause of the war" while a lawmaker from Syria's ruling party declared the Nobel to be a vindication of President Bashar Assad's government.
The OPCW was formed in 1997 to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention, the first international treaty to outlaw an entire class of weapons. Based in The Hague, Netherlands, it has largely worked out of the limelight until this year, when the U.N. called upon its expertise to help investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
"The conventions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law," the Nobel Committee said in Oslo. "Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons."
Friday's award comes just days before Syria officially joins as OPCW's 190th member state on Monday. OPCW inspectors are already on a risky U.N.-backed disarmament mission based in Damascus to verify and destroy the government's arsenal of poison gas and nerve agents.
"Events in Syria have been a tragic reminder that there remains much work still to be done," OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu (AKH'-meht ooh-ZOOM'-joo) told reporters in The Hague. "Our hearts go out to the Syrian people who were recently victims of the horror of chemical weapons."
"I truly hope that this award and the OPCW's ongoing mission together with the United Nations in Syria will (help) efforts to achieve peace in that country and end the suffering of its people," he said.
He said the $1.2 million prize money would be used "for the goals of the convention" — to eliminate chemical weapons.
By giving the peace award to an international organization, the Nobel committee highlighted the Syrian civil war, now in its third year, without siding with any of the groups involved. The fighting has killed more than 100,000 people, devastated many cities and towns and forced millions of Syrians to flee their homes and country.
U.N. war crimes investigators have accused both Assad's government and the rebels of wrongdoing, although they say the scale and intensity of regime abuses are greater than the rebel abuses.
Louay Safi, a senior figure in Syria's main opposition bloc, called the Nobel award "a premature step."
"If this prize is seen as if the chemical weapons inspections in Syria will help foster peace in Syria and in the region, it's a wrong perception," Safi told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Qatar.
"But demolishing the regime's chemical weapons alone will not bring peace to Syria, because many more people are dying because Assad's troops are killing them with all types of conventional weapons," he said.
Fayez Sayegh, a lawmaker and member of Assad's ruling Baath party, told the AP the award underscores "the credibility" of the Damascus government. He said Syria is "giving an example to countries that have chemical and nuclear weapons."
After an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in Syria, Assad faced the prospect of possibly devastating U.S. strikes against his military. To avert that, he admitted his chemical weapons stockpile and his government quickly signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention and allowed OPCW inspectors to enter the country.
The first OPCW inspection team arrived in Syria last week, followed by another this week. They have already begun to oversee the first stages of the destruction of Assad's chemical weapons.
The United Nations and the United States praised the Nobel decision.
"Since that horrific attack, the OPCW has taken extraordinary steps and worked with unprecedented speed to address this blatant violation of international norms that shocked the conscience of people around the world," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement from Kabul. "Today, the Nobel Committee has rightly recognized their bravery and resolve to carry out this vital mission amid an ongoing war in Syria."
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted the recognition came nearly 100 years after chemical weapons were used in World War I.
"Like the United Nations, the mission of the OPCW was born from a fundamental abhorrence at the atrocities of war," he said. "Together, we must ensure that the fog of war will never again be composed of poison gas."
In the past, seven nations — Albania, India, Iraq, Libya, Russia and the United States, along with a country identified by the OPCW only as "a state party" but widely believed to be South Korea — have declared stockpiles of chemical weapons and have or are in the process of destroying them.
However, the Nobel committee noted that some countries have not observed the deadline of April 2012 for destroying their chemical weapons. That applies especially to the U.S. and Russia, Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said.
"I have to recognize that they have particular challenges. They have huge stockpiles of chemical weapons," he told the AP. "What is important is that they do as much as they can and as fast as they can."
The struggle to control chemical weapons began in earnest after World War I, when agents such as mustard gas killed more than 100,000 people and injured a million more. The 1925 Geneva Convention prohibited the use of chemical weapons but their production or storage wasn't outlawed until the Chemical Weapons Convention came into force in 1997.
"During World War II, chemical means were employed in Hitler's mass exterminations," the prize committee said. "Chemical weapons have subsequently been put to use on numerous occasions by both states and terrorists."
According to the OPCW, 57,740 metric tons, or 81.1 percent, of the world's declared stockpile of chemical agents have been verifiably destroyed. Albania, India and "a third country" — believed to be South Korea — have completed the destruction of their declared stockpiles.
An OPCW report this year said the United States had destroyed about 90 percent of its stockpile of the weapons, Russia had destroyed 70 percent and Libya 51 percent.
Nations not belonging to the OPCW include North Korea, Angola, Egypt and South Sudan. Israel and Myanmar have signed but not ratified the convention.
The OPCW did not figure prominently in this year's Nobel speculation, which focused mostly on Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban last October for advocating education for girls.
"She is an outstanding woman and I think she has a bright future and she will probably be a nominee next year or the year after that," Jagland, the committee chairman, told The Associated Press. He declined to comment on whether she had been considered for this year's award.
The European Union won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize for uniting a continent ravaged by two world wars and divided by the Cold War.
Established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prizes have been handed out since 1901. The 2013 winners in medicine, physics, chemistry and literature were announced earlier this week and the Nobel economics award will be announced on Monday.
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Ritter reported from Stockholm. AP reporters Mark Lewis in Oslo, Norway, and Bassem Mroue and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-chemical-watchdog-wins-nobel-peace-prize-090757516.htmlLONDON (Reuters) - American pop star Miley Cyrus has snubbed some prim motherly advice about her new bad girl image from Irish singer and sometime rebel Sinead O'Connor.
The "We Can't Stop" singer - who has ditched her squeaky clean Hannah Montana Disney image for a solo singing career as a tattooed sex siren - rebuffed an open letter from O'Connor calling on Cyrus to tone down her sexualized persona.
"Sinead. I don't have time to write you an open letter cause I'm hosting & performing on SNL (U.S. comedy show Saturday Night Live) this week," Cyrus tweeted.
O'Connor, who once famously tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live, declaring "Fight the real enemy!", said she was worried the former child TV star was being exploited in her latest video of the song "Wrecking Ball".
"I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way 'cool' to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos," the 46-year-old O'Connor wrote.
The Irish singer said her letter was written "in the spirit of motherliness and with love". She said it was a response to journalists who had asked her to comment on Cyrus telling Rolling Stone magazine that her new vampish look and video were modeled on O'Connor's 1990 video for the song "Nothing Compares 2 U", where she sheds a single tear.
Cyrus, who is the daughter of country music singer Billy Ray Cyrus, cries in the promotional clip for "Wrecking Ball". But she also licks a sledgehammer and writhes naked on a swinging metal demolition ball.
"I am happy to hear I am somewhat of a role model for you and I hope that because of that you will pay close attention to what I am telling you," O'Connor wrote.
Cyrus, 20, mocked O'Connor by posting a screen shot of O'Connor's tweets from 2012 in which the Irish star, who has bipolar disorder, referred to her own mental health problems, asking for Twitter followers to recommend a psychiatrist.
Cyrus also compared the singer to the former child actress Amanda Bynes, who is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment.
O'Connor issued a follow-up open letter on her website accusing Cyrus of "irresponsible" behavior.
(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
