Nokia has retained the top spot in Greenpeace's latest ranking of 17 consumer electronics companies over their environmental practices, while Philips and Apple made strides up the list.

Philips leaped to 4th place from 11th and Apple moved up to 10th place from 14th -- best among the top 5 PC makers -- in Greenpeace's latest "Guide to Greener Electronics" report. Companies are ranked based on a number of criteria related to chemicals, e-waste and energy, and Greenpeace uses the report to help pressure companies to change.

Samsung moved up to second place from fourth, while Sony Ericcson dropped a spot to third. Sony rounded out the top five.

Greenpeace said it penalized Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Dell for "backtracking" on their commitment to eliminate toxic vinyl plastic (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) by the end of 2009. The environmental group said only Apple and Acer are sticking by pledges to phase out the substances.

Todd Tod Arbogast, director of sustainable business at Dell, said Dell scores well on other portions of the Greenpeace scorecard but that doing away with PVCs and BVRs is challenging.

"Dell continues to commit to eliminating those materials, however as many in our industyr have also acknowledged, its challening to find viable, scaleable substitutes."

Acer ranked 11th on the overall list, with Dell 13th, Lenovo 14th and HP 16th.

"For decades HP has been a leader in environmental responsibility and has adopted practices in product development, operations and supply chain that are transparent and help to reduce its environmental impact," HP said in an e-mail statement. "The Greenpeace report confirms that the electronics industry as a whole continues to make progress bringing more environmentally friendly products to market."

Greenpeace said many consumer electronics companies have shown improvement in the area of climate change. Samsung and Philips have publicly demonstrated support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while Dell, Nokia, HP and Philips have committed to "substantial" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from their operations.

The police scanner says there was a shooting in Zone 7, very close. We arrive right behind the firemen. Two men on a motorcycle had been shot with the same bullet. Neighbors start to gather as I make a few pictures of the rescue crew loading the victims into the ambulances and rushing off to Roosevelt Hospital in Guatemala City. The neighbors are angry and start taunting the police, accusing them of incompetence.

Out of the corner of my eye I see family members arriving. You can tell who they are by their faces. Their confusion and disbelief stands out even through the dozens of people scuttling around. They are not crying yet…They still don’t know exactly what is going on. Eight-year-old Erica Estrada, dressed in shades of pink and burgundy, follows her grandmother. She draws my attention. Her hands are in her pockets and her face is twisted, but her eyes are still dry. Her grandmother screams as she realizes that her grown son, Erica's father, was wounded badly and her husband, who was sitting on the back of the motorcycle, wasn’t expected to live.

Erica is half everyone’s size. Dropping the camera from my eye, I lower it to my waist, to her level. She is surrounded by strangers who have formed groups around her and her grandmother and who in their own horror seem to completely forget the young girl. Erica finds my eyes and stares at me in pain.

Still shooting with the camera at my waist, I have nothing to hide behind. Erica covers her face and begins to cry. Her grandmother calls to her from somewhere inside a separate group of bystanders. As she removes her hands Erica’s stare locks onto me again. She’s pulled by the arm and rushed back to their car just as my partner finds me and pulls me back to his car. We are off to the hospital.

We are already there when Erica and her grandmother arrive. They have gone from crying to screaming and each moment a new relative shows up in another taxi. Once again Erica seems lost and alone among a sea of adults, all in their own pain. Poor girl. I look around for someone to help her, anyone. Someone to hold her and tell her she’ll be alright, that the pain will go away.

She asks different people about her father and her grandfather but gets no answer from them. “Is my grandfather dead? Is it my father?” Everyone is on cell phones. She turns to another. I keep working but with the camera still down low there is no way to hide the tears swelling in my own eyes.

Erica bends over in emotional pain, crying aloud. I can’t take any more. I let go of the camera and touch her shoulder, and she looks up. “It’s gonna be okay” I tell her. She looks right into me. I find a relative of Erica and ask him to please look after her.

As I leave, I give up trying to hold back the tears. I cry aloud as I drive home, and as I sit on my bed. I can’t get Erica out of my mind. I lie there crying for three hours. I cry when I re-tell the story to others, and as I write it just now.

Guatemala's National Police reports an average of 17 murders per day in the country of some 12.5 million inhabitants, giving it one of the highest murder rates among countries formally at peace.

(Writing and reporting by Dean Goodman)

Green Day, the California rock trio who arguably did more than any other act to bring punk to the mainstream, are developing a stage musical based on their 2004 hit album "American Idiot."

The production, also titled "American Idiot," will premiere on Sept. 4 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, in the northern California university town where the band first gained a following.    

The musical "American Idiot" follows working-class characters from the suburbs to the Middle East, as they seek redemption in a world filled with frustration, according to the band's music label, Warner Bros. Records. An onstage band will accompany an ensemble of 19 young performers.    

The show will be directed by Michael Mayer, one of the creative minds behind the edgy Tony-winning musical "Spring Awakening," who is a collaborator on the musical's book with Green Day frontman and lyricist Billie Joe Armstrong. 

"American Idiot" includes every song from the Grammy-winning smash album, as well as several new songs from Green Day's follow-up, "21st Century Breakdown," which will be released worldwide on May 15. 

As with "American Idiot," which sold 12 million copies worldwide, the new album sustains a running theme. Divided into three acts, it follows a young couple through what the label described as "the mess and promise" of the young century.    

Perhaps the most notable rock album to become a musical was The Who's 1969 rock opera "Tommy," which began a two-year run on Broadway in 1993. It won the Tony Award for best score, while the cast album won a Grammy.

The largest U.S. Lutheran church group is about to begin a detailed discussion at the grass roots level on a policy change that would enable people in same-sex relationships to become clergy. Between now and June the debate will spread over some 65 synods covering the 5-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

These meetings will produce comminiques which will be sent to the church's convention in August where a final decision will be made on issues that have nagged the church and other denominations for years.

The ELCA's current policies allow gays to serve in the ministry but not engage in sexual relations outside marriage -- and the church defines marriage as being only between a man and a woman.

But possible changes advanced this week when the Church Council, a top governing body, approved with only minor revisions recommendations made by a task force  after a lengthy study.  Those recommendations will go before a membership convention in August, after input from the synods which are beginning their meetings this month.

The task force report asks whether the church wants to find ways to recognize life-long, monogamous same-sex relationships, and if so whether the church is committed to finding a way for people in such relationships to serve as clergy. There are other recommendations and proposals on how the process would work, but the first two steps have drawn the most attention.

ELCA officials said they foresaw "an extensive church-wide discussion" in the synods which elect delegates to the convention whose 1,000 members will be 60 percent laity and 40 percent clergy, and the debate reflects shifting societal attitudes towards gays in general and their role in the church in particular. 

Lutherans Concerned/North America, which speaks for gays in the church, said it was "pleased but cautious" with where the issue has advanced.

"For the first time in the history of our church, a recommendation for the elimination of the policy of discrimination against ministers in same-gender relationships will come to the floor of the church-wide assembly, brought by the church-wide organization itself," said Emily Eastwood, executive director of Lutherans Concerned/North America.

(Photo: Same-sex issues have been big news in America in recent months. Two men walk hand in hand outside the California Supreme Court during a Proposition 8 demonstration in San Francisco, California March 5, 2009. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith (UNITED STATES)

Coca-Cola is trying out high-tech, flat-screen vending machines.

The new machines, which feature a touch screen, will be tested this spring in select Simon malls in the southeastern U.S. 

Coca-Cola and Simon will also test several interactive promotions with the machines, which will accept Simon gift cards.

"The new machines incorporate sight, sound and motion video to take the vending experience from transaction to true interaction," said Anthony Phillips, global brand manager at Coke.

Coke did not say which malls will feature the next-gen machines, but some of Simon's properties in the Southeast include Orlando's Waterford Lakes Town Center,  Miami's Dadeland Mall, Atlanta's Lenox Square and The Fashion Centre at Pentagon City in Arlington, VA.

(Photo: Provided by Coca-Cola)

Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch is growing at a pace of 38 percent a month, with 200 new applications being added everyday, according to new data by analytics company Mobclix.

Mobclix expects the App Store to be a $1 billion marketplace over the next 2 years, and Mobclix co-founder Krishna Subramanian said that estimate is conservative.

By the group's latest tally, there are 31,000 applications in the store -- above Apple's official count of 25,000 -- with the largest category being games, more than 7,000 of them. Some more interesting stats:

• 23 percent of apps are free and 41 percent cost 99 cents
• 58 percent of App Store traffic comes via WiFi and 33 percent from carriers
• Free apps in the Top 25 see 3,000 to 15,000 downloads a day, while paid apps in the top 25 get 2,500 to 5,000 downloads a day

Subramanian acknowledged even he has been surprised with how fast the App Store took off.  "We didn't expect the growth to be as a quick as it was."

(Writing and reporting by Dean Goodman)

Minor rock 'n' roll stardom could be less than two weeks away for one lucky drummer.    

The Smashing Pumpkins are holding auditions in Los Angeles on April 10, seeking a replacement for founding member Jimmy Chamberlin, who quit the resurrected grunge-era mainstays earlier this month.    

Potential Pumpkins have been asked to email their background information, photos and Web links showing their performances to pumpkinsdrummer@gmail.com.

Pumpkins mainman Billy Corgan, 42, the group's sole original member, plans to head into the studio this spring with his hired hands to record a follow-up to the band's 2007 reunion album "Zeitgeist."    

Whoever wins the audition has some big shoes to fill, as Chamberlin, 44, played a key role in shaping the sound of one of the biggest groups of the 1990s. The one album he did not play on, 1998's "Adore," was considered a commercial and critical disappointment. Chamberlin was banished from the group for two years because of drug problems, but was reinstated in time to appear on the 2000 pre-breakup album "Machina."    

In a statement announcing his latest departure, Chamberlin said he could "no longer commit all of my energy into something that I don't fully possess. I won't pretend I'm into something I'm not. I won't do it to myself, you the fan, or my former partner. I can't just, 'Cash the check' so to speak."

Blog Guy, I'm a 12-year-old boy and I'm going camping with my friends next weekend. I could use a gross story to tell around the campfire. Make it REALLY disgusting!

Be careful what you ask for, kid. We have a video report today by Penny Tweedie, about a diver who shot himself in the head with his own harpoon in a freak accident.

Awesome! Don't stop now!

I asked staffers here at the elegant penthouse Oddly Enough Blog office to watch the 56-second report, and nobody got all the way through it.

One stopped just four seconds into it, after hearing "This stomach-turning photo..."

Another made it 11 seconds, turning away at "...15-centimeter harpoon embedded in his head... "

My new intern got as far as 27 seconds, passing out at "...the resulting injury horrified doctors..."

I myself got to 41 seconds, but grabbed a nearby bucket upon hearing "...he was lucky that the harpoon didn't...open inside his skull..."

Jeez, I didn't know you were such a huge weenie, Blog Guy! I just watched the whole thing, and the dude is gonna be okay. But you know what, the doctors had to....

I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! I hope Penny Tweedie has screaming nightmares tonight.

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Ever looked at those picture perfect fashion models walking on the runway and wondered how they do it? Well, actor Shah Rukh Khan has the answer.

"I was told the secret was to suck your cheeks in, pout your lips and look really angry, when you walk the ramp," Khan told a wildly cheering audience after he walked the ramp for Manish Malhotra at Mumbai's Lakme Fashion Week.

Looking dapper in a black-and-gold jacket and cheered on by celebrities Arjun Rampal, Preity Zinta, Kajol and Karan Johar, Khan was clearly the show-stopper on Monday night.

Khan's tongue-in-cheek humour was also in full form, because he thanked Malhotra for being the first fashion designer ever "to design a sling" -- referring to the matching gold-and-black sling he wore for the show.

Doctors have advised the 43-year-old actor to keep his arm in a sling for at least six weeks after he underwent shoulder surgery last month.

Of course, Khan wasn't the only Bollywood attraction at the fashion week.

Earlier on Monday, Akshay Kumar walked the ramp for designer Tarun Tahiliani and asked wife Twinkle, seated in the front row, to unbutton the fly of his jeans.

Bollywood stars sure are getting bold on the ramp.

Usury: It's a bad idea to give banks an incentive to drown individuals in debt.

The injustice of pricing tea in dollars: Always good to see the denomination fallacy applied to something other than oil.

Pension insurer shifted to stocks: At the top of the market. More billions of dollars of losses for the government.

H-1B Visa Window Opens Amid Recession: The quota will still run out in a matter of days, starting tomorrow.