‘Wreck-It Ralph’ celebrates video-game nostalgia

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” opening Friday, the title character is the bad guy from a fictional 1980s video game. Despite faithfully doing his job well for 30 years, he gets no respect at work, so he escapes through the wires of Litwak’s Family Fun Center searching for another game where he might prove his worth.

Along the way, Ralph takes viewers on a nostalgic trip through the history of video games, from the blocky, eight-bit look of the ’80s through the swirly, colorful, Nintendo 64-inspired games of the ’90s to the gritty, ultra-detailed first-person shooters of today.

For director Rich Moore and the 450 artists and animators behind the Walt Disney Animation Studios production, video games are as integral a part of childhood as the green army men and pull-string cowboys celebrated in Pixar’s “Toy Story” films.

“There’s a lot of history in video gaming — serious nostalgia,” Moore said. “The worlds of video games are so fertile. They cover everything, and so many different genres. You can kind of make up whatever you want and it can feel like a game.”

Besides the scores of fictional game characters featured in the film, there’s also familiar arcade favorites such as Q(asterisk)Bert, Clyde (the orange ghost from Pac-Man), Sonic the Hedgehog and Zangief from “Street Fighter.”

“It’s pretty awesome to animate game characters that you knew as a child,” said animation supervisor Renato dos Anjos. “It’s like living in a dream world. All your favorite heroes and villains are in your hands.”

“Wreck-It Ralph” centers on Ralph (John C. Reilly), the 9-foot, 643-pound bad guy from the ’80s video game “Fix-It Felix Jr.” Ralph’s job is to wreck the apartments of Niceland so Felix (Jack McBrayer) can fix them. But while Felix is lauded and loved for his efforts, Ralph is ostracized to a trash heap on the edge of town. Fed up and bummed out — especially when he realizes he wasn’t invited to a 30th anniversary party for “Fix-It Felix Jr.” — Ralph goes rogue, tripping through the wires of the arcade into games where he doesn’t belong.

He’s drawn to “Hero’s Duty,” a contemporary shooting game led by tough-as-battle-armor Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch), in which soldiers who destroy the invading CyBugs win a glittery medal — tangible proof of their heroic efforts. With such a trophy, Ralph figures the Nicelanders would have to appreciate him. But he isn’t programmed to handle such ultra-violent play, and when things go awry, Ralph finds himself trapped in the pink-hued, candy-filled world of Sugar Rush. Here he meets another video-game misfit, Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), whose pixelated programming glitch makes her an outcast.

Reilly, McBrayer and Silverman all grew up as gamers, and say bringing life to their animated characters called upon the same imagination and determination gaming did when they were kids.

“If you were born any time after 1965, when I was born, video games made a huge impression,” Reilly said, adding that when “Space Invaders” first came out, “it was like a spaceship landed in the bowling alley.”

“People can’t fully appreciate what an insane change that was,” he continued. “Because there were no computers; there were no cellphones. I didn’t even have a VCR at that point. There was no way to manipulate something on a screen. And all of a sudden, this thing lands in the arcade.”

McBrayer grew up with an Atari 2600 system, “but we kept that over at grandma’s house so we wouldn’t get too attached to it.”

He remembers taking his report card to Super Scooper, the ice-cream parlor/arcade near his Georgia home, where good grades were rewarded with video-game tokens. He preferred the “cutesy, non-threatening games” and the escape they provided.

“So many kids won’t even recognize half of these (game references in the film),” McBray said, “but I hope they have fun just realizing that there’s this whole world of video-game characters and environments that make up the history of the video games they’re playing now.”

Silverman, whose early arcade favorites included “Asteroids,” ”Missile Command” and “Space Invaders,” notes that video games have been around for 30 years, “but in technology years, that’s like 200 years old.”

The actors said they don’t play video games much these days, but the film’s director does, whipping out his iPhone during a recent interview to prove the point.

“I feel really, really fortunate to have been someone who got to grow up with them,” said Moore, whose previous directing credits include “The Simpsons” and “Futurama.” So it’s an honor and a privilege to be the guy that gets to pull from one end of the timeline to this end of the timeline … to put them in a movie and put them in a story that pays tribute to all of them.”

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter at www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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Online:

http://disney.go.com/wreck-it-ralph/

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Kardashian boosts “X Factor” ratings, but wins few fans

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Khloe Kardashian‘s first outing as the new co-host of “The X Factor” helped boost the show’s audience by 30 percent, yet the reality star got mixed reviews for a nipple-baring debut that made headlines – but many TV critics found awkward.

Kardashian, 28, best known for starring with socialite sisters Kim and Kourtney in “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” shocked some viewers by wearing a sheer purple blouse without a bra on Wednesday’s first live episode of the TV singing contest.

“I think the air conditioning is on high tonight. It’s very distracting,” judge and producer Simon Cowell quipped on the show, apparently referring to the glimpses of nipple.

But Kardashian was less impressive in her hosting duties.

The Washington Post said Kardashian “came across like the novice she is, shouting her lines despite the mic clutched in her hand and making awkward small talk with contestants and judge and executive producer Simon Cowell.”

Nevertheless, Kardashian brought more eyeballs to the show. Some 7.4 million viewers watched “The X Factor” on Fox television, according to early ratings data, up some 30 percent from last week’s 5.7 million and a 13 percent increase in the 18-49 age group most coveted by advertisers.

Kardashian was Cowell’s personal pick for the job as part of his efforts to revamp the singing contest after a disappointing first season. But the reality star’s lack of experience had already raised eyebrows, and “X Factor” has often drawn a smaller audience than last year.

Cowell told reporters earlier this week that Kardashian “wants to prove (to) anyone who doubted her that she’s capable of doing the job … she really has got a fun personality.”

The New York Daily News called Kardashian a “surprisingly good host,” while The Hollywood Reporter said “both Kardashian and (co-host Mario) Lopez seemed at ease in their new roles.”

The Hollywood Gossip website, however, said Kardashian was “every bit as boring and awkward as we imagined she would be.”

“The X Factor” is broadcast on Fox, a unit of News Corp.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Mass. firm tied to closed pharmacy issues recall

BOSTON (AP) — A company with the same founders as the specialty pharmacy linked to deadly meningitis outbreak says it’s recalling all its products.

In a statement Wednesday, Ameridose said the voluntary recall comes after FDA officials told the company it must improve its sterility testing. The Westborough company says it has no reports of problems with its products, or any impurities, but issued the recall “out of an abundance of caution.”

The company did not say how many products it is recalling.

Ameridose agreed to shut down for inspection earlier this month after tainted steroids from the New England Compounding Center were linked to an outbreak that has killed 28.

Ameridose and NECC were both founded by brothers-in-law Barry Cadden and Greg Conigliaro. Ameridose says it is a separate entity with distinct management.

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Panasonic Feels Pain of Chinese Backlash

Those islands in the East China Sea at the center of the dispute between Japan and China are uninhabited, but we’re told they’re still worth fighting over because they might have valuable oil and gas nearby. Let’s hope so. That might at least provide some consolation to Japanese employees, executives, and shareholders of companies such as Panasonic (6752:JP), which have suffered badly as Chinese consumers shun Japanese goods in order to show their displeasure over the islands.

China problems are a major factor in what is shaping up to be a particularly lousy year for Panasonic. Japan’s second- biggest TV maker said on Wednesday that it expects to lose as much as ¥765 billion ($ 9.6 billion) in the year ending in March 2013. That loss, the second biggest in Panasonic’s history, is 30 times larger than analyst estimates had foreseen. Back in May, Panasonic was expecting profits for the year, projecting earnings of ¥50 billion.

That was before the latest dispute between China and Japan erupted, leading to an informal boycott of Japanese goods by many consumers in the world’s second-largest economy. Japan’s automakers, for instance, have experienced sharp declines in China sales. In September, Toyota (TM)’s China sales plummeted 49 percent, Honda’s (7267:JP) dropped 41 percent, and Nissan’s (7201:JP) fell 35 percent.

Now it’s Panasonic’s turn. With the Japanese economy stuck in a deflationary downturn, Panasonic can hardly afford a slowdown in China. The country accounted for 14 percent of Panasonic sales in the first quarter. That proportion is sure to shrink.

Even before the Wednesday announcement, it was clear the political tensions were hurting Panasonic. During anti-Japan protests last month, fire damaged a Panasonic factory in the northeastern Chinese city of Qingdao. Protests against Japan disrupted operations at two addditional Panasonic plants in China.

China and Japan aren’t close to resolving their dispute over the East China Sea Islands (called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan). Even if the situation doesn’t deteriorate further, Panasonic and other Japanese companies are likely to continue feeling the heat. Panasonic’s chief financial officer, Hideaki Kawai, estimates that the Japan backlash may lead to a ¥100 billion decline in sales and a ¥30 billion decline in operating profit for the current fiscal year.

Panasonic is the first of the big Japanese electronics companies to report some results of the Japan backlash in China. There is probably more bad news to come. Sony (SNE) and Sharp (6753:JP) are both scheduled to report earnings on Thursday. Those Japanese companies are unlikely to have fared any better than Panasonic with angry Chinese consumers.

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Clinton calls for overhaul of Syrian opposition

ZAGREB (Reuters) – The United States called on Wednesday for an overhaul of Syria‘s opposition leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signaling a more active stance by Washington in attempts to form a credible political opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said a meeting next week in Qatar would be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against him.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for 20, 30, 40 years,” she said during a visit to Croatia.

“There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

Clinton’s comments represented a clear break with the Syrian National Council (SNC), a largely foreign-based group which has been among the most vocal proponents of international intervention in the Syrian conflict.

U.S. officials have privately expressed frustration with the SNC’s inability to come together with a coherent plan and with its lack of traction with the disparate internal groups which have waged the 19-month uprising against Assad’s government.

Senior members of the SNC, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups ended a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday and pledged to unite behind a transitional government in coming months.

“It’s been our divisions that have allowed the Assad forces to reach this point,” Ammar al-Wawi, a rebel commander, told Reuters after the talks outside Istanbul.

“We are united on toppling Assad. Everyone, including all the rebels, will gather under the transitional government.”

Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, a senior Syrian military defector, told a news conference after the meeting: “We are still facing some difficulties between the politicians and different opposition groups and the leaders of the Free Syrian Army on the ground.”

Clinton said it was important that the next rulers of Syria were both inclusive and committed to rejecting extremism.

“There needs to be an opposition that can speak to every segment and every geographic part of Syria. And we also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution,” she said.

Syria’s revolt has killed an estimated 32,000. A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine in a suburb of Damascus killed at least six more people on Wednesday, state media and opposition activists said.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The meeting next week in Qatar’s capital Doha represents a chance to forge a new leadership, Clinton said, adding the United States had helped to “smuggle out” representatives of internal Syrian opposition groups to a meeting in New York last month to argue their case for inclusion.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she told a news conference.

“We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice which must be heard.”

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance.

It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance – a fact that Assad’s chief backer Russia says shows western powers are intent on determining Syria’s future.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

Clinton said she regretted but was not surprised by the failure of the latest attempted ceasefire, called by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi last Friday. Each side blamed the other for breaking the truce.

“The Assad regime did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day,” she said.

“While we urge Special Envoy Brahimi to do whatever he can in Moscow and Beijing to convince them to change course and support a stronger U.N. action we cannot and will not wait for that.”

Clinton said the United States would continue to work with partners to increase sanctions on the Assad government and provide humanitarian assistance to those hit by the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Andrew Roche)

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RIM starts carrier testing on BlackBerry 10 devices

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion has started carrier testing of its new line of BlackBerry 10 devices ahead of the launch of the devices in the first quarter of 2013, the company said on Wednesday.

“In the last week, BlackBerry 10 achieved lab entry with more than 50 carriers, a key step in our preparedness for the launch of BlackBerry 10 in the first quarter of 2013,” said RIM’s Chief Executive Thorsten Heins, in a brief statement.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM is seeking to turn around its faded fortunes with the launch of the BB10 devices, as its aging line-up of BlackBerry devices loses ground to Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s line of Galaxy products, especially in the key North American and European markets.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman)

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Nic Cage starrer, Christian best-seller “Left Behind,” tops Arclight’s AFM lineup

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – On the eve of the AFM, Arclight Films has taken on international sales duties for the film adaptation of the Christian-themed best-seller, “Left Behind,” a representative for the film told TheWrap on Tuesday.

The film, which will star Nicolas Cage and will be directed by Vic Armstrong, is looking for an early 2013 start date.

The book about the end of the world hit the top of the New York Times best-seller list, with more than 65 million novels sold. It went on to be translated into 30 languages.

Arclight is also circling another project “Reclaim,” which is eyeing Isla Fisher (“The Great Gatsby”) for a starring role. Ian Sutherland, Alan White, and Brian Etting are producing, and Alan White is directing the film.

The filmmakers are also interested in Joel Edgerton for the picture, which follows a couple who go to Australia to adopt a little girl from Afghanistan. They wind up getting taken advantage of by criminals and soon find themselves in terrible danger.

Other projects in Arclight‘s AFM lineup includes “Heart of Darkness,” by Roger Donaldson; “Outcast,” which stars Hayden Christensen; “Predestination” with Ethan Hawke for the Spierig Brothers; “Mental,” starring Liev Schreiber; and “Berlin Job” from director Frank Harper. The company’s genre arm, Easternlight Films, is handling such titles as “Seven Assassins,” and “Dangerous Liaisons” with Zhang Ziyi.

“We are extremely excited about this year’s AFM and the commercial appeal of our slate,” Clay Epstein, VP sales & acquisitions for Arclight Films, said. “We are presenting the buyers with films that are not only perfect for the marketplace but well made projects we can all be very proud of.”

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Three more deaths from meningitis outbreak linked to injections

(Reuters) – Three more patients have died after contracting fungal meningitis from potentially tainted steroid injections supplied by a Massachusetts company, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the outbreak to 28 nationwide.

Two of the new deaths were in Michigan, which now has reported seven fatalities, and one in Tennessee which has confirmed 11 deaths, the CDC said. The two states have been the hardest hit by the outbreak, first discovered in Tennessee late last month.

The number of cases of fungal meningitis reported across the United States rose to 356 on Tuesday, up nine from Monday, the CDC said. Nineteen of 23 states that received shipments of the steroid have reported cases.

There also are seven reported cases of infections after the steroid was injected into a joint such as a knee, hip, shoulder or elbow, bringing the total number of infections to 363.

The steroid was supplied by New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Massachusetts, which faces multiple investigations. Health authorities have said its facility near Boston failed to make medications in sterile conditions.

(Reporting by Greg McCune; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Hurricane Sandy: Live Storm Reports

Storm-Surge Damage May Not Be Covered by Some Insurance

2:30 p.m., Oct. 30, 2012 — As storm-battered homeowners, business owners, and government officials survey Sandy’s damage, the question for many is what the repair price tag will be. The storm’s assault may cause as much as $ 20 billion in losses, but less than half of that is likely insured. Some damage, such as infrastructure repairs, will be covered by the government. But some losses simply won’t be covered, leaving businesses and homeowners holding the bag.

Regular homeowners’ and renters’ policies don’t cover flood losses. For residences, people must buy extra flood-insurance coverage, which is typically sold by agents as part of the government’s National Flood Insurance Program. As many will recall, there was a big debate during and after Hurricane Katrina over whether damage was caused by flooding or wind, with wind damage covered by standard policies. Bob Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group, says “that issue has been settled. There is no question that a storm surge is a form of flooding.”

That means that homeowners affected by Sandy’s surges and who lack flood insurance are out of luck. Hartwig says that in low lying areas—such as parts of Brooklyn and Queens—“the penetration rates for flood coverage are very high.” But not everyone has this coverage. Hartwig points out that even in New Orleans, a city that set largely below sea level, one in five homeowners didn’t have flood coverage before Hurricane Katrina struck. He says the “silver lining” from Hurricane Irene last year is that more people in the Northeast bought flood insurance after seeing the damage that storms are capable of wreaking.

Businesses may be better off. Most commercial insurance policies do include protection against floods, but often the policies have a specific “sublimit” that caps the flood coverage, says Linda Kornfeld, an attorney at Jenner & Block who represents companies in insurance claims. That’s true for policies that covers property losses, as well as the costs for business interruption due to an event such as Sandy. While storm-surge damage may be a form of flooding in residential policies, its nature is less clear for commercial policies, which tend to be more complex, Kornfeld says. “I wouldn’t accept as a general proposition it’s covered or not without reading the policy and without reading the case law in the state where the policy is,” says Kornfeld.”

A lot of people may soon became intimate with the fine print in their policies. While it’s too early to know how many will file insurance claims, yesterday CoreLogic estimated that just in the top 25 at-risk zip codes of New York and New Jersey, about 62,000 properties were in danger of sustaining property damage.

—Karen Weise

Photograph by J. Scott Applewhite/APWorkers haul sandbags to protect The Pavillion at the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 29, 2012

Under Financial Duress, Post Office Delivers

2:15 p.m., Oct. 30, 2012 — The federal government was shut down. Stock trading came to a halt. Most businesses up and down the East Coast were closed and people were hunkered up at home, hoping for the best, when lo and behold—the mail arrived.

Yes, even as Hurricane Sandy came crashing down on the Mid-Atlantic, the U.S. Postal Service managed to deliver to some residents of Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. In an email, USPS spokesman George Maffett says that letter carriers in a delivery area stretching from Atlanta to Baltimore hit all but 97,500 of the 7.7 million addresses they’d visit on a normal day. Only Ocean City, whose residents were evacuated, didn’t get their mail. Service stopped in some parts of New York City, too. Maffett explains that USPS opened emergency operations centers to watch the weather and direct postal workers as they were out on deliveries.

Could the postal service’s own battered image have something to do with that impressive effort Monday?

Maffett’s response: “In 2011, Oxford Strategic Consulting ranked the U.S. Postal Service number one in overall service performance of the posts in the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world.”

Yet the agency is on the brink of financial disaster, with Congress fighting over how to save it. In late September the self-funded agency defaulted on a $ 5.5 billion payment owed to the U.S. Treasury, its second default in only two months’ time. The payment was required to fund future retirees’ health benefits. USPS officials have blamed that obligation as a big source of the agency’s woes—along with years of declines in the amount of mail people are sending. That’s why the agency’s exceptional attention to customer service isn’t likely to make much of a difference. Most people were likely so consumed with other media that they probably didn’t even notice their mailman’s valiant effort.

– Elizabeth Dwoskin

Some Bridges Reopen, But MTA Has No Timetable

1:51 p.m., Oct. 30, 2012 — Even parts of New York that haven’t lost power remain paralyzed by Hurricane Sandy. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is unsure as to when subway services will resume—or what parts can be quickly repaired. The Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges that connect Manhattan to Brooklyn have reportedly reopened, but for a city whose residents rely so heavily on public transportation, even a partly inoperable subway system could have far-reaching economic impact in the coming days and weeks.

“Those portions of the system that can be up and running, I want them up and running as quickly as possible,” MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said in an interview on Tuesday with WNYC radio. Lhota stressed that no timetable had yet been set, so any estimate would be nothing more than a “wild guess.”

– Claire Suddath

1:39 p.m., Oct. 30, 2012 — New York and New Jersey residents are now eligible for disaster help and resources. Go to DisasterAssistance.gov for more information.

Mayor Bloomberg: ‘People Just Don’t Understand How Strong Nature Is’

12:38 p.m., Oct. 30, 2012 — Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke to New Yorkers Tuesday morning, announcing that city schools would be closed Wednesday and saying it might take up to five days to get subways running. Runways at the city’s airports are flooded, many in the region are without power, and 6,100 residents are staying in emergency shelters. “We expected an unprecedented storm,” the mayor said. “That’s what we got.”

As the mayor’s star sign-language interpreter, Lydia Callis, translated, the mayor provided additional updates:

—Public transportation is closed until further notice, with no timeline set for its restoration. Limited bus service may be restored, “perhaps this afternoon.”

—Roads may be clear and free of water as soon as Wednesday.

—A few hospitals are closed, including New York Downtown Hospital, the only hospital in lower Manhattan. NYU Langone and Coney Island hospitals have been evacuated. Bellevue Hospital Center is running on backup power.

—The collapsing crane on West 57th Street is currently stable but cannot be fully secured until the winds die down.

—The 311 emergency lines are currently experiencing long wait times. The 911 lines had delays up to 5 minutes at some points but is now operating more smoothly.

—There have been more than 4,000 tree-service requests. The mayor advises people to continue to stay out of parks. “I think people don’t understand just how strong nature is,” Bloomberg said.

—Emily Biuso

Artists Find Inspiration in Hurricane’s Fury

12:31 p.m., Oct. 30, 2012 — As most of the East Coast hid from Hurricane Sandy, Gil Corral and his wife went out onto Fortune’s Rocks Beach in Biddeford Pool, Maine, to take this photo. Corral, an artist, has photographed the character, which he calls “El Chicharron” (or “pork rind”), in snowstorms and other severe weather. “It does definitely inspire creative thought, these events,” he says. “I’m just trying to bring some relief. Everyone was freaking out.”

Corral did the shoot Sunday evening, before the hurricane made landfall. “We’re in Maine, so Sandy didn’t really hit directly,” he says, “but the seas were stormy, winds were high, lots of rain.” Corral is using the photo to make refrigerator magnets, which he’s already selling on Etsy.com for $ 5 each.

In Baltimore, artist Jamie Shelman has produced this Sandy-inspired ink drawing. “In this instance, I found it funny that society in general always has the same response to the fears related to a weather event,” she says in an e-mail. “My drawing is a comical response to those societal responses ( i.e., empty the shelves of toilet paper, white bread, and milk!) And also lashing yourself to what you perceive as an immovable object—in this case a tree—is a comical and not good idea.” Shelman says she’ll make 40 prints of the drawing.

John Ballou, an artist in Rochester, N.Y., says, “Sometimes the best way to break through the horrific loss is with a little bit of humor after the waters have receded.” He’s made 20 rubber-stamp cards that read: “Frankenstorm Survivor.”

—Venessa Wong

New York Airports Shuttered

11:30 a.m., Oct. 30, 2012 — Air travelers looking to fly to or from the U.S. Northeast are largely out of luck today, and Wednesday may not be much better. Federal authorities and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closed New York’s three main airports, John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty, and LaGuardia, on Monday over concerns about flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy. It’s not clear yet when traffic may resume. Here’s an FAA map of the airports’ current status; a black dot means an airport is closed.

Since Sandy began its northward march from the Caribbean, airlines have scrubbed more than 16,200 flights, according to flight tracker FlightStats. More are likely as aircraft will need to be repositioned.

—Justin Bachman

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Hurricane’s death toll rises to 65 in Caribbean

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — As Americans braced Sunday for Hurricane Sandy, Haiti was still suffering.

Officials raised the storm-related death toll across the Caribbean to 65, with 51 of those coming in Haiti, which was pelted by three days of constant rains that ended only on Friday.

As the rains stopped and rivers began to recede, authorities were getting a fuller idea of how much damage Sandy brought on Haiti. Bridges collapsed. Banana crops were ruined. Homes were underwater. Officials said the death toll might still rise.

“This is a disaster of major proportions,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press, adding with a touch of hyperbole, “The whole south is under water.”

The country’s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding. The bulk of the deaths were in the southern part of the country and the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital, which holds most of the 370,000 Haitians who are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said Sunday that the rivers were receding and that people were beginning to dry their belongings in the sun.

“Things are back to being a little quiet,” Alexis said by telephone. “We have seen the end.”

Sandy also killed 11 in Cuba, where officials said it destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of houses. Deaths were also reported in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities while damaging an estimated 3,500 homes.

Jamaica’s emergency management office on Sunday was airlifting supplies to marooned communities in remote areas of four badly impacted parishes.

In the Bahamas, Wolf Seyfert, operations director at local airline Western Air, said the domestic terminal of Grand Bahamas‘ airport received “substantial damage” from Sandy’s battering storm surge and would need to be rebuilt.

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