Girl who gave birth at 14 loses right to keep her baby after judge hears she is 'barely able to care for herself'

A desperate mother who gave birth aged 14 has failed to save the baby she loves from adoption after a judge heard she is barely mature enough to look after herself.
The baby girl’s father has had little to do with her, but her mother has fought through the courts to keep the one-year-old within her natural family.
But a family judge at London’s Appeal Court, Lord Justice Munby, today dashed her hopes after hearing that the 'well-intentioned' mother is young for her age and 'barely able to care for herself, let alone care for a young child'.
The baby’s maternal grandmother has already failed in an attempt to be allowed to look after her and today’s decision means the little girl is now destined for a “closed adoption” - after which her natural family may never see her again.
At Worcester County Court earlier this year, Judge Richard Rundell said it was 'unrealistic' to expect the mother to look after her baby.
He said that given her own emotional and behavioural problems, a further assessment of her parenting skills would serve 'absolutely no purpose'.
The grandmother’s 'eloquent and passionate' pleas to care for the baby also came to nothing in September when Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Ward rejected her pleas, despite describing the case as 'heart-rending' and declaring himself 'overwhelmed with sympathy'.

Before Lord Justice Munby, the mother’s lawyers argued Judge Rundell had been 'plainly wrong' to refuse her a further parenting assessment before severing her from her baby.
They argued the mother had 'matured immeasurably' and deserved another chance.
However, the judge today said the local authority’s plan was for a closed adoption and Judge Rendell 'was entitled to conclude as he did and for the reasons he gave'.
'The ultimate balance was for the judge to strike', he said, refusing the mother permission to appeal against Judge Rundell’s decision.

Test may save thousands of breast cancer victims from chemotherapy ordeal, but will it be rationed?

Thousands of women with breast cancer could be spared the ordeal of chemotherapy thanks to a new test that may be in use as soon as next year.
The inexpensive test, developed by British scientists, accurately analyses tumours to work out the likelihood of them coming back after they have been surgically removed.
Just under half of the 48,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer every year undergo chemotherapy after surgery to reduce the chance of tumours returning.

The treatment can last up to six months and normally brings on debilitating side effects including nausea, hair loss and extreme fatigue. It also leaves some patients infertile.
But researchers believe they can now pick out some 3,000 of these patients who are needlessly enduring the treatment every year.
The test could also ensure treatment for the handful of patients wrongly denied chemotherapy because doctors have underestimated the possibility of their tumours returning.

Doctors decide whether a patient should have chemotherapy after surgery by considering factors including the tumour's size, how quickly it has spread and its location.
But this process is not always accurate and researchers say many women with the most common form of breast cancer, called 'ER positive', do not need chemotherapy.
Trials of the new IHC4 test show it is as effective as an expensive American analysis called Oncotype DX, which costs ￡2,500 per patient and is available only at one laboratory in California.
The British test, which costs just ￡125 a time, measures the levels of ER, PR, HER2 and Ki67 proteins in the tumour once it has been surgically removed. This allows doctors to gauge more precisely the likelihood of the cancer returning.

Women would be told the verdict at a follow-up appointment with their specialist, normally a week after the operation.
The test is currently being assessed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which will decide whether it is cost-effective enough to be used in NHS hospitals.
Nice is expected to make a decision next April or May.The test has already been trialled on more than 2,000 British women and the results are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Professor Mitch Dowsett, of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden hospital, said: 'It is a major step towards more personalised and targeted treatment of breast cancer, which will mean women can avoid unnecessary chemotherapy and its toxic side effects.'
Up to one in eight women in Britain will develop breast cancer at some point.
Although survival rates have greatly improved thanks to earlier diagnosis and better treatment, it still claims 12,000 lives a year.
Around 37,000 of the 48,000 women with breast cancer suffer from the ER positive form of the illness.
Dr Lesley Walker of Cancer Research UK said the research was 'a great example of how we should no longer group cancers based on where they are in the body, but by the genes and proteins within the tumour'.
He added: 'It shows how personalised medicine is as much about sparing people treatments they don't need or won't respond to as it is about creating targeted drugs.'
Professor Jack Cuzick of Queen Mary, University of London, said the test could be a 'key component in the battle against breast cancer'.
The researchers hope one of the important benefits of the test could be preventing younger women with breast cancer from becoming infertile through chemotherapy.
But so far most of the research has been carried out in women in their fifties.
So the scientists want to carry out additional studies on younger, fertile women with breast cancer to check it is just as successful.
A separate study of 10,800 women by scientists at Oxford University and the University of Texas found radiotherapy halves the risk of breast cancer returning for ten years after treatment, according to the medical journal The Lancet.

Did ruthless Charles Dickens drive a man to suicide? Young writer 'stole' project from illustrator who shot himself dead

The novels are in serialised form, designed to be read in parts as a monthly magazine - which is how they first appeared to the public.
The Pickwick Papers is a collection of stories about the fictional Pickwick Club, whose members decide to embark on a series of colourful adventures across the English countryside.
Control of the project was originally given to Seymour, who was a respected cartoonist and aimed to create a book of sketches depicting sportsmen.
But fate turned against him when the publisher called in Dickens, who was then an unknown writer using the name ‘Boz’.
The young writer’s job was to provide a few words of accompanying text – but he hijacked the project, cutting out almost all the illustrations.
It all came to a head when the pair argued about the quality of one of Seymour’s cartoons.
Several days later, Seymour finished his last illustration before turning his drawings to the wall, stepping outside and shooting himself.
Stephen Jarvis, of the Dickens Fellowship, is currently writing Seymour’s biography and said Dickens played a part in the illustrator’s suicide.
He said: ‘Robert Seymour was the most prolific illustrator of his day. Some people called him the “Shakespeare of Caricature.”
‘At this time, Dickens was unknown – he was mainly a parliamentary reporter. But he was nevertheless critical of Seymour’s work.
‘It’s clear that Seymour was experiencing a great deal of trauma. Before he died, he burnt all the papers relating to the Pickwick Papers, as if they disgusted him.
‘There’s no doubt in my mind that Dickens contributed to his death. There’s this view that Dickens was an earthbound saint, which is just not the case.’
Seymour’s widow blamed Dickens for his death, but he was keen to keep the story under wraps during his rise to fame.
In later editions of the book, he included in the prologue: ‘Mr Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word to be found in this book.’
Alongside the copy of the Pickwick Papers is a page of handwritten manuscript which Dickens drafted before handing to the printers.
Only 50 of his original pages survive – grabbed by the printer at the time as a souvenir - and it is expected to fetch up to ￡65,000.
Christina Geiger, historical books expert, said: ‘Dickens’ secret was to develop the technique of suspense so that people would want to read the next issue. He was the first one to really exploit that.
‘These publications were not intended to last. They were intended like newspapers and magazines, so it is very rare to find them in good condition.
‘For some of the Dickens stories, only a handful exist.’
The collection, built up over 35 years by American lawyer Robert H. Jackson, will be auctioned off at Bonhams in New York on Tuesday [Oct 18].
The 270 items also include serialisations of William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Anthony Trollope’s Ralph the Heir.
Book serialisation grew in the 19th Century when the railways made it possible to transport stock so that readers in Newcastle could have their stories on the same day as those in London.
Much like modern soap operas, they were designed to keep the public on their toes – with ‘cliffhangers’ keeping readers hungry for the next editions, ultimately maximising profit for the publishers.
It was only later that the books were bound together as one volume, with writers like Dickens using the public’s reaction to each installment to decide how to end his stories.
Because the paper they were printed on was so flimsy, these original periodicals are now extremely rare – with only a limited number of each remain in existence.

TEACHER JAILED FOR SEX WITH PUPIL, 14, IN 18-MONTH AFFAIR

A MUSIC teacher has been jailed for four years after admitting having sex with a 14-year-old pupil at his school.
Craig Parkin, 26, first seduced the teenager with texts and emails when she was just 13, a court heard.
The pair had an 18-month affair and had sex when she was 14 and studying for her GCSEs.
Department head Parkin had told her it was acceptable for young teenage girls to have “loving and lasting relationships with older men”.
This carried on despite Parkin twice attending school courses where he was warned sexual activity with a girl under 16 was a criminal offence.
The affair was exposed when a friend discovered Facebook messages between the pair and gossip spread throughout Woldgate College in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. Police later investigated. During an interview, the girl said: “We knew the risks but at the time of the relationship it was the last thing we thought of. We were too in love to think.”
Parkin, of Walton, Wakefield, fought back tears after pleading guilty at Hull Crown Court to five counts of sexual activity with a child.
The girl, who sat in the public gallery, wept as prosecutor Richard Woolfall told the court how the girl, now 16, remained in love with Parkin and wanted to be with him. He said: “The complainant is still fully on the side of the defendant and hopes to have a relationship with him.
“She is in love with him, wants to be together with him and wants to wait.”
He added: “The defendant said he had not behaved inappropriately with other pupils. This was a relationship where his heart had ruled his head.” In interviews he acknowledged the relationship was “very wrong” but he “couldn’t help being in love with her”.
The victim’s mother said she was impressed with Parkin’s talent as a teacher but thought he had “crossed the line”. She also said in a victim impact statement she did not see him as a threat to her daughter and would not hurt her.
The court heard how Parkin, who had previously been engaged for seven years, first chatted to the girl on the internet before their relationship became physical.
Mr Woolfall said: “For him it moved very quickly. He told her that he loved her. He was the first to say it. She did not say it straight back, but did so two days later.
“As the relationship moved on Parkin would pick her up in his car and they would either go back to his house, which he had just bought, or he would drive off into the countryside.”
The first sexual contact was when she was 14 in his car and as they became “boyfriend and girlfriend” they “experimented consensually with extreme sexual behaviour”.
He said: “They were happy with the relationship. He said he would not hurt her in anyway. He was letting his heart rule his head.”
Mr Justice Coulson jailed Parkin for four years, made him the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order and banned him from working with children. He also ordered he should sign the National Sex Offences Register for life.
East Riding Council’s director for children Alison Michalska said: “Teachers occupy a position of trust and the evidence clearly shows Parkin was fully aware that what he was doing was both abusive and criminal.”

PRESSURE PILES ON LIAM FOX AS HE ADMITS ‘MISTAKE’ OVER HIS FRIEND’S ROLE

LIAM Fox was forced to make a grovelling apology last night over his working relationship with a former flatmate.
The Defence Secretary conceded his contact with Adam Werritty “may have given an impression of wrongdoing”.
He also admitted his mistake in blurring his professional responsibilities and personal loyalties.
Dr Fox’s apology came after the Opposition made explosive new allegations that he misled them about a meeting in Dubai in June, and claims that fellow Cabinet Ministers had withdrawn their support.
Prime Minister David Cameron is poised to decide his fate today after ordering an urgent report on an internal investigation into whether Dr Fox’s links to Mr Werritty breached ministerial guidelines. Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy increased the pressure on Dr Fox by accusing him of not telling the truth about the Dubai meeting organised by Werritty.
Mr Murphy says Dr Fox assured him a Ministry of Defence official had been present in Dubai, where the Defence Secretary had discussed a potential arms deal.
But Mr Murphy says he was shocked to discover later that the meeting was brokered and attended by Mr Werritty and no MoD officials were present.
And Dr Fox has come under further scrutiny after the discovery of a video that shows him and Mr Werritty meeting the president of Sri Lanka in London last year despite his claims that his friend did not attend formal meetings with foreign dignitaries.
Mr Werritty is shown shaking hands at the Dorchester Hotel with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, accused of civil war crimes. The footage also shows Werritty present as Dr Fox discusses peace talks.
Dr Fox said last night: “I accept that it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend. I am sorry for this. At no stage did I or my department provide classified information or briefings to Mr Werritty or assist with his commercial work – let alone benefit personally.
“Nevertheless, I do accept that given Mr Werritty’s defence-related business interests, my frequent contacts with him may have given an impression of wrongdoing and may also have given third parties the misleading impression that Mr Werritty was an official adviser.
“I have learned lessons from this experience.”
Of the Dubai meeting, he said: “I accept that it was wrong to meet a commercial supplier without the presence of an official. I have apologised to the Prime Minister.”
Last night, former armed forces minister Kevan Jones said: “Just 24 hours ago Liam Fox called these allegations ‘baseless’ and now he has apologised but yet is denying any wrongdoing took place.
“This is a man in denial. We need a full explanation.”

SIR MERVYN KING INTENT ON TALKING US INTO RECESSION

THE only thing we have to fear is fear itself... so declared Franklin D Roosevelt in his presidential address on 1933, adding: "Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed effort to convert retreat into advance."
Now that Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King has come out and declared the financial crisis to be even worse than the Great Depression perhaps he might like to take note of the former US president’s famous words. If he won’t could we perhaps have a slightly more cheerful governor when Sir Mervyn finally mopes off with his gold watch in 2013?

True, the economy has hit another sticky patch, Greece is almost certain to default and the euro is probably doomed. But things are not quite so awful that a few badly-chosen words from the governor cannot make far worse. he appears not so much to be talking us into recession as bawling it through a megaphone. Sir Mervyn is like a dreary uncle who turns up on Boxing Day, miserably slurps his soup while moaning about the price of his bus ticket, then slopes off again without joining in the parlour games.

By some arcane measures no doubt the present economic crisis can be compared with the Great Depression but Sir Mervyn knows what most non-economists will visualise when they hear that the world’s prospects are worse now than they were in the early Thirties.
In America then millions were genuinely destitute. Unemployment reached 25 per cent. Two million Americans tramped the country, sleeping rough as they looked for nonexistent work. Malnutrition was widespread.

Southern England escaped relatively lightly but in the North there were pockets of extreme hardship. On Tyneside the collapse of shipbuilding left unemployment standing at 70 per cent, provoking the famous Jarrow march.

There were soup kitchens on the streets and millions of families were subsisting on bread and margarine. In Germany, if anyone needs reminding, economic misery that had begun with hyperinflation in 1923 helped another world leader to power in 1933: Adolf Hitler.
Does Sir Mervyn really recognise any of this in Britain or anywhere else in the developed world in 2011? Of course he doesn’t. Family finances may be stretched but the streets are not full of hungry families begging for food and thanks to the welfare state they are not going to be. Britain appears to be sliding back into recession with industrial production falling but not by the 23 per cent that it fell in the Great Depression. Unemployment is eight per cent, still a long way short of its peak in the eighties and early Nineties.

Thursday’s speech was just one more example of the lack of leadership which Sir Mervyn has shown throughout the economic crisis. For months after the beginning of the credit crunch in 2007 he didn’t seem to be aware that anything was wrong at all. Then, when it became clear that the banks were in great trouble, he kept telling us they would not be bailed out as that would create “moral hazard”, in other words they would just take even bigger risks. But then they were bailed out, all the same.

Over the past four years Sir Mervyn has consistently told us how sorry he feels for savers trying to scrape by on low interest rates and assured us that inflation would soon fall back to his two per cent target. But inflation has just kept on rising regardless.

As chairman of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee Sir Mervyn’s main job is to control inflation through the setting of interest rates. But it is a duty on which he has completely given up. If it has secretly switched to an alternative agenda of generating inflation in order to help the Government pay off its debts he should at least tell us what he is doing.

Thursday’s announcement of another ￡75billion worth of “quantitative easing” – a euphemism for printing money – played well with the stock market yesterday but it is unlikely to cause much cheer for long. On the contrary it threatens to stoke inflation even higher, eroding the savings of millions, especially the retired who are living on fixed incomes. If printing money is such a boon to the economy why isn’t Zimbabwe, where Mugabe practised it shamelessly, the strongest economy in the world? It didn’t help much in Twenties Germany either where the Weimar government tried to pay off its debts by printing money, creating the dire consequences of hyper-inflation.

What we need in the current crisis is a governor of the Bank of England who can build confidence in the markets. Just look how the stock market has gyrated since August. The prospect of a default by the Greek government can’t explain the collapse in confidence: it’s been clear that Greece’s public finances were in a hopeless state for at least 18 months.

Yet for the first 16 of those months the markets maintained their composure and the economy slowly recovered.
As Roosevelt intimated, fear is the real contagion. When people are fed a diet of doom they draw in their horns and stop spending. Businesses see sales collapse and recession becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The very last thing we want in this situation is a governor of the Bank of England, who can move markets with every word he utters, saying things are worse than we thought.

You would think that on a salary of ￡305,368 and an index-linked pension to look forward to Sir Mervyn might be able to see the bright side. If he can’t put in a better effort to restore confidence perhaps it would be better if he took that pension a little earlier than planned.

William Hague snubs Tory right over EU membership referendum demands

William Hague has ruled out a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU in an interview with the Observer. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

William Hague has cast off his reputation as the darling of the Tory right by describing governing with the Liberal Democrats as "wonderfully refreshing". He also rules out a referendum on UK membership of the EU.

The comments by the foreign secretary, in an interview with the Observer, will dismay the many Conservative MPs who resent the Lib Dems' moderating influence on government policy, particularly on relations with Europe, and want their party to champion a more rightwing agenda.

As the Tories gather for their annual conference in Manchester, amid calls from rightwingers for David Cameron to give less ground to their coalition partners, Hague says this administration is working better than the last Tory government in which he served.

"When you sit with David Cameron and Nick Clegg and other senior colleagues examining an issue, it is a wonderfully refreshing, rational discussion, actually, in which you know your party identity is not the first consideration," he says. "The government has a more united spirit than the last government I served in at the end of 18 years of Conservative government."

Hague, formerly a hardline Eurosceptic, insists he has not changed his opinions on the EU, or come under the spell of the pro-EU Foreign Office culture. He still believes the EU has too much power and has never veered from his view that the euro would be a disaster.

But in a sign that life in government has had a profound influence, he also freely points out that in his time as foreign secretary he has seen evidence of the 27-nation bloc operating as a powerful, collective force for good in the world. As a result, he does not believe it would ever be in the UK's interest to think of leaving. Asked if the government might grant a referendum on UK membership of the EU, he says "no", arguing one would be called only to approve or reject further transfers of sovereignty: "Our place is in the European Union."

Hague says that EU procedures can be "cumbersome, slow and bureaucratic", with negotiations taking weeks, as they did over the imposition of sanctions on Syria. "But the upside is when you've negotiated them [the sanctions] 95% of the sales of crude oil are stopped because 27 nations together act on that."

He also cites a trade deal between the EU and South Korea struck last year as another success. "That is a vast economic benefit to the whole of the EU and we want more of those things."

His remarks reflect a wider recognition at the top of the Tory party that its best chance of winning a second term in government is to stay firmly on the centre ground and resist moving to the right. But they will infuriate many grassroots Tories, and young Conservative MPs, who feel that the true Tory message is being compromised.

The issue of Europe is expected to blow up when Tory MPs and activists demand a referendum on whether the UK should quit the EU altogether. They maintain that, as the inner core of "euro" nations moves towards a fiscal union, the UK risks being sucked in further and now is the perfect opportunity to push for a fundamental change in the UK's relations with Brussels or an exit strategy.

It was reported last night that the Commons backbench business committee will agree to grant a one-day debate in parliament on a referendum of Britain's membership of the EU, after a petition signed by more than 100,000 people was submitted to MPs. Mark Pritchard, Eurosceptic secretary of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, said that Europe would be a huge issue at conference: "Europe is back as an issue, that is my message."

The battle of ideas in the party will be stepped up with the publication of The Future of Conservatism, co-edited by former Tory minister and leadership contender David Davis. In it, MPs both young and more experienced float a range of radical ideas.

Steve Baker, from the 2010 intake, calls for the road network to be privatised, a system of road pricing to be introduced, and for the new north-south HS2 high-speed rail line and the London Crossrail schemes to be cancelled. Rightwing former cabinet minister John Redwood says that taxes for both high and low earners should be cut.

Another new alliance of Conservative MPs backing greater moves towards free enterprise and deregulation will be launched on Monday.

Hague says it is "very important" for the Tories to remain on the centre ground, particularly, he claims, because Labour under Ed Miliband appears to be "vacating" that territory.

With the coalition under increasing pressure to change economic policy in order to promote growth and employment, Cameron will announce plans to boost housebuilding by forcing government departments to sell vacant land to developers.

The plan, he will claim, will allow for the building of around 100,000 homes and support as many as 200,000 jobs by 2015. Construction companies will receive special assistance as they will only have to pay for the land when they have sold the homes.

"The government owns huge amounts of land, mostly brownfield sites, previously developed, either out of use or being run down in some way," Cameron told a Sunday newspaper. "There's an enormous opportunity to build homes on those sites. I want people to have the chance to own their own home. This is a creative way of getting those homes built."

In his keynote speech, George Osborne is expected to play down the prospects of big tax cuts before the next general election.After Ed Miliband's conference speech received a mixed reception at Labour's gathering in Liverpool last week, Hague, who himself endured a traumatic period as Tory leader between 1997 and 2001, said that on a personal level he felt sorry for the Labour leader.

"But I have not got a lot of political sympathy," he said. "He has been dealt a much better card. The world was largely peaceful, the economy was growing of its own accord and they [Labour] rode on the back of all that. So Ed Miliband doesn't have as many excuses as I had … I might put it that way."

A shaky debut of iPhone 4S and new leadership

Reporting from Cupertino and San Francisco— Apple began its new era with a creation unlike anything it had produced in years: disappointment.

Instead of a major new product, the electronics giant unveiled an updated version of the iPhone 4 that it released 16 months ago. Even the name, iPhone 4S, resembled the old phone.

Most observers had expected that in its first unveiling without its co-founder Steve Jobs, Apple would try to show it was still capable of wowing crowds with stunning new devices.

PHOTOS: The unveiling of the iPhone 4S

Immediately after the company showed off its updated smartphone, shares of Apple stock plunged nearly 5%. Though they largely recovered by the time the market closed, investors agreed that Tuesday's unveiling was not Apple's best performance.

"It's kind of unfortunate timing that the first post-Jobs product is not the most exciting in the world," said Alex Spektor, a wireless analyst at Strategy Analytics, who called the new phone an "incremental" improvement over the iPhone 4. By choosing not to call the device the iPhone 5, he said, "Apple is admitting that it's basically the same phone but with some souped-up specifications."

Unlike Jobs, who tended to stay on the stage for most of a product unveiling, Apple's new chief executive Tim Cook spoke for only a small part of the nearly two-hour presentation. The Alabama native spoke about Apple's music, retail and computer business — pausing to joke about all the buzz over the new iPhone — but let his lieutenants introduce the new device and many of its features.

Without Jobs and his trademark ability to build excitement around a new product, some observers felt the presentation was missing some of Apple's pizazz. Some felt it even dragged on a bit too long.

"This was not a home run for Tim Cook," said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners. "It was adequate. All he can do is be his own person — he'll get more chances."

The company also seemed to disappoint consumers who were expecting Apple to announce that the iPhone would be available to customers at wireless providers besides AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

After the event, Apple's website listed Sprint among the carriers that would sell the phones in the U.S. The carrier is listed on a Web page comparing iPhone models.

Apple did not return requests for comment, but a Sprint spokeswoman confirmed in an email that the carrier would join AT&T and Verizon in selling the new phone along with the $99 iPhone 4. The iPhone 3GS, however, will only be available from AT&T.

Still, some analysts felt that the launch — if not sensational — was a smart business move by Apple, which is locked in an intense battle with rival smartphone makers, chiefly companies like Samsung Electronics Co. and HTC that make Google Inc.-powered Android phones, some at low prices.

By offering its own series of lower-cost phones, Apple is aiming at the swelling segment of smartphone consumers in fast-growing markets in Asia and South America, where many first-time buyers can't afford the higher-end phones.

"They are satisfying the broadening demand of the market," said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. "It's a good strategy on Apple's part."

The iPhone 4S will go on sale late this month starting at $199 with a two-year contract. It has a faster computer processor and a higher-quality internal camera, but is largely a series of smaller upgrades to the iPhone 4, which has become the company's best-selling product. Apple also lowered the price on the existing iPhone 4, and will give the earlier iPhone 3GS to wireless customers free of charge.

Perhaps the closest thing the company came to a "wow"-inducing new feature was the introduction of a voice-activated digital "personal assistant." Called Siri, the feature takes voice commands from the user — "Help me find a good Greek restaurant nearby," "Do I need a raincoat today?" or "Schedule me for a noon lunch with Jane" — and dutifully performs the task and reports back in a computerized female voice.

Siri, who when asked, "Who are you?" responds, "I am a humble personal assistant," drew applause from the audience.

"It's a harbinger of very significant change in terms of how people interact with and control their devices," Golvin said.

One of the day's minor flourishes was Apple's announcement of its new "Cards" application, which lets iPhone users put photos they have taken into fancy printed greeting cards. The sender can add a personal message and Apple will print and mail the card, even alerting the sender by text message when it arrives.

The news of Apple's easy-to-use approach to greeting cards instantly sent the stocks of card companies spinning — shares of American Greetings Corp. dropped more than 6%, and the Web-based card maker Shutterfly lost nearly 11% before staging a late comeback.

But some observers saw a bright side for another troubled company.

"I think Apple is trying to bail out the U.S. Postal Service," joked Twitter user Ariel Waldman.