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“Storage Wars” porn lawsuit: alleged Brandi Passante video distributor found in contempt
Label: TechnologyBritney Spears & Jason Trawick Split: What Went Wrong?
Label: LifestyleBritney Spears and Jason Trawick
Michael Kovac/Getty
Britney Spears and Jason Trawick mutually ended their engagement Friday, just over a year after he popped the question to the pop star in Las Vegas.
So what was behind the pair's decision to call off their engagement? According to a close source, Spears, 31, and Trawick, 41, both wanted "different things."
"There was no third party involved," says the source of the couple, who began dating in 2009. "Things haven't been ideal in their relationship for some time. There was a lot to work on before they could move forward and get married."
One of those things may have been Trawick's desire to maintain a life outside their relationship.
"Britney had a lot of issues with Jason doing his own thing – in business and seeing his friends," another source says. "In her perfect world he would have been home with her twenty-four/seven, so that was a point off contention; something they were always working on."
Though Spears recently purchased an $8.5 million mansion in L.A.'s Thousand Oaks neighborhood to live in with Trawick and her sons Sean, 7, and Jayden, 6, but another source says everything wasn't picture perfect. "They've been spending a lot of time apart in the last few months," says the source.
While the pair's relationship had become "frustrating," according to the close source, they've put up a united front. Spears told PEOPLE exclusively in a statement Friday that she and Trawick are committed to remaining "great friends."
After hearing news of the split, a source who saw the couple and her children in recent weeks says, "They both seemed happy. Especially Britney, I could tell that she was in a really great place. She smiled a lot. They were both really at ease with the boys."
As Spears ends her relationship with Trawick – he also resigned as co-conservator over her person, which gave him authority to make decisions about her general well-being – the singer and former X Factor judge will return to doing what she loves: music.
"It's time for me to get back in the studio," she said in a statement Friday. "Watching [The X Factor contestants] all do their thing up on that stage every week made me miss performing so much! I can't wait to get back out there and do what I love most."
• Reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA, RAHA LEWIS and AILI NAHAS
Q&A: Scramble for vaccine as flu season heats up
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — Missed flu-shot day at the office last fall? And all those "get vaccinated" ads? A scramble for shots is under way as late-comers seek protection from a miserable flu strain already spreading through much of the country.
Federal health officials said Friday that there is still some flu vaccine available and it's not too late to benefit from it. But people may have to call around to find a clinic with shots still on the shelf, or wait a few days for a new shipment.
"We're hearing of spot shortages," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Colorado offers an example. Kaiser Permanente, which has 535,000 members in the state, stopped giving flu shots this week. But it expected to resume vaccinations when new shipments arrive, expected this weekend.
Some questions and answers about flu vaccines:
Q: Are we running out of vaccine?
A: It's January — we shouldn't have a lot left. The traditional time to get vaccinated is in the fall, so that people are protected before influenza starts spreading.
Indeed, manufacturers already have shipped nearly 130 million doses to doctors' offices, drugstores and wholesalers, out of the 135 million doses they had planned to make for this year's flu season. At least 112 million have been used so far.
The nation's largest manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, said Friday that it still has supplies of two specialty vaccines, a high-dose shot for seniors, and an under-the-skin shot for certain adults, available for immediate shipment. But it also is working to eke out a limited supply of its traditional shots — some doses that it initially hadn't packaged into syringes, said spokesman Michael Szumera. They should be available late this month.
And MedImmune, the maker of the nasal spray vaccine FluMist, said it has 620,000 extra doses available.
Q: Can't they just make more?
A: No. Flu vaccine is complicated to brew, with supplies for each winter made months in advance and at the numbers expected to sell. Although health officials recommend a yearly flu vaccination for nearly everybody, last year 52 percent of children and just 39 percent of adults were immunized. Most years, leftover doses have to be thrown out.
Q: Should I still hunt for a vaccine?
A: It does take two weeks for full protection to kick in. Still, health officials say it's a good idea to be vaccinated even this late, especially for older people, young children and anyone with medical conditions such as heart or lung diseases that put them at high risk of dangerous flu complications. Flu season does tend to be worst in January and February, but it can run through March.
Q: I heard that a new flu strain is spreading. Does the vaccine really work?
A: Flu strains constantly evolve, the reason that people need an updated vaccine every year. But the CDC says this year's is a good match to the types that are circulating, including a new kind of the tough H3N2 strain. That family tends to be harsher than other flu types — and health officials warned last fall that it was coming, and meant this winter would likely be tougher than last year's flu season, the mildest on record.
Q: But don't some people get vaccinated and still get sick?
A: Flu vaccine never is 100 percent effective, and unfortunately it tends to protect younger people better than older ones. But the CDC released a study Friday showing that so far this year, the vaccine appears 62 percent effective, meaning it's working about as well as it has in past flu seasons.
While that may strike some people as low, Frieden said it's the best protection available. "It's a glass 62 percent full," he said. "It's well worth the effort."
Q: What else can I do?
A: Wash your hands often, and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Viruses can spread by hand, not just through the air. Also, cough in your elbow, not your hand. When you're sick, protect others by staying home.
And people who are in those high-risk groups should call a doctor if they develop symptoms, added CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. They might be prescribed antiviral medication, which works best if given within the first 48 hours of symptoms.
___
AP Medical Writers Lindsey Tanner and Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.
Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.
The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.
Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.
An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs
"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."
EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS
Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.
Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo
The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.
Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric
HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP
Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.
Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.
Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.
Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.
"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."
POLITICAL ANXIETY
Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.
The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.
Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.
The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.
"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.
The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.
"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."
(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)
Plenty of Theories, and Enemies, in Killing of 3 Kurds in Paris
Label: World
Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The brother of Sakine Cansiz (on poster), one of three Kurdish activists found shot on Thursday, said his family was convinced that it was a professional assassination.
PARIS — With her signature long hennaed hair, fiery resolve and olive-green military fatigues, Sakine Cansiz was a feminist, guerrilla fighter and former political prisoner as adept at wielding a machine gun as organizing political protests from a jail cell.
One day after she and two other Kurdish activists were killed in the heart of Paris, speculation abounded regarding Ms. Cansiz, 55, and whether she had been the main target.
One of her brothers, Metin Cansiz, and activists interviewed Friday said her main role in recent years was to raise money and provide political support for the separatist group she helped found, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. Ms. Cansiz may also still have been involved in providing arms for the rebels.
Echoing many analysts, Mr. Cansiz said the family was convinced that his sister had been the victim of a professional assassination. It was aimed, he said, at disrupting recently started peace talks that seek to end decades of bloody conflict between the Turkish government and the P.K.K., which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Ms. Cansiz was a close ally of a crucial player in the talks with Turkey, the P.K.K.’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
“My sister supported the peace process, and she paid with her life,” Mr. Cansiz said as family members and hundreds of mourners gathered at a Kurdish cultural center not far from the locked, unlabeled office where Ms. Cansiz and the other two women, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Soylemez, were found fatally shot early Thursday. “Whoever did this wanted to kill the process.”
Many Kurdish rebels said they believed that Turkish nationalists were behind the killings. But there were competing suspicions. Some rebels speculated that Iran sponsored the attack as a way to destabilize Turkey, which has taken a stand against an Iranian ally, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Friday that he believed that the killings bore the signs of an internal feud. In any case, the contours of Ms. Cansiz’s shortened life suggest that she would have had plenty of enemies.
Born to an Alevi Shiite family of eight brothers and sisters, Ms. Cansiz became politically active in her early 20s, her brother said. What she saw as the impoverishment and repression of the Kurdish community led her and a small group of revolutionaries to found the P.K.K. at a teahouse near Diyarbakir, in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
In 1980, after a coup in Turkey, she was arrested and imprisoned until 1991, enduring torture, according to Rusen Werdi, a Kurdish lawyer in Paris.
Her brother, who was imprisoned with her, recalled that she was one of the only prisoners to stand up to the authorities. Activists recalled that she spit in the face of the notorious prison director.
In interviews on Friday, activists said Ms. Cansiz continued to organize demonstrations from behind bars. They said she had initially been attracted by the Marxist ideology of the Kurdish rights movement, which allowed women to escape from the tribal structures of Kurdish society and to take up arms alongside men.
Vahap Coskun, an expert on Kurdish movements at Dicle University in Diyarbakir, said that from its inception, the P.K.K. saw that Kurdish women could provide a powerful base for political organization and on the battlefield. Of the group’s 5,500 members, he said, about a quarter are women. In the mid-1990s, some joined suicide bombing attacks aimed at military and civilian targets, sometimes deflecting suspicion by dressing as though pregnant.
After Ms. Cansiz was released from prison, her brother said, she received military training, organized clandestine meetings, traveled to P.K.K. mountain outposts in southeastern Turkey and went underground to Germany to raise funds.
Ms. Cansiz spent time in Syria, where Mr. Ocalan was based, at the group’s training camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa region and in northern Iraq, Mr. Coskun said. She was eventually sent to Western Europe to work in logistics and fund-raising after the P.K.K. incurred losses in fighting with Turkish security forces, he said.
The German authorities questioned her in 2007 but turned down a Turkish request for her extradition, her friends and colleagues said. She then moved to Paris, and believed that she was under frequent surveillance, they said.
Her brother said that the two had recently celebrated the new year in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and that Ms. Cansiz had betrayed no concerns about her safety. “She was never afraid,” he said. “She was happy.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 12, 2013
An earlier version of this article misidentified the sect of Shiite Islam of which Sakine Cansiz was a member. She was an Alevi, not an Alawite. Among their differences, the Alevis are spread throughout Turkey, while most Alawites in Turkey live along the country’s border with Syria.
Video game retail sales continued to slide in December, down 22% from 2011
Label: TechnologyTitle Post: Video game retail sales continued to slide in December, down 22% from 2011
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Poppy Montgomery Expecting Second Child
Label: Lifestyle
Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog
01/11/2013 at 04:00 PM ET
Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
There’s a baby on the way for Poppy Montgomery!
The Unforgettable star is expecting her second child this spring, a rep for Montgomery confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.
This will be the actress’ first child with Shawn Sanford, a Microsoft executive Montgomery began dating in late 2011. She’s already mom to son Jackson, 5, from her prior relationship with actor Adam Kaufman.
“Shawn and I are thrilled and Jackson is so excited to be a big brother!” Montgomery, who is also known for her series Without a Trace, tells PEOPLE.
In addition to writing her PEOPLE.com blog, Montgomery will continue work on Unforgettable when it returns to CBS this summer.
RELATED: Poppy Montgomery’s PEOPLE.com Blog Series
– Sarah Michaud
Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — Flu is more widespread across the nation, but the number of hard-hit states has declined, health officials said Friday.
Flu season started early this winter, and includes a strain that tends to make people sicker. Health officials have forecast a potentially bad flu season, following last year's unusually mild one. The latest numbers, however, hint that the flu season may already have peaked in some spots.
Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. Many cases may be mild. The only states without widespread flu are California, Mississippi and Hawaii.
The hardest hit states fell to 24 from 29, with large numbers of people getting treated for flu-like illness. Dropped off that list were Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina in the South, the first region hit this flu season.
Recent flu reports have included the holidays when some doctor's offices were closed, so it will probably take a couple more weeks to know if the flu has peaked in some places or grown stronger in others, CDC officials said Friday.
"Only time will tell how moderate or severe this flu season will be," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a teleconference with reporters.
Nationally, 20 children have died from the flu. There is no running tally of adult deaths, but the CDC estimates that the flu kills about 24,000 people in an average year.
Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older, and health officials say it is not too late to get vaccinated. flu reports.
Nearly 130 million doses of flu vaccine were distributed this year, and at least 112 million have been used. Vaccine is still available, but supplies may have run low in some locations, health officials say.
Hyrmete Sciuto, of Edgewater, N.J., got a flu shot Friday at a New York City drugstore. She hadn't got one in years, but news reports on the flu this week made her concerned.
As a commuter by ferry and bus, "I have people coughing in my face," she said. "I didn't want to risk it this year."
The flu vaccine isn't foolproof; people who get vaccinated can still get sick.
On Friday, CDC officials said a recent study of more than 1,100 people has concluded the current flu vaccine is 62 percent effective. That means the average vaccinated person is 62 percent less likely to get a case of flu that's bad enough to require a trip to the doctor, compared to people who don't get the vaccine.
That's in line with how effective the vaccine has been in other years.
The flu vaccine is reformulated annually, and officials say this year's version is a good match to the viruses going around.
Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.
Most people with flu have a mild illness. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.
Some shortages have been reported for children's liquid Tamiflu, a prescription medicine used to treat flu. But health officials say adult Tamiflu pills are available, and pharmacists can convert those to doses for children.
___
AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.
___
Online:
CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
At War Blog: Highlights From Karzai, Obama News Conference
Label: WorldPresident Obama, after meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, said Friday that the United States would be able to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in coming months because of gains made by Afghan security forces.
As the Times’s Mark Landler reported, Mr. Obama also made it clear that he contemplated leaving relatively few troops in Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, saying that the mission will be focused on advising and supporting Afghan troops and targeting the remnants of Al Qaeda.
You can watch the full video here:
You can also find the joint statement, released by President Obama and President Karzai here.
Can Social Media Help You Lose Weight?
Label: TechnologyAt the start of the New Year, when weight loss is often a priority, building a support team to help keep us on track can be extremely helpful. This might typically consist of family members, friends, co-workers, or perhaps even a nutritionist or registered dietitian. But today, support can also be found online. Plenty of Web sites focus on losing weight, and include communities that provide support and encouragement. Since many of us spend a lot of time on social media sites–maybe too much if you ask my husband!–why not use these platforms as another tool for support? In fact, one study suggests employees participating in a workplace wellness program who also joined the company’s Facebook page, run by a registered dietitian, stayed with the program longer than those who didn’t.
[See Already Struggling With Your New Year's Resolution?]
Could it actually make sense that gluing ourselves to our mobile device or computer could help us shed pounds? It sounds like quite the oxymoron, since increased screen time doesn’t usually equate to weight loss. But here’s how to make social media sites work for you:
Facebook is a place where you can share what’s going on in your life with friends, but you may not feel comfortable announcing what you weigh or that you’re trying to lose weight. On the other hand, you may enjoy posting fitness milestones, such as training for and completing your first marathon, or a bike ride for your favorite charity. Sharing your fitness goals with the Facebook universe may be helpful, because the more people who know about it, the more likely you are to stay committed.
[See Small Steps, Big Change: How to Lose 50 Pounds Without Really Trying]
Rather than simply connecting with friends on the site, you can also connect with health and fitness professionals, such as registered dietitians, or pages for diet books, like mine, The Small Change Diet. You can also “like” the pages of health and fitness magazines and your favorite brands. The folks who run these pages may post articles that provide you with helpful weight-loss tips, and many organize regular Facebook chats, allowing you to ask an expert your questions. The more that healthy information is “in your face,” the more likely you are to stick to it.
Most importantly, you may discover a weight-loss community on Facebook, where like-minded individuals share their weight losses (or gains) and offer support. Daily accountability could be just what you need, and knowing others are rooting for you can make a world of difference. If you can’t find a Facebook community you like, start your own.
So many of my patients don’t have Twitter accounts, because they think they have nothing clever or witty to say. My advice to them is always the same: You don’t have to “say” anything; you can just follow, at least at the beginning. Registered dietitians (I’m @kerigans) have great tips and, if they’re like me, are more than happy to answer questions via Twitter. I’ve had followers tweet a picture of their dinner and ask what my dietitian colleagues and I thought of it–priceless information for free.
[See Best Plant-Based Diets]
Just as you do on Facebook, follow fitness professionals, health magazines, and other sources that provide weight-loss motivation. Once you feel comfortable, you may decide to join in the conversation, since that’s what social media is all about. Perfect example of how it can benefit you: One morning, I tweeted that I felt more like staying in my pajamas than going to yoga. Some of my followers chimed in that they were feeling the same way, BUT stressed that we should all still exercise. And so we all did. And trust me, none of us regretted going–rather, we were thankful for each other.
[See Are Mobile Health Apps Helpful?]
Seek out people on Twitter and Facebook who you find inspirational, and hopefully a little of what they do will rub off on you. Since nothing is etched in stone, you can unfollow, unlike, or unfriend them if they aren’t helping you. And please keep in mind that while social media can be another tool in your pursuit of weight loss, it’s not the end all. Healthy eating, fitness, and plenty of sleep actually need to happen away from a screen.
Hungry for more? Write to [email protected] with your questions, concerns, and feedback
Keri Gans, MS, RD, CDN, is a registered dietitian, media personality, spokesperson, and author of The Small Change Diet. Gans’s expert nutrition advice has been featured in Glamour, Fitness, Health, Self and Shape, and on national television and radio, including The Dr. Oz Show, Good Morning America, ABC News, Primetime, and Sirius/XM Dr. Radio.
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William & Kate's Future Home: Anmer Hall?
Label: LifestyleAnmer Hall, on the Sandringham estate
REX USA
It's a house fit for a (future) king.
That's the speculation in Britain, where the magnificent Anmer Hall on the Sandringham estate, Queen Elizabeth's retreat in Norfolk, has been mentioned as a possible family home for William and Kate when they leave Wales.
A report in the Sunday Telegraph suggested the house, in the tiny village of Anmer, 120 miles north of London, is being earmarked for the couple. But it is believed the current tenants may stay for a few more years.
Still, royal preparations could already be in the works. The estate reportedly applied in December for a series of planning measures for the home. Details are not being made public, for security reasons, but PEOPLE has confirmed they include rerouting the driveway into the property, extending a garage block and converting woods stores for accommodation.
Building a new "garden room" is also in the plans.
William knows the house well, as his close friends the van Cutsem family rented it for many years. Emilie van Cutsem, the mother of four sons who are close to Princes William and Harry, was seen by some as a surrogate mother to the princes in their teen years, after they lost their mother Diana, Princess of Wales.
Buckingham Palace had no comment, saying the house is a private home on a private estate.
Flu season hits early and, in some places, hard
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers have limited visitors, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to handle the feverish patients.
Flu season in the U.S. has hit early and, in some places, hard. But whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.
"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
The evidence so far is pointing to a moderate season, Schaffner and others believe. It just looks bad compared with last year — an unusually mild one.
Flu usually doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, but it is already widespread in more than 40 states.
What's probably complicating the situation: The main influenza virus this year tends to make people sicker. And there are other bugs out there causing flu-like illnesses. So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.
"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The flu's early arrival in the U.S. coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes what some people call "stomach flu."
Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it's sometimes hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.
Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.
"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed ER saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.
The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations, prompting hospitals to take steps to deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, including restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks, and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.
One hospital in Allentown, Pa., this week set up a tent for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms.
But so far, "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.
On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, and all the flu activity has caused some to question whether this year's flu shot is working.
There's a new flu vaccine each year, based on the best guess of what flu viruses will be strongest that year. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and a half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.
But the vaccine isn't foolproof, and even those who were vaccinated can still get sick. At best, the vaccine may be only 75 percent effective in younger people and even less so in the elderly and people with weak immune systems.
Health officials are analyzing the vaccine's effectiveness, but early indications are that about 60 percent of all vaccinated people have been protected from the flu. That's in line with how effective flu vaccines have been in other years.
In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years, laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.
She decided to skip getting a flu shot last fall. But her daughter got the shot. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.
On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.
Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.
Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.
The last bad flu season involved a swine flu that hit in two waves in the spring and fall of 2009. But that was considered a unique strain, different from the regular winter flu.
___
Online:
CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
Wall Street climbs on China data; S&P nears resistance
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday on optimism about global growth spurred by stronger-than-expected exports in China, the world's second-biggest economy, and the S&P 500 hovered around a five-year high.
Financial and energy stocks were the day's top gainers in afternoon trading. The financial sector index <.gspf> rose 1 percent and the energy sector <.gspe> was up 0.7 percent.
Financials benefited from events this week that added clarity to mortgage rules and banks' potential exposure to the housing market.
The government's consumer finance watchdog announced mortgage rules on Thursday that will force banks to use new criteria to determine whether a borrower can repay a home loan.
Earlier this week, several big mortgage lenders reached a deal with regulators to end a review of foreclosures mandated by the government.
Bank of America
"It's a resolution. It's not hanging over their heads," said Kurt Brunner, portfolio manager at Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Data showed China's export growth rebounded sharply to a seven-month high in December, a strong finish to the year after seven straight quarters of slowdown.
"In and of itself it is being interpreted positively that they've stopped the downturn (in growth)," said Brunner. "If they continue to produce good growth, that's going to be supportive of our global manufacturers."
The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index hovered near a five-year closing peak of 1,466.47. On Friday, the index had closed at its highest since December 2007.
"The market is technically right at the level of resistance, near 1,465-1,467," said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.
"A solid breakthrough above the level would be the start of a next leg higher, but it looks like it is going to be difficult to break above that level for now," Frederick said, citing concerns about the corporate earnings season and impending negotiations over the U.S. debt ceiling.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 40.53 points, or 0.30 percent, to 13,431.04. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 5.41 points, or 0.37 percent, to 1,466.43. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> edged up 0.42 points, or 0.01 percent, at 3,106.23.
Thursday's session had earlier included a dip that traders said was triggered by a trade in the options market that prompted a large amount of S&P futures to hit the market at the same time. That sent the S&P 500 index down rapidly but those losses were recouped by late afternoon.
Shares of upscale jeweler Tiffany
Herbalife Ltd
(Editing by Nick Zieminski)
Blasts in Pakistan Kill at Least 88 and Raise Fears Over Elections
Label: World
Waheed Khan/European Pressphoto Agency
The worst violence was concentrated in the southwestern city of Quetta, where two explosions killed at least 57 people and wounded more than 110, the police said.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Bomb blasts in two Pakistani cities killed at least 88 people on Thursday and wounded more than 270, offering harrowing evidence of how the country’s myriad internal conflicts may destabilize it as elections approach.
The worst violence was concentrated in the southwestern city of Quetta, where two explosions a few minutes apart in the evening ripped through a billiards hall in a neighborhood dominated by ethnic Hazara Shiites, killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 110, the police said.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside the hall, and a second attacker then blew up his vehicle outside the club as police officers and journalists arrived, a senior police officer, Mir Zubair Mehmood, told reporters. The television channel Samaa said one of its camera operators was killed by the second explosion after rushing to the scene. Hospitals were overwhelmed as casualties arrived through the evening.
Quetta is no stranger to sectarian, nationalist and Islamist violence. Most violence against Shiites there has been directed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group with strong ties to the Pakistani Taliban. But there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the billiard hall attack.
An ethnic Baluch separatist group claimed responsibility for another bombing earlier on Thursday, aimed at paramilitary soldiers in a commercial part of Quetta, which killed 12 people.
The Hazara, minority Shiites who migrated from Afghanistan more than a century ago, have been the target of dozens of attacks from sectarian death squads led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Quetta over the past year, but the billiard hall attack was by far the bloodiest.
Human rights activists said the police and the security forces failed to protect the vulnerable community. “The callousness and indifference of authorities offers a damning indictment of the state, its military and security agencies,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch.
The other focus of violence on Thursday was the Swat Valley, in the Hindu Kush mountains in northwestern Pakistan, where an explosion in the basement of a religious seminary killed at least 22 people and wounded an additional 60. It was not clear why the seminary, run by the Islamic missionary group Tableeghi Jamaat, was a target.
Initial reports said a gas leak had caused the explosion, but police and hospital officials later said that there was clear evidence of a bomb.
Doctors at a hospital in Saidu Sharif, near the site, said blast victims were being treated for wounds caused by ball bearings, which are sometimes packed into suicide bombs to make them more deadly.
“There was a smell of explosives,” Muhammad Iqbal, a senior doctor, said by telephone.
The violence underscores the fragility of state authority in parts of Pakistan as the country prepares for a general election that analysts say is likely to take place before June. Many Pakistanis worry that increasing instability could cause the elections to be postponed.
Islamist violence in Swat drew international condemnation in October after Taliban gunmen shot a teenage schoolgirl and education activist, Malala Yousafzai. The episode highlighted how Islamist fighters were slowly returning to the valley three years after a Pakistani military operation drove them away.
Nintendo president describes Wii U sales as ‘not bad’
Label: TechnologyNintendo’s (NTDOY) new Wii U gaming console came out of the gate strong and saw first-week sales reach 400,000 units in the U.S., however sales have since stalled and the system has been labeled a flop by some. While consumer interest in the company’s new console has slowed right out of the gate, Nintendo’s president recently said that he isn’t worried even though sales aren’t where he hoped they would be.
[More from BGR: Smooth sailing is over for Apple]
“At the end of the Christmas season, it wasn’t as though stores in the U.S. had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom,” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in an interview with Reuters. “But sales are not bad, and I feel it’s selling steadily.”
[More from BGR: New ‘higher-end’ iPhone reportedly launching by June, low-end model could be coming as well]
The executive declined to give specific details on sales or forecasts, although he did say that Nintendo plans to focus on developing attractive software for its 3DS handheld to appeal to new users, and will seek new ways to increase Wii U sales in a changing market.
Nintendo previously announced that it hopes to sell 5.5 million Wii U devices by the end of March and more than 24 million Wii U games in the same timeframe.
This article was originally published by BGR
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It's a Girl for Rosie O'Donnell
Label: Lifestyle
Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog
01/09/2013 at 03:30 PM ET
It’s baby number five for Rosie O’Donnell!
The comedian and wife Michelle Rounds welcomed daughter Dakota through adoption on Saturday, Jan. 5, her rep confirms to PEOPLE. Weighing in at 5 lbs., 5 oz., “moms and baby are healthy and happy.”
O’Donnell, 50, Tweeted the happy news Wednesday.
“We [are] thrilled to announce the arrival of [our] daughter Dakota – #withloveandthanks – AMEN,” she writes, sharing a snapshot of herself cuddling with Rounds and their new baby.
O’Donnell is already mom to children Vivienne, 10, Blake, 13, Chelsea, 15, and Parker, 17, with her ex, Kelli Carpenter.
After suffering a heart attack and dealing with Rounds’ desmoid tumors diagnosis last year, O’Donnell tells PEOPLE, “I will gladly stay home. I want to try to work hard at getting myself healthy, on Mich and I getting started and maybe finding a baby.”
Courtesy Rosie O’Donnell
– Sarah Michaud with reporting by Liz McNeil
Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported a tantalizing hint that one day, there might be.
Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.
How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in the ovaries or the lining of the uterus, and float down to rest in the cervix, where Pap tests are performed. These cells are too rare to recognize under the microscope. But researchers from Johns Hopkins University used some sophisticated DNA testing on the Pap samples to uncover the evidence — gene mutations that show cancer is present.
In a pilot study, they analyzed Pap smears from 46 women who already were diagnosed with either ovarian or endometrial cancer. The new technique found all the endometrial cancers and 41 percent of the ovarian tumors, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
This is very early-stage research, and women shouldn't expect any change in their routine Paps. It will take years of additional testing to prove if the so-called PapGene technique really could work as a screening tool, used to spot cancer in women who thought they were healthy.
"Now the hard work begins," said Hopkins oncologist Dr. Luis Diaz, whose team is collecting hundreds of additional Pap samples for more study and is exploring ways to enhance the detection of ovarian cancer.
But if it ultimately pans out, "the neat part about this is, the patient won't feel anything different," and the Pap wouldn't be performed differently, Diaz added. The extra work would come in a lab.
The gene-based technique marks a new approach toward cancer screening, and specialists are watching closely.
"This is very encouraging, and it shows great potential," said American Cancer Society genetics expert Michael Melner.
"We are a long way from being able to see any impact on our patients," cautioned Dr. Shannon Westin of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She reviewed the research in an accompanying editorial, and said the ovarian cancer detection would need improvement if the test is to work.
But she noted that ovarian cancer has poor survival rates because it's rarely caught early. "If this screening test could identify ovarian cancer at an early stage, there would be a profound impact on patient outcomes and mortality," Westin said.
More than 22,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and more than 15,000 die. Symptoms such as pain and bloating seldom are obvious until the cancer is more advanced, and numerous attempts at screening tests have failed.
Endometrial cancer affects about 47,000 women a year, and kills about 8,000. There is no screening test for it either, but most women are diagnosed early because of postmenopausal bleeding.
The Hopkins research piggybacks on one of the most successful cancer screening tools, the Pap, and a newer technology used along with it. With a standard Pap, a little brush scrapes off cells from the cervix, which are stored in a vial to examine for signs of cervical cancer. Today, many women's Paps undergo an additional DNA-based test to see if they harbor the HPV virus, which can spur cervical cancer.
So the Hopkins team, funded largely by cancer advocacy groups, decided to look for DNA evidence of other gynecologic tumors. It developed a method to rapidly screen the Pap samples for those mutations using standard genetics equipment that Diaz said wouldn't add much to the cost of a Pap-plus-HPV test. He said the technique could detect both early-stage and more advanced tumors. Importantly, tests of Paps from 14 healthy women turned up no false alarms.
The endometrial cancers may have been easier to find because cells from those tumors don't have as far to travel as ovarian cancer cells, Diaz said. Researchers will study whether inserting the Pap brush deeper, testing during different times of the menstrual cycle, or other factors might improve detection of ovarian cancer.
Wall Street up after Alcoa earnings news
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday as Alcoa's better-than-expected revenue and a positive outlook boosted investor confidence ahead of an earnings season expected to show lackluster results.
The session's rise was the first of the week after the market retreated from the S&P 500's highest point in five years, hit last Friday. Worries about a weak earnings season kept the markets down earlier in the week.
Shares of Alcoa Inc were trading flat after early gains, following the company's earnings release after the bell on Tuesday. The largest U.S. aluminum producer said it expects global demand for aluminum to grow in 2013.
Traders have been cautious as the current quarter was shaping up like the previous one, with companies lowering expectations in recent weeks, said James Dailey, portfolio manager of TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
"So the big question and focus is on revenue, and Alcoa had better-than-expected revenue," which calmed the market a little, Dailey said.
Overall, corporate profits were expected to beat the previous quarter's meager 0.1 percent rise. Both earnings and revenues in the fourth quarter were expected to grow by 1.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The lowered expectations also leave room for companies to surprise investors even if their results are not particularly strong, analysts said.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 59.47 points, or 0.45 percent, at 13,388.32. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 3.86 points, or 0.26 percent, at 1,461.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 14.93 points, or 0.48 percent, at 3,106.74.
Clearwire Corp
Herbalife Ltd
Facebook Inc
Apollo Group Inc slid after heavier losses early on, a day after it reported lower student sign-ups for the third straight quarter and cut its operating profit outlook for 2013. Apollo's shares were last off 6.6 percent at $19.55.
(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
Global Update: China Moves to Prevent Spread of Yellow Fever From Africa
Label: World
In a move that underlines how many Chinese citizens now work in Africa, China’s quarantine officials recently urged greater efforts to make sure that a yellow fever epidemic now raging in Sudan does not come back to China.
Local health authorities were asked to scan all travelers arriving from Sudan for fevers. Chinese citizens planning travel to Sudan were advised to get yellow fever shots. Customs officers were told that containers arriving from Sudan might have stray infected mosquitoes inside.
Sudan’s epidemic is considered the world’s worst in 20 years. Sweden, Britain and other donors have paid for vaccinations. The United States Navy’s laboratory in Egypt has helped with diagnoses.
Estimates of the number of Chinese working in Africa, many in the oil and mining industries or on major construction projects, range from 500,000 to 1 million. Experts on AIDS have previously warned that the workers could become a new means of bringing that disease to China, which has a low H.I.V.-infection rate.
ProMED-mail, a Web site that follows emerging diseases, has tracked reports about the Sudan outbreak, with its moderators adding valuable context. China’s mosquito-killing winters make a large yellow fever outbreak there unlikely, moderators said. But Sudan’s containment efforts are troubled. For example, vaccinated people cannot get cards proving they have had shots, but the cards are reported to be for sale at police checkpoints.
Australia’s now-endemic dengue fever, according to ProMED moderators, may have come from mosquitoes arriving in containers from East Timor.
Sony unveils Xperia Z Android phone with full HD display
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Harley Pasternak: How Better Sleep Keeps Your Weight Down
Label: Lifestyle
Only on People.com
Harley Pasternak
Courtesy Harley Pasternak
Sleep well, stay lean!
When I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm exhausted, grumpy and starving! Needless to say, I don't have the energy to do my daily workout, and I eat everything in sight. After a few sleepless nights, I swear I feel myself actually getting a little heavier ... and I probably am!
There are several reasons why not getting enough (quality) sleep can make you gain weight.
The first has to do with your hormones – specifically, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is an appetite-stimulating hormone produced in your stomach that tells your body when it should eat. Leptin influences energy expenditure and basically tells you when to stop eating. When you don't get enough sleep, your leptin levels decrease, so you feel less satisfied and eat more to compensate. And your ghrelin levels rise, so your appetite increases. Studies have shown that you may eat up to 20 percent more food because of this.
The second factor has to do with how lack of sleep leads not only to poor food choices but to decreased energy expenditure during the day. When we're tired, we're more likely to choose convenience over health when it comes to meals and snacks. We tell ourselves it's easier and faster to stop at the drive-through on the way home rather than prepare a nutritious meal. Also, we're more drawn to sugary sweets for an energy boost, which are just empty calories. Plus, we don't have the energy to go through the normal motions of our day, much less exercise, so we're burning minimal calories.
Finally, the longer you're awake, the more time you have to eat. If you eat dinner at 7 and don't go to bed until 12:30, you're probably going for a late snack. If you go to bed before you get hungry again, you're saving hundreds of calories and getting the rest your brain and body needs.
So let's resolve this year to get more sleep. Here are some tips my clients have shared with me over the years that have helped them get more zzz's.
1. Get ready for bed as soon as you get home.
This stops the "I'm too tired for bed" cycle that many of us know all too well – eating dinner and then watching TV or reading until we're already half asleep. Right when you get home, change in to your comfy clothes, wash your face, take out your contacts, etc. This mentally and physically prepares us for bed.2. Make your bedroom a tech-free zone.
TVs and iPads and phones give us unnecessary stimulation when we're supposed to be relaxing. Then all night they're chirping and chiming at us – jeopardizing the quality of our sleep, which can be just as harmful as diminished quantity.3. Be active all day.
Studies show that people who are physically active get more quality sleep than those who aren't. Go for a walk in the morning before work, and after dinner.4. Have a caffeine cut-off.
As a self-professed coffee addict, this one is the hardest for me. Over years of trial and error, I've found that if I cut off caffeine intake by 2 p.m., I have a more restful night's sleep.5. Plan ahead for tomorrow.
This one is key for my wife. Every night she lays out what she's going to wear the next day, and packs her lunch and snacks and sticks them in the fridge. She goes to bed knowing she won't have to scramble in the morning, which helps her rest easier.6. Try sensory deprivation.
Don't laugh, but my wife and I both sleep with earplugs in. We find that by shutting out any and all sounds, we fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Try it. You'll see what I mean.What are your favorite sleep tips? Tweet me @harleypasternak – and let me know.
Check back every Wednesday for more insider tips from celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak on Hollywood's hottest bodies – and learn how to get one yourself! Plus: Follow Harley on Twitter at @harleypasternak
Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.
Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.
"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.
But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.
Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.
The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.
Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.
Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.
But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.
Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.
Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.
Wall Street indexes slide, AT&T down
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks dropped on Tuesday as investors pulled back from last week's rally on the "fiscal cliff" deal in Washington, and ahead of what is expected to be a weak earnings season.
AT&T Inc
Providers like AT&T pay hefty subsidies to handset makers so that they can offer device discounts to customers who commit to two-year contracts.
After a 4.3 percent jump in the two sessions around the close of the fiscal cliff negotiations, the S&P has fallen and investors have found few catalysts to extend the rally that took the benchmark to five-year highs.
"We had a brief respite courtesy of what happened on the fiscal cliff deal and the flip of the calendar with new money coming into the market," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.
"But now the stark reality of uncertainty with regard to earnings, plus the negotiations on the debt ceiling, are there and that doesn't give investors a lot of reason to take bets on the long side."
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 73.68 points, or 0.55 percent, at 13,310.61. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 7.31 points, or 0.50 percent, at 1,454.58. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 12.53 points, or 0.40 percent, at 3,086.29.
Fourth quarter profits are expected to beat the previous quarter's lackluster results, but analyst estimates are down sharply from October. Quarterly earnings are expected to grow by 2.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
With AT&T's fall, the S&P telecom services index <.gspl> was the worst performer of the 10 major S&P sectors, down 2.6 percent.
Sears Holdings
Markets went lower as some of the first reported earnings were weak.
"It doesn't seem to be bouncing back, it might stay here or sell off a little further," said Stephen Carl, head of U.S. equity trading at The Williams Capital Group in New York.
Shares of restaurant-chain operator Yum Brands Inc
GameStop
Shares of Monsanto Co
Education provider Apollo Group and Dow component Alcoa Inc , the largest U.S. aluminum producer, round out the start of earnings season after the closing bell.
(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Orthodox Leader Presses for More Adoptions
Label: World
The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church used his Christmas address on Monday to encourage Russians to adopt orphans, as the country adjusts to a decision to bar Americans from adopting Russian children. The ban, which is retaliation for American legislation intended to punish Russian human rights violators, drew criticism, including from some government officials, largely because 120,000 children in Russia are awaiting adoption. “How important it is that our people should gladly, with a special feeling of gratitude to God, take orphans into their families,” Patriarch Kirill I said in a recorded address broadcast for Orthodox Christmas on Monday. “We should not have orphans in our country,” he added.
LG kicks off CES with 55-inch ‘ultra-HD’ TV
Label: TechnologyLAS VEGAS (AP) — LG unveiled a 55-inch TV that sports “ultrahigh-definition” resolution with four times the sharpness of regular HD television sets, kicking off what is likely to be a mini-obsession with the latest super-clear format at the annual International CES gadget show.
The model announced Monday is the smallest in a 2013 lineup that includes 65-inch and 84-inch versions. But the smaller size — and smaller price tag — begins the parade of TV makers that are seeking to bring ultrahigh definition to the masses.
Also known as “4K,” ultrahigh-definition screens are 3,840 pixels wide and 2,160 pixels tall, or more than 8 million in all. The higher resolution will let TV screens get larger without degrading picture quality, though initially the price tag will limit those sets to technology’s early adopters.
LG said the 55-inch and 65-inch versions will be available later this year in the U.S. No price was announced, but it will be less than $ 10,000. The 84-inch version that went on sale late last year cost $ 20,000.
For a few years, though, there won’t likely be a mainstream standard for getting native ultra-HD movies and TV shows to the screen either by disc or broadcast.
LG Electronics Inc. said these new TVs will have upscaling technology that takes images of lesser quality and renders them in high detail. The Korean electronics maker also said it has formed an ultra-HD content agreement with Korea’s top broadcaster, KBS, and is seeking out deals with other global content providers. The company offered no specifics.
LG said that with an ultra-HD TV, it will be possible to play phone games with very sharp resolution and in 3-D. The company said it has been possible to hook up smartphones to the TV to play games with current sets, but the resolution isn’t good.
Along with the lineup of higher-resolution TVs, LG unveiled a new Magic Remote, which acts like a wand that is sensitive to motion and is used to navigate on-screen menus. LG said the new model responds better to natural speech and can be controlled with a single finger rather than “very tiring arm gestures.” It also lets you change the channels by writing numbers in the air.
The company also touted the ability to tap different devices so they can share data. With that capability, you’d be able to see what’s inside your refrigerator while shopping, and you’d be able to monitor how clean your house is getting with cameras on a robotic vacuum. Washing machines will also have such capabilities.
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Carrie Underwood Tweets Support for Husband Mike Fisher After NHL Lockout Ends
Label: LifestyleMike Fisher and Carrie Underwood
Steve Marcus/Landov
Most hockey fans are thrilled the 113-day NHL lockout is over.
Carrie Underwood? Not so much.
Although Underwood – who has been married to professional hockey player Mike Fisher since 2010 – was quick to celebrate her husband's return to the ice, she couldn't help but joke about it.
"Well, folks, hockey is back!" she Tweeted on Sunday. "I just lost my purse holder but gained cheering on my hot husband as he kicks butt! #GoPreds."
While supportive of Fisher's career, the lighthearted Underwood, 29, is anything but quiet when it comes to voicing her opinion on what comes with being married to a hockey player.
Last April, when Fisher, 32, and his Nashville Predators – he was traded from the Ottawa Senators in February of 2011 – made it to the NHL playoffs, Underwood was thrilled for her husband's success, but not for his impending playoff beard.
"[The players] all grow out their facial hair during the playoffs," she told PEOPLE last year. "So before they started, I told Mike, 'You need to shave close.' He always looks good with a little stubble, but it's probably going to get out of hand soon."
It will come even sooner this season as Fisher points out on his site: "It's nice to finally be able to put this behind us and we can finally start thinking about hockey again ... It's going to go by really quickly, and before you know it the playoffs will be starting."
Organ donations fall in Germany after scandal
Label: HealthBERLIN (AP) — Organ donations have dropped sharply in Germany following a scandal over alleged corruption at several transplant clinics.
The German Foundation for Organ Transplantation says the number of organs donated fell almost 13 percent to 3,917 last year, the lowest figure in a decade.
Several German clinics are being investigated over allegations that doctors manipulated waiting lists to help some patients appear sicker than they were and so receive transplants sooner.
The foundation said Monday that the scandal had "massively shaken" the public's faith in the transplant system.
Some 12,000 people in Germany require organ transplants each year.
Wall Street retreats from five-year high as focus shifts to earnings
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Monday as investors cashed in recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high and awaited the start of the fourth-quarter earnings season.
The day's decline was broad across all sectors, but energy and utilities were the top decliners. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.gspe> fell 1 percent and the utilities sector <.gspu> was off 1.2 percent.
Another sector in focus was the financials. Financial stocks fell after a group of major U.S. banks agreed to pay billions in settlement with U.S. regulators.
The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, was down 0.7 percent.
Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results, and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October.
"There is little doubt that concerns about the fiscal cliff created spending hesitancy in both consumers and businesses in the fourth quarter, and it is likely that will adversely impact earnings season," margins are choppy and cost cuts have run their course, said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.
Aluminum company Alcoa Inc will unofficially launch the reporting season by announcing its results after Tuesday's market close. Alcoa shares were down 1 percent at $9.17.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 76.03 points, or 0.57 percent, at 13,359.18. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 8.40 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,458.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 11.89 points, or 0.38 percent, at 3,089.77.
The day's decline came a session after the S&P 500 finished at a five-year high and investors booked profits on stocks' best weekly gain in more than a year, boosted by a budget deal and economic data. The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent last week.
Ten mortgage servicers - including Bank of America
Bank of America also announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans.
The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings
"The settlements may remove any overhang for the stock in the near term, but it only partially satisfies the issue," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Asset Management.
Bank of America shares were down 0.7 percent at $12.02 while Nationstar Mortgage Holdings
Citigroup shares were down 0.5 percent to $42.20. Wells Fargo shares fell 1.1 percent to $34.55.
Walt Disney Co
Video-streaming service Netflix Inc
Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock. Shares were up 2.8 percent at $266.63.
Major U.S. technology companies could miss estimates for fourth-quarter earnings as budget worries likely led some corporate clients to tighten their belts last month.
(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
The Lede Blog: Video of Chinese Censorship Protest
Label: WorldA video report from Euronews on an anti-censorship protest on Monday in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province.
As my colleague Edward Wong reports, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the headquarters of a newspaper office in southern China on Monday to register their anger at the censorship of a recent editorial.
Video of the demonstration, posted online by international news organizations and Chinese bloggers, showed the protesters carrying white and yellow chrysanthemums, a flower that symbolizes mourning, and banners that read: “Get rid of censorship. The Chinese people want freedom.”
Video uploaded to a Chinese social media site on Monday showed a protest outside the offices of Southern Weekend, a relatively liberal newspaper in Guangzhou.
One video clip uploaded to a Chinese social media site and later copied to YouTube showed that the event was documented by a number of photographers, including at least one uniformed police officer.
People showed their support for journalists who had declared a strike to protest what they called overbearing censorship.
Hang Tung Chow of Labour Action China, a nongovernmental organization based in Hong Kong, posted copies of several images and video clips of the protest originally uploaded to Chinese social media accounts on her Twitter feed.
青年网民演讲，呼吁政治改革，呼吁宪政，呼吁民众一起站起来 #南周 http://t.co/5HlUP9hI
— Hang Tung Chow (@zouxingtong) 7 Jan 13
好一個避言套~ #南周 http://t.co/FL2eNwci
— Hang Tung Chow (@zouxingtong) 7 Jan 13
有老有少，拿着菊花，舉着標語 #南周 #nfzm http://t.co/DRfId7Wx
— Hang Tung Chow (@zouxingtong) 7 Jan 13
2013年1月7日早间南方周末报社门前视频，墙内的被删了，传到youtube了http://t.co/LsvxweL8
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Angry journalists at the Southern Weekend newspaper have called for the removal of Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong, blamed for censoring a New Year’s editorial that was supposed to have called for greater respect for rights enshrined in China’s Constitution. One video clip uploaded to YouTube on Sunday showed a lone man protesting outside the newspaper building holding a sign reading: “Tuo Step Down!”
Kuwaiti gets two years for insulting emir on Twitter
Label: TechnologyKUWAIT (Reuters) – A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, a lawyer following the case said, as the Gulf Arab state cracks down on criticism of the authorities on social media.
According to the verdict on Sunday, published by online newspaper Alaan, a tweet written by Rashid Saleh al-Anzi in October “stabbed the rights and powers of the Emir” Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.
Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal, the lawyer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Kuwait, a U.S. ally and major oil producer, has been taking a firmer line on politically sensitive comments aired on the Internet.
In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.
Two months later, authorities detained Sheikh Meshaal al-Malik Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform, a rights activist said.
While public demonstrations about local issues are common in a state that allows the most dissent in the Gulf, Kuwait has avoided Arab Spring-style mass unrest that toppled three veteran Arab dictators last year.
But tensions have intensified between the hand-picked government, in which ruling family members hold the top posts, and the elected parliament and opposition groups.
(Reporting by Mahmoud Harbi; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Jason Webb)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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