Wall St slips as "cliff" talks sour, but hopes remain

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday as talks to avert a fiscal crisis by the end of the year turned sour following recent progress, even as the market's moderate decline points to expectations that a deal will be reached.

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are struggling to come up with a deal to avoid early 2013 tax hikes and spending cuts that many economists say could pull the U.S. economy back into recession.

House Speaker John Boehner said his chamber will pass a proposal that Obama had already threatened to veto as it spares many wealthy Americans from tax hikes needed to balance the budget. Obama has already agreed to reductions in benefits for senior citizens.

"My guess is they're close to a deal, and right before, it looks like the deal is about to blow up either on manufactured or legitimate reasons," said Uri Landesman, president of hedge fund Platinum Partners in New York.

He said if the market thought the deal was off, the S&P 500 would slide below 1,400. It stands now near 1,440, nor far from a two-month high.

The CBOE volatility index <.vix> surged 10.2 percent to trade above 17, but has remained relatively stable. Its 14- 50- and 200-day averages are all within 1.2 points.

Landesman said the VIX's stability indicates "the bulls have control of this market still."

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 63.01 points, or 0.47 percent, to 13,287.95. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 7.77 points, or 0.59 percent, to 1,439.02. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 4.97 points, or 0.16 percent, to 3,049.56.

General Motors bucked the overall weakness to surge 6.7 percent to $27.20 after the company said it will buy back 200 million of its shares from the U.S. Treasury, which plans to sell the rest of its GM stake over the next 15 months.

Banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - have led recent gains, indicating a shift to focusing on a growing economy as Wall Street looks past the budget talks.

The S&P 500 added 2.3 percent over the past two sessions, the first time it has marked two straight days of 1 percent gains since late July.

Defensive sectors led the downside on Wednesday, with the S&P health care sector index <.gspa> down 0.9 percent.

Oracle shares helped cap losses in the Nasdaq after it reported earnings that beat expectations on strong software sales growth. Oracle jumped 3.7 percent to $34.09.

Knight Capital Group Inc climbed 6 percent to $3.53 after it agreed to be bought by Getco Holdings in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The stock, which nearly collapsed after a trading error in August, remains down about 70 percent so far this year.

Data showed homebuilding permits touched their highest level in nearly 4-1/2 years in November. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> fell 0.6 percent, but is up nearly 70 percent this year as the housing market has turned the corner.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

IHT Special: The Syria Report Survives as Independent Publication

ISTANBUL — Jihad Yazigi concedes that he owes a debt to Bashar al-Assad. Without the now-besieged Syrian president, there would have been no free-market reforms, no surge in foreign investment and no modern banks in Syria. As Mr. Yazigi acknowledges, there also would not have been The Syria Report, his weekly economic digest that is one of the country’s few successful independent publications.

“My business thrived because there was an opening and I have to give Bashar credit,” Mr. Yazigi said during a recent conference in Istanbul, when asked to reflect upon the changes that awakened the Syrian middle class even as they enriched the elite. “The problem is he didn’t go deep or fast enough to head off the unrest. He didn’t reform the judicial system or encourage a free press, for example. These were red lines that could not be crossed.”

Mr. Yazigi, the son of an exiled Syrian dissident, publicly called for democratic reform as early as 2004, most notably in a column headlined “The D Word.”

At the same time, he applauded the government for stimulating free trade and foreign investment, liberalizing its currency, reforming its financial sector and removing subsidies on everything from cooking oil to farm equipment.

Largely as a result, the country’s gross domestic product rose steadily; between 2005 and 2010 it achieved an annualized growth rate of about 5 percent, among the highest for developing countries at the time.

Syria was not the only Arab country that aggressively deregulated its economy. Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all embraced similar changes which, by the end of the decade, had produced impressive growth but also high inflation, stubborn unemployment and yawning rates of income disparity.

Was it free-market reforms that triggered the convulsions that continue to destabilize the region? Or regime kleptocrats who hijacked a badly needed reform process?

“It makes it a lot more difficult for people to sacrifice for the sake of change when elites are profiting,” Mr. Yazigi said. “That said, there were more problems than just corruption.”

In promoting service sectors like hotel construction and management over labor-intensive ones like manufacturing, Mr. Yazigi added, the government neglected a fertile source of jobs. It also exposed its industries to high quality, affordable imported goods when it signed a free trade deal with Turkey.

The government withdrew price supports on farm equipment and produce too quickly, he said, sparking an exodus of laborers from an agriculture sector that once accounted for a quarter of total employment.

“Many farmers ended up moving into urban slums,” Mr. Yazigi said, “and that led to a lot of stress and resentment in the cities.”

Mr. Yazigi, a French citizen and Greek Orthodox Christian, is, like Mr. Assad, an outsider whose destiny lured him back to Syria. Both men are sons of plotters — though unlike Mr. Assad’s father, Hafez, an air force general who ruled Syria from 1970 until his death in 2000, Raja Yazigi was on the losing end of a 1961 coup he helped lead in Lebanon.

After fleeing via Jordan, he settled in Ghana, where he established a carpentry business and started a family. At the age of eight, Mr. Yazigi was sent to France for his education. Like Bashar, who studied ophthalmology in Britain before he was fated by his elder brother’s death to lead the Assad ruling dynasty, Mr. Yazigi was obliged to interrupt his studies at the American University in Paris and run the family business when his father passed away in 1995.

The building trade could never compete with Mr. Yazigi’s love of politics, and with the arrival of Bashar as president he sensed an opportunity to indulge a passion inspired by his father, who sent his children to Damascus every summer to improve their Arabic and learn the city’s political terrain.

In October 2001, from Paris, Mr. Yazigi distributed an online translation of Syria’s then-fledgling financial press. He knew he was onto something just a few weeks later when The World Bank contacted him and asked for more.

“The Internet had just started,” he said. “I felt like this was something I could do that I really loved and give something back to the country.”

The Syria Report comes out each week with data and news gathered from a variety of sources, including Mr. Yazigi’s own reporting. Among his most precious resources is a database of hundreds of Syrian companies he compiled by soliciting such details as contact coordinates, names of board directors, financial returns and shareholder information.

Read More..

EU’s Almunia sets deadline for Google antitrust plan

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union set Google an ultimatum on Tuesday, giving it a month to come up with detailed proposals to resolve a two-year investigation into complaints that it used its power to block rivals, including Microsoft.

The EU’s antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, delivered the deadline in a meeting with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in Brussels.

If it fails to address the complaints, the world’s most popular search engine could face a lengthy battle with what is arguably the world’s most powerful antitrust authority. If found guilty, it could mean a fine of up to 10 percent of its revenue, or $ 4 billion.

“Since our preliminary talks with Google started in July, we have substantially reduced our differences regarding possible ways to address each of the four competition concerns expressed by the Commission,” Almunia said in a statement.

“On the basis of the progress made, I now expect Google to come forward with a detailed commitment text in January 2013.”

Almunia said he would seek feedback from rivals and users once he has received Google’s proposal.

Google said it continues to work co-operatively with the Commission.

The European Commission has been examining informal settlement proposals from Google since July but has not sought feedback from the complainants, suggesting it is not convinced by what Google has put on the table so far.

The EU watchdog’s two-year investigation has centered on complaints that Google unfairly favored its services over its rivals in search results, and that it may have copied material from travel and restaurant websites without permission.

The Commission is also looking into whether Google restricted advertisers from transferring their data to rivals.

The Commission’s decision to press Google to offer more far-reaching concessions comes in sharp contrast to the case U.S. regulators have against the company.

Sources told Reuters the U.S. Federal Trade Commission could drop their investigation into Google without requiring any major change in how the company does business.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Robin Emmott, Louise Heavens and Nick Zieminski)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: EU’s Almunia sets deadline for Google antitrust plan
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

'Comfort Dogs' Relieve Emotional Stress in Grieving Newtown

By Amy Jamieson

12/18/2012 at 04:00 PM EST

A comfort dog meets with children in Newtown, Conn.

Courtesy K-9 Parish Comfort Dogs

The call came late on Friday night that Newtown, Conn., needed them.

Five specially trained golden retrievers and eight handlers arrived on Saturday to comfort those touched by tragedy, Vida Johnston, director of operations for Lutheran Church Charities's K-9 Comfort Dogs of Addison, Ill., tells PEOPLE.

Since then, they've been on the ground wherever the community needs them – comforting children and adults with cuddles and nuzzles.

"A parent will say, 'Thank you so much, I saw my child smile – and they haven't smiled for days,' " Johnston says. "The kids are telling the dogs about their own pets, they're [helping] them laugh, they're helping some of that burden drop off a bit. And the dogs just lay there, saying the more the merrier."

With Christmas just days away, the comfort dogs – pups trained not to bark and to be canine good citizens – are helping to relieve the pain in a way that only dogs can.

"At a high school school today the reaction was overwhelming," says Johnston, who hears the tales from her bevy of handlers. "Dogs have the amazing ability to zero in on the person in front of them that has the greatest need. They can have six or seven people sitting there and they go to the one who has the loss. The dogs know; it's amazing to watch."

The furry troupe has grown to eight dogs (a ninth will join them Tuesday) and they plan to stay in Newtown through Saturday, providing comfort and stress relief at schools and at vigils, or wherever else they're called.

And while the children have benefitted a lot from canine comfort, adults are also quietly yielding to their charms as well.

"We're finding the adults are holding it in," says Johnston, "and then they see the dogs and you see them visibly start to release that tension."

To learn more about the Lutheran Church Charities's K-9 Comfort Dogs program, click here.

Read More..

Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

Read More..

Wall Street up on economy bets as it looks past "cliff"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as investors positioned for a better economic environment as confidence grew a deal would be struck in Washington regarding the ongoing budget negotiations.

The gains added to Monday's rally, giving the S&P 500 its best two-day run in a month.

Sectors poised to grow during economic expansion led gains as investors remain confident that Washington will come to an agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff" --a series of spending cuts and tax hikes before the end of the year that could hurt economic growth.

The PHLX oil services sector index <.osx> jumped 2.6 percent with six of its 15 components up 3 percent or more.

"The view is that the economy is getting better and that is always good for energy demand," said Shawn Hackett, president at Hackett Financial Advisors in Boynton Beach, Florida.

"Risk takers get into the sector, betting on a bump in rig counts."

Hackett said the United States would avoid "whatever the cliff means" for the economy, allowing investors to focus on economic growth.

Financial stocks also rose sharply, as traders bet on a greater demand for loans and a steepening of the yield curve. U.S. government debt sold off Tuesday, with the benchmark yield briefly hitting its highest since late October.

The S&P financial sector <.gspf> added 1 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 108.19 points, or 0.82 percent, to 13,343.58. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 14.40 points, or 1.01 percent, to 1,444.76. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 41.24 points, or 1.37 percent, to 3,051.85.

President Barack Obama's most recent offer to Republicans in the ongoing budget talks makes concessions on taxes and social programs spending. House Speaker John Boehner said the offer is "not there yet," though he remains hopeful about an agreement. Senate Democrats, however, have expressed concern about cuts to Social Security.

Shares of firearm makers sank in the aftermath of a school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, on Friday that killed 20 children and six adults.

Smith and Wesson fell 10.8 percent to $7.72 on its largest ever daily volume, though it was still up 77 percent so far this year. Sturm Ruger and Co slid 8.2 percent Tuesday to $40.39.

Technology shares rose led by Apple , up 2.3 percent above $530 after losing nearly 13 percent in the last two weeks. The S&P Information Technology Index <.gspt> rose 1.5 percent.

Arbitron Inc surged 23.6 percent to $47 after Nielsen Holdings NV agreed to buy the media and marketing research firm in a deal worth $1.26 billion. Nielsen rose 3.1 percent to $30.55.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Read More..

Sasol Betting Big on Gas-to-Liquid Plant in U.S.

Oryx

The Oryx natural gas processing plant in Qatar, where Sasol is converting natural gas to diesel fuel.

RAS LAFFAN INDUSTRIAL CITY, Qatar — The compact assembly of towers, tubes and tanks that make up the Oryx natural gas processing plant is almost lost in a vast petrochemical complex that rises here like a hazy mirage from a vast ocean of sand.

A blog about energy and the environment.

ORYX GTL

The Sasol plant in Qatar makes 32,000 barrels of liquid fuels daily. Experts say the economics of the process are challenged.

But what is occurring at Oryx is a particular kind of alchemy that has tantalized scientists for nearly a century with prospects of transforming the energy landscape. Sasol, a chemical and synthetic fuels company based in South Africa, is converting natural gas to diesel fuel using a variation of a technology developed by German scientists in the 1920s.

Performing such chemical wizardry is exceedingly costly. But executives at Sasol and a partner, Qatar’s state-owned oil company, are betting that natural gas, which is abundant here, will become the dominant global fuel source over the next 50 years, oil will become scarcer and more expensive and global demand for transport fuels will grow.

Sasol executives say the company believes so strongly in the promise of this technology that this month, it announced plans to spend up to $14 billion to build the first gas-to-liquids plant in the United States, in Louisiana, supported by more than $2 billion in state incentives. A shale drilling boom in that region in the last five years has produced a glut of cheap gas, and the executives say Sasol can tap that supply to make diesel and other refined products at competitive prices.

Marjo Louw, president of Sasol Qatar, says that his company can produce diesel fuel that burns cleaner, costs less and creates less greenhouse gas pollution than fuel derived from crude oil.

“We believe the planets are aligned for G.T.L.,” Mr. Louw said during a recent tour of the Oryx plant. “Other players — much bigger players — will follow.”

Perhaps. So far, however, the record for converting gas to liquids is spotty.

The newest and largest plant in operation, Royal Dutch Shell’s giant Pearl plant, also in Qatar, cost the leviathan sum of $19 billion, more than three times its original projected cost, and has been plagued with unexpected maintenance problems. BP and ConocoPhillips built and briefly operated demonstration plants in Alaska and Oklahoma, but stopped short of full development of the technology. Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips announced plans to build giant plants in Qatar, but backed out, putting their capital instead into terminals to export liquefied natural gas.

Today only a handful of gas-to-liquids plants operate commercially, in Malaysia, South Africa and Qatar. Together they produce only a bit more than 200,000 barrels of fuels and lubricants a day — equivalent to less than 1 percent of global diesel demand.

“The reason you see so few G.T.L. plants is the economics are challenged at best,” said William M. Colton, Exxon Mobil’s vice president of corporate strategic planning. “We do not see it being a relevant source of fuels over the next 20 years.”

Many analysts and industry insiders say the technology makes sense only when oil and gas supplies and prices are far out of balance, as they are today in Qatar and the United States. When oil and gas come into alignment, gas-to-liquids ventures will become white elephants, these skeptics say. Environmentalists also say that the huge energy inputs required to transform natural gas into diesel or other fuels negate any greenhouse gas benefits.

Until recently, the method used to convert natural gas or coal to liquid fuel — known as the Fischer-Tropsch process after the Germans who invented it — had been used only by pariah nations desperate for transportation fuels when they had little or no oil available. For decades, South Africa defended its system of apartheid from international oil embargoes by producing synthetic oil from its rich coal resources. Nazi Germany did the same to fuel its military machine in World War II.

But with North Africa and the Middle East chronically unstable and natural gas cheap and plentiful in the United States, some say the technology is now an enticing option to produce various fuels without importing a drop of oil.

Shell may soon announce a tentative site for a gas-to-liquids plant on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Given what the company learned from its Qatar plant, executives say it would reduce costs in any new one by using different types of valves and alloys.

But Ken Lawrence, Shell’s vice president for investor relations in North America, said the company was still two years away from a final decision on an American plant.

That leaves Sasol in the forefront of the gas-to-liquids effort.

John M. Broder reported from Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar, and Clifford Krauss from Houston.

Read More..

Massachusetts fines Morgan Stanley over Facebook research

BOSTON (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for Facebook Inc’s initial public offering, will pay a $ 5 million fine to Massachusetts to settle charges that its bankers improperly influenced its research analysts when the Internet company went public.

Massachusetts’ top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged that Morgan Stanley improperly helped Facebook disclose sensitive financial information selectively, perpetuating what he calls “an unlevel playing field” between Wall Street and Main Street.

Morgan Stanley has been under criticism since the social media company went public in May for having revealed revised earnings and revenue forecasts to select clients on conference calls before the media company’s $ 16 billion initial public offering. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Galvin, who has been aggressive in policing how research is distributed on Wall Street ever since investment banks reached a global settlement in 2003, said the bank violated that settlement. He fined Citigroup $ 2 million over similar charges in late October.

Massachusetts says that a senior Morgan Stanley banker helped a Facebook executive release new information and then guided the executive on how to speak with Wall Street analysts about it. The banker, Galvin’s office said, rehearsed with Facebook’s Treasurer and wrote the bulk of the script Facebook’s Treasurer used when calling the research analysts.

The banker “was not allowed to call research analysts himself, so he did everything he could to ensure research analysts received new revenue numbers which they then provided to institutional investors,” Galvin said in a statement.

Retail investors were not given any similar information, Galvin said, saying this case illustrates how institutional investors often have an edge over retail investors.

(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss with additional reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in New York; Editing by Theodore d’Afflisio)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Massachusetts fines Morgan Stanley over Facebook research
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Connecticut Shooting: First Funerals Are Held for Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto

By Dahvi Shira

12/17/2012 at 03:20 PM EST

Noah Pozner (left) and Jack Pinto

AP; Landov

Friends and family said goodbye on Monday to two of the 27 victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, both 6, were the first laid to rest.

"Today is extremely emotional," Noah's aunt, Victoria Haller, tells PEOPLE. "My sister-in-law has been pretty much a wreck, which you can imagine. It's the worst thing in the world to lose a child."

Pozner, a loving boy who was inseparable from his siblings, had his services at Abraham L. Green and Son Funeral Home in Farfield, Conn., with his burial at B'nai Israel Cemetery in Monroe, Conn.

The entrance to the funeral home was adorned with white balloons. A large oak tree across from the home was covered with a sign that says, "Our hearts are with you Noah."

Pozner's twin sister, Arielle, along with older sister Sophia, 8, both survived the shooting.

Pinto, known for his love of the New York Giants, had his services at Honan Funeral Home in Newtown, and his burial at Newtown Village Cemetery.

On Saturday, his favorite player – wide receiver Victor Cruz – dedicated his game to Pinto, writing, "Jack Pinto, My Hero" on one of his cleats, and "Jack Pinto This one is 4 U!" on his gloves.

Friday morning's massacre took the lives of 20 children – 12 girls and eight boys. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, took his own life. His mother was also found killed in a different location.

Sandy Hook was closed on Monday. Other schools in the area will open on Tuesday, and the district has reportedly made plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to a school in a neighboring town, but there is no date set.

Other victims of the tragedy have funeral dates set for later this week.

• Reporting by MARY GREEN

Read More..

Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

Read More..