Wall Street Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."


Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.


"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.


"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."


With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.


Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.


"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.


"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."


Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.


BEWARE OF THE WITCH


This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.


"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.


RETHINKING APPLE


Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.


Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.


On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.


"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.


But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.


(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)



Read More..

Despite Threat of Steep Fines, Protesters Turn Out in Moscow


Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press


Police officers detained the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny during a rally in Lubyanka Square in Moscow on Saturday.







MOSCOW — Forcing a showdown with the government of President Vladimir V. Putin, leaders of the Russian political opposition took to the streets on Saturday afternoon for an unsanctioned demonstration in a symbolic square in Moscow that is home to the headquarters of the federal security services as well as a monument to victims of Soviet political repression.




Bundled up against the frigid cold and wind, with the temperature hovering at about 5 degrees Fahrenheit and the late December light slashing across a clear sky, about 2,000 demonstrators gathered in Lubyanka Square, not far from the Kremlin. They were met by a huge contingent of riot police officers, who quickly cordoned off the area and began making arrests.


The protest without a permit was a pointed act of defiance, particularly by the two most prominent opposition leaders: Aleksei Navalny, an anticorruption activist, and Sergei Udaltsov of the Left Front, a radical socialist group. Mr. Navalny and Mr. Udaltsov face a growing number of criminal charges and have lived for weeks with the prospect of imminent arrest.


Mr. Udaltsov was seized by the riot police moments after he arrived, at about 3 p.m., and hustled into a police van. “I am not violating any laws,” he shouted as he was taken away. “Russia will be free.”


Mr. Navalny, by contrast, arrived surrounded by a large scrum of photographers and worked the crowd like a politician on a rope line, shaking hands with supporters. He seemed buoyant and carefree and said, “O.K., let’s stand here awhile.” The mob around him seemed to forestall his arrest, but not for long. He was detained about an hour after his arrival.


Other well-known opposition leaders were given no leeway. A television personality, Kseniya Sobchak, and a liberal activist, Ilya Yashin, were arrested immediately after emerging from a nearby cafe. About an hour and a half later, the police began arresting dozens of rank-and-file demonstrators.


The crowd was a fraction of the size of previous rallies this year, suggesting that interest may be waning. The inability of the opposition leaders and the authorities to agree on the terms for a protest permit also suggested that each side’s resolve might be hardening.


By attending the rally, demonstrators showed they were unbowed by a law signed by Mr. Putin in June that imposes steep fines — of more than $9,000 for participants and more than $18,000 for organizers — for taking part in unsanctioned protests.


“Today we showed the authorities that we have principles and dignity, that they cannot forbid us from taking a walk in our own city, because we will come anyway,” said Dmitri Gudkov, one of a small number of Russian lawmakers to support the opposition openly. “There is still protest and we want change, and they can’t frighten us with detention or pressure or searches or arrests or anything else.


“If you want to avoid massive acts of protest, initiate reforms, my friends, and the people will not come out to protests.” By swiftly arresting the main opposition leaders, the authorities seemed to calculate that they would face minimal public reaction, though that is likely to be determined by how severely the opposition members are treated within the judicial system.


The law that increased fines is one of numerous steps Mr. Putin’s government has taken to clamp down on political dissent in the year since evidence of fraud in parliamentary elections last December set off a series of large street demonstrations here.


The early protests were marked by a certain giddiness, as many middle-class Muscovites embraced the newfound spirit of political activism. But with Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency, after a solid victory in elections last March, the space for political dissent has contracted.


The authorities have opened numerous criminal investigations into leaders of the political opposition, carried out repeated searches of their homes and businesses, and filed charges that in some cases could lead to lengthy prison sentences.


On Friday, the authorities announced yet another criminal investigation of Mr. Navalny, accusing him and his brother, Oleg, who is a post office employee, of a strange scheme to steal money in business deals by overcharging for the services of a private courier company.


Ellen Barry and Andrew Roth contributed reporting.



Read More..

RIM shows how BlackBerry 10 touch screen keys could rival its traditional keyboards [video]






Read More..

Connecticut Shooting: Bodies Removed from School, Positively Identified









12/15/2012 at 10:25 AM EST







Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance


Mary Altaffer/AP


A horrific day turned to a night of unspeakable grief as parents received formal notifications that their children were killed in the Connecticut school massacre.

The last of the dozens of bodies – most of them children – were removed by early Saturday from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"Our objective certainly was to positively identify the victims to try to give the families some closure," State Police Spokesman Lt. Paul Vance tells CBS News. "Our detectives worked well through the night. By early this morning, we were able to positively identify all of the victims and make some formal notification to all of the families of the victims."

The gunman, identified by multiple law enforcement sources as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, killed 20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 and six adults, before taking his own life at the school. His mother also was killed at a different location, bringing the total death toll to 28.

Eighteen children were pronounced dead at the scene and two at the hospital; six adult victims were pronounced dead at the scene, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Read More..

Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants


ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.


The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.


To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.


But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.


When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.


And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.


In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."


The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.


Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.


Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.


A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.


California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.


The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.


And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.


If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.


Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.


The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.


"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."


Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.


There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.


Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.


For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.


"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."


___


Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .


Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .


Read More..

Wall Street steady on "cliff" apprehension, Apple drops

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday, with the Nasdaq weighed down by another drop in shares of Apple, and as the overhang of "fiscal cliff" negotiations kept buying to a premium.


Apple slid 4 percent to $508.75 after UBS cut its price target on the stock to $700 from $780. The most valuable U.S. company has seen its stock hit hard in the last three months, and it fell on Friday after a tepid reception for iPhone 5 in China.


The S&P Information Technology Index <.gspt> dropped 0.9 percent as Apple fell and Jabil Circuit Inc lost 6.2 percent to $17.38 after UBS cut its price target.


The possibility of a "fiscal cliff" deal not taking place until early 2013 is rising. The back-and-forth negotiations over the fiscal cliff in Washington have kept markets on hold in what would already be a quiet period for stocks.


"We're faced with uncertainty ... and that's going to continue now into January. It basically puts everybody on hold, and (you) just have the markets kind of thrash around," said Larry Abruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.


President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a "frank" meeting on Thursday at the White House to discuss how to avoid the tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in early in 2013.


The S&P 500 dropped 0.6 percent on Thursday after six straight positive sessions. Investors are concerned that going over the cliff could tip the economy back into recession. While a deal is expected to ultimately be reached, a drawn-out debate - like the one seen over 2011's debt ceiling - can erode confidence.


"The markets are not being reactionary right now, though we lost ground yesterday," said Stephen Carl, head equity trader at the Williams Capital Group in New York.


"It doesn't look like anything has been resolved, or is leaning one way or another."


Still, expectations of an eventual agreement have helped the S&P 500 bounce back over the last month, and on Wednesday, the index hit its highest intraday level since late October. For the year, the S&P has advanced more than 12 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 24.09 points, or 0.18 percent, to 13,146.63. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 4.81 points, or 0.34 percent, to 1,414.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 15.50 points, or 0.52 percent, to 2,976.66.


Best Buy Co Inc slid 15.5 percent to $11.93 after the electronics retailer agreed to extend the deadline for the company's founder to make a bid. Shares jumped as much as 19 percent on Thursday after initial reports of a bid this week from founder Richard Schulze.


Consumer prices fell in November for the first time in six months, indicating U.S. inflation pressures were muted. A separate report showed manufacturing grew at its swiftest pace in eight months in December.


Data out of China was encouraging, as Chinese manufacturing grew at its fastest pace in 14 months in December. The news was seen as helping U.S. materials companies, including U.S. Steel , which rose 6.3 percent to $23.73.


(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jan Paschal)



Read More..

Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Foreign Minister, Resigns





JERUSALEM — Facing indictment for breach of trust and fraud, Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, resigned his post Friday afternoon amid mounting political pressure, upending the campaign landscape five weeks before national elections.




Mr. Lieberman, a powerful but polarizing figure, wrote on his Facebook page, “I know that I committed no crime,” but said he was stepping down so “I will be able to put an end to this matter swiftly and without delay and to clear my name completely.”


Mr. Lieberman, who is also a member of Parliament, indicated that he still hoped to compete in the Jan. 22 balloting, suggesting a possible plea bargain. The expected indictment, which prosecutors announced on Thursday, concerns a relatively minor offense compared with a broader case of money laundering and fraud that was dropped after an investigation stretching for more than 12 years.


“I believe that the citizens of the State of Israel are entitled to go to the polling stations after this matter has already been resolved,” Mr. Lieberman’s statement said. If a legal ruling could be made before the elections, “I might continue to serve the State of Israel and the citizens of Israel as part of a strong and united leadership that will cope with the security, political and economic challenges facing the State of Israel.”


Mr. Lieberman, 54, leads the secular, ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, which last month joined forces with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. A populist immigrant from the former Soviet Union, he was widely considered as a potential successor to Mr. Netanyahu as leader of Israel’s right wing, though his hard line on the Palestinian question, among other issues, alienated many Western allies.


After the charges were announced, Mr. Lieberman told supporters that he had been hounded by corruption accusations since July 1996, when he served as a top aide to Mr. Netanyahu during his first term as prime minister. “Since then till today, not a day has passed without me being referred to as ‘a suspect,’ ‘being under investigation,’ ‘being an intelligence target,’ ” Mr. Lieberman said. “This has been one long and rolling case, receiving a different title every now and then.”


The conduct for which Mr. Lieberman will face indictment stems from an investigation into other allegations. He is accused of promoting Israel’s former ambassador to Belarus for another post after the ambassador gave him confidential information regarding an Israeli police investigation into Mr. Lieberman’s activities.


But Mr. Lieberman will not face charges on the underlying, more serious case, in which he was suspected of receiving millions of dollars from international tycoons with business interests in Israel through companies formally led by family members or associates.


Israel’s attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, said Thursday in a report announcing his decision that he could not adequately prove a link between Mr. Lieberman and the money, though he said, “The suspicions against Lieberman’s series of intricate and intertwined, underhanded actions cannot be ruled out.”


Born in Moldova, Mr. Lieberman enjoys wide support among Israel’s one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union. He lives in a West Bank settlement considered illegal under international law, and he is perhaps the government’s harshest critic of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, having called for his ouster and denounced as “diplomatic terrorism” his recent bid for upgraded Palestinian status at the United Nations.


Polls have consistently shown that Mr. Lieberman’s joint ticket with Mr. Netanyahu, known here as Likud Beiteinu, is expected to receive up to 40 of the 120 seats in Israel’s next Parliament, by far the largest bloc. The merger was seen as crowning him a top contender to eventually follow Mr. Netanyahu as prime minister.


Opposition leaders, who on Thursday had called for Mr. Lieberman’s resignation, were swift to embrace it on Friday, but not without adding jabs.


Zahava Gal-On, chairwoman of the left-wing Meretz party, said Mr. Lieberman had “spared himself ignobility and disgrace” by stepping down, according to the Web site of Channel 2 News. Shelly Yacimovich, chairwoman of the Labor Party, said he had “severely undermined the rule of law and damaged the public’s faith in its elected officials and democracy.”


Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister who now heads the new Hatnua Party, issued a more moderate statement, saying: “Avigdor Lieberman performed the right and necessary action. We hope he will receive a swift legal proceeding.”


Mr. Netanyahu had no immediate comment on Mr. Lieberman’s resignation Friday, but on Thursday had offered only support. “I believe in Israel’s legal system and respect it,” the prime minister said in a statement. “The right that it grants any Israeli citizen to defend himself also extends to Minister Lieberman, and I hope for him that he’ll be able to prove that he’s also innocent regarding the only case that remains.”


Under Israeli law, when a cabinet minister resigns, the prime minister becomes “custodian” of his portfolio, and Mr. Netanyahu is expected to handle foreign affairs himself at least until after the elections.


Jonathan Rosen contributed reporting.



Read More..

Home invasion victim gets help over Xbox headset






NORTH APOLLO, Pa. (AP) — Police say a Pennsylvania man used his Xbox headphones to call for help after being bound with duct tape and menaced with a gun during a home invasion.


Investigators say the 22-year-old suburban Pittsburgh man was playing video games in an upstairs bedroom when he heard his front door open. The man initially thought it was a family member but saw an armed man wearing a ski mask when he looked downstairs.






Authorities say the intruder bound Derick Shaffer and led him around the North Apollo home to locate valuables, then fled in Shaffer’s car. Shaffer reached a friend over his Xbox Live headset and had him call police.


The missing car was located about an hour later. Police questioned three people but are still trying to identify a suspect.


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Charles and Camilla's Royal Christmas Card Revealed









12/14/2012 at 11:35 AM EST







Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, on their Christmas card


Danny Martindale/WireImage


Why shouldn't Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall be smiling?

It's been a year filled with happy news: the Queen's Jubilee, a baby on the way for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, even Prince Harry was revealed as a popular party guy – yet responsible enough to serve his country proudly.

And so, the couple's official Christmas card shows the two of them looking their merriest in a shot taken by photographer Danny Martindale while the royals were on board the Spirit of Chartwell during the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant on June 3, reports the Telegraph.

As for their outfits, Charles is sporting his Royal Navy admiral's ceremonial day dress uniform, while Camilla is donning an Anna Valentine coat and dress with a hat by Philip Treacy.

Not seen in the photo, although also in attendance at the ceremony: the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

And the message inside? "Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and New Year."

Back at you, folks!

Read More..

Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants


ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.


The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.


To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.


But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.


When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.


And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.


In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."


The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.


Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.


Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.


A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.


California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.


The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.


And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.


If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.


Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.


The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.


"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."


Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.


There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.


Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.


For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.


"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."


___


Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .


Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .


Read More..

Wall Street little changed as caution tempers data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell slightly on Thursday, pulling back from six straight days of gains despite a batch of positive economic releases as "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington weighed on sentiment.


Weekly claims for jobless benefits dropped near the lowest level since February 2008 and retail sales rose in November after an October decline, improving the picture for consumer spending.


Best Buy Co shares shot up more than 18 percent after a report that the company's founder is expected to offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week.


Trading was constrained by the drawn-out fiscal talks between Democrats and Republicans. Investors worry that tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in 2013 if a deal is not reached in Washington will hurt growth. Republican House Speaker John Boehner accused President Barack Obama of "slow-walking" the economy off the fiscal cliff.


"There's a lot of confusion. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the cliff," said Tom Schrader, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets in Baltimore.


Despite the overarching concerns, the S&P 500 has managed gains for six sessions, touching its highest level since October 22 on Wednesday.


"I don't know if there's a lot of anticipation that they're going to get anything done, but the market doesn't seem too worried about it," Schrader said.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 9.35 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,236.10. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 0.88 point, or 0.06 percent, at 1,427.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 3.60 points, or 0.12 percent, at 3,017.41.


A day after the Federal Reserve announced a new round of stimulus for the economy, markets focused on Chairman Ben Bernanke's reiteration that monetary policy would not be sufficient to offset going over the fiscal cliff.


European Union finance ministers reached agreement to make the European Central Bank the bloc's top banking supervisor, which could boost confidence in EU leaders' ability to confront the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.


CVS Caremark Corp gained 3.0 percent to $48.97 after saying it expects higher earnings in 2013.


Best Buy's stock was trading up $2.09 at $14.27 at midday.


Jobless claims dropped 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 343,000, indicating healing in the labor market.


(Editing by Kenneth Barry)



Read More..

Chinese Court Said to Punish Tibetan Students with Prison Terms





BEIJING — A Chinese court has sentenced eight Tibetan students to prison for their role in street protests last month that unnerved security forces already coping with a wave of self-immolations, many of them by young people who have become increasingly radicalized in their opposition to Chinese policies in the region, a Washington-based advocacy group reported on Wednesday.




According to the group, the International Campaign for Tibet, the students, from a predominantly Tibetan part of Qinghai Province, were sentenced to five-year terms on Dec. 5 for organizing demonstrations in response to government booklets that vilified the self-immolators and disparaged the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.


The group said news of the verdicts was based on a Tibetan exile with contacts in the region. Local government officials reached by telephone on Thursday declined to comment.


Word of the trials and convictions comes amid a growing crisis for Beijing as it tries to stop the surge in self-immolations that began more than two years ago. So far, nearly 100 people in Tibetan areas of the country have set themselves on fire, nearly a third of them since November. The majority have been in their teens and 20s.


The authorities have responded harshly, locking down some monasteries, requiring Buddhist monks to attend “political education” classes and issuing new regulations that criminalize any act seen as encouraging the protests. Earlier this week, the official Xinhua news agency said a Tibetan monk and his nephew had been detained for their role in eight self-immolations.


The student demonstrations in Tsolho Prefecture, known in Chinese as Hainan, began late last month after the authorities distributed the pamphlets. Infuriated by several passages, students from the Tsolho Professional Training School marched to a government building chanting slogans that called for “freedom” and Tibetan language rights, according to Radio Free Asia.


At one point, some protesters burned the pamphlets, drawing a violent response from paramilitary police who arrested a number of participants. “They beat up the students, hurled tear gas at them and there was also some kind of explosive used on the student crowd,” according to an account published by Radio Free Asia, quoting a local source. More than 20 students were injured, several critically, the report said.


Although the literature was designed in part to convince local students to support bilingual education, it also took aim at the Dalai Lama, calling him a “political itinerant who wants to split the Chinese Motherland.” It also described the self-immolators as puppets controlled by “foreign imperialist forces.”


Kate Saunders, communications director for the International Campaign for Tibet, said such protests, including a series of student-led demonstrations last month in a nearby city, Rebkong, underscored the intense antipathy young people feel toward Chinese educational policies, which often emphasize Mandarin over Tibetan.


“This is a new political moment in Tibet, with a new generation prepared to directly confront the authorities despite the risks,” Ms. Saunders said. “But it seems the authorities have no strategy other than oppression and as we can see it is not working.”


She said that at least 18 students from the school remained in police custody in addition to three monks who have been accused of sending news of the protests to the outside world.


Mia Li contributed research



Read More..

Lidl Christmas dinner offer goes viral on Twitter






BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Discount retailer Lidl faces a 200,000-euro ($ 260,000) Christmas dinner bill after an offer of chicken vol-au-vents and ice cream cake for the poor went viral.


The supermarket launched a Twitter campaign in Belgium on Monday, saying it would hand out five four-course Christmas dinners to food banks for each tweet on a hash tag.






Lidl had expected to hand out about 1,000 of the 20-euro dinner packs, consisting of tomato soup, vol-au-vents with chips, an ice-cream cake and chocolates, a spokesman for the German-based company’s Belgium unit said on Wednesday.


But local newspapers wrote about the offer and people retweeted using the hash tag – #luxevooriedereen, Dutch for “luxury for everyone”.


By the end of the 24-hour campaign, 1,500 people had tweeted, meaning Lidl has to deliver 7,500 dinners. That sparked reports the supermarket had been caught out by its campaign.


To quash such talk, Lidl rounded up the number of dinners to 10,000, and branded the campaign a success.


Lidl said it had not yet decided whether to repeat the exercise next year.


“We’ve learnt quite a few lessons over the past 48 hours, to say the least,” the spokesman said.


($ 1 = 0.7693 euros)


(Reporting By Ben Deighton. Editing By Sebastian Moffett.)


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Stephen Fishbach Blogs About Lisa Whelchel's End-Game Survivor Strategy






Survivor










12/13/2012 at 11:45 AM EST







Stephen Fishbach and Lisa Whelchel


Monty Brinton/CBS (2)


"You're going to want to show that either you were the top villain or the top hero or the top something. You're going to want to show you had the gameplay to get you there, and you even turned on your own to get you there. That is the game."
– Rupert Boneham, Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains

Oh, Lisa. I don't know why week to week I let you toy with my heart the way you do.

Almost every episode, Lisa announces her Survivor coming-out. She's been passive – but she's finally ready to take control of her destiny and make a big move. Tonight. Seriously. Right now.

Except it never quite comes together. The wrong person wins immunity or the right person makes a heartfelt appeal. "I could've played a great game," Lisa told her brother last week, channeling Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront.

Lisa's excuse for not voting out Denise is that she's thinking about whom she wants to sit next to at the final tribal. And I know how hard those last few days can be.

The challenge of the end-game is that group decision-making gets shunted aside for individual decision-making. You need to think about what's best for you, not what's best for your alliance. Your erstwhile allies are making the same calculations.

Every tiny decision has impossibly complex repercussions. Skupin says it best: "Everything matters so much when you get down to the end game like this. And you have to consider every scenario if you want to come out on top."

Just track Lisa's thought process. She wants to sit at the end with Abi. But if she keeps Abi instead of Denise this week, Malcolm will be likelier to take Abi instead of her next week, because Denise is more threatening to Malcolm. Malcolm and Denise are likely to turn on each other, as they're each other's biggest competition for jury votes. So by keeping Denise, Lisa basically ensures that she and Skupin will make the finals. Get all that?

The problem with Lisa's thinking is that she's devised a foolproof plan to get to the end – and a foolproof plan to lose. Sure, either Denise or Malcolm will be gone. But then the other one will still be there to rake in the million. So Lisa and Skupin are guaranteed to make final tribal ... along with someone who's sure to beat them.

Lisa wins an anti-Fishy for her inaction. By taking out Denise, Lisa could give herself at least a shot of making it to the final three with Abi, and without a jury threat.

She might actually have been a contender.

Rupert Boneham on Survivor Juries
I asked America's favorite player, Rupert Boneham, for his insight into what the jurors are thinking while they contemplate who to crown Sole Survivor. Rupert has served on more juries than any other contestants – on Pearl Islands, All Stars and Heroes vs. Villains. He recently ran for governor in Indiana; now, he's once again mentoring Rupert's Kids.

Do juries have a favorite going in?
Almost everyone in the jury goes in with the idea of who they hate least. It's usually not a favorite as much as who you are least mad at.

Does the final tribal actually change the vote?Final tribal can change jury members' votes. I've seen it work both ways. If you are good at explaining why you did what you did in the game, I have seen jury members change their opinion about you in the middle of tribal council. The same way, when you are pitiful at answering questions, I have seen people lose votes for their answers.

Do jurors affect each others' opinions at Ponderosa?
At the Ponderosa, you are able to talk and interact with each other. But, when you start trying to influence votes, you can be sequestered in your own little area away from everyone else. The producers don't actively police the jury, but will respond to complaints.

Note: Other jurors dispute the Ponderosa sequester.

Read More..

Dozens sue pharmacy, but compensation uncertain


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dennis O'Brien rubs his head as he details ailments triggered by the fungal meningitis he developed after a series of steroid shots in his neck: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, exhaustion and trouble with his speech and attention.


He estimates the disease has cost him and his wife thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses and her lost wages, including time spent on 6-hour round trip weekly visits to the hospital. They've filed a lawsuit seeking $4 million in damages from the Massachusetts pharmacy that supplied the steroid injections, but it could take years for them to get any money back and they may never get enough to cover their expenses. The same is true for dozens of others who have sued the New England Compounding Center.


"I don't have a life anymore. My life is a meningitis life," the 59-year-old former school teacher said, adding that he's grateful he survived.


His is one of at least 50 federal lawsuits in nine states that have been filed against NECC, and more are being filed in state courts every day. More than 500 people have gotten sick after receiving injections prepared by the pharmacy.


The lawsuits allege that NECC negligently produced a defective and dangerous product and seek millions to repay families for the death of spouses, physically painful recoveries, lost wages and mental and emotional suffering. Thirty-seven people have died in the outbreak.


"The truth is the chance of recovering damages from NECC is extremely low," said John Day, a Nashville attorney who represents several patients who have been sickened by fungal meningitis.


To streamline the process, attorneys on both sides are asking to have a single judge preside over the pretrial and discovery phases for all of the federal lawsuits.


This approach, called multidistrict litigation, would prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings and conserve resources of all parties. But unlike a class-action case, those lawsuits would eventually be returned to judges in their original district for trial, according to Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville.


Even with this approach, Fitzpatrick noted that federal litigation is very slow, and gathering all the evidence, records and depositions during the discovery phase could take months or years.


"Most of the time what happens is once they are consolidated for pretrial proceedings, there is a settlement, a global settlement between all the lawyers and the defendants before anything is shipped back for trial," he said.


A lawyer representing NECC, Frederick H. Fern, described the consolidation process as an important step.


"A Boston venue is probably the best scenario," Fern said in an email. "That's where the parties, witnesses and documents are located, and where the acts subject to these complaints occurred."


Complicating efforts to recover damages, attorneys for the patients said, NECC is a small private company that has now recalled all its products and laid off its workers. The company's pharmacy licenses have been surrendered, and it's unclear whether NECC had adequate liability insurance.


Fern said NECC has insurance, but they were still determining what the policy covers.


But Day says, "It's clear to me that at the end of the day, NECC is not going to have sufficient assets to compensate any of these people, not even 1 percent."


As a result, many attorneys are seeking compensation from other parties. Among the additional defendants named in lawsuits are NECC pharmacist and co-founder Barry Cadden; co-founder Greg Conigliaro; sister company Ameridose and its marketing and support arm, Medical Sales Management.


Founded in 2006 by Cadden and Conigliaro, Ameridose would eventually report annual revenue of $100 million. An NECC spokesman didn't respond to a request for the pharmacy's revenue.


While Federal Drug Administration regulators have also found contamination issues at Westborough, Mass.-based Ameridose, the FDA has said it has not connected Ameridose drugs to infection or illness.


Under tort law, a lawsuit has to prove a defendant has a potential liability, which in this case could be anyone involved in the medical procedure. However, any such suit could take years and ultimately may not be successful.


"I would not be surprised if doctors, hospitals, people that actually injected the drugs, the people that bought the drugs from the compounding company, many of those people will also be sued," said Fitzpatrick.


Plaintiffs' attorneys said they're considering that option but want more information on the relationships between the compounding pharmacy and the hundreds of hospitals and clinics that received its products.


Day, the attorney in Tennessee, said the clinics and doctors that purchase their drugs from compounding pharmacies or manufacturers could be held liable for negligence because they are in a better position to determine the safety of the medicine than the patients.


"Did they use due care in determining from whom to buy these drugs?" Day said.


Terry Dawes, a Michigan attorney who has filed at least 10 federal lawsuits in the case, said in traditional product liability cases, a pharmaceutical distributor could be liable.


"We are looking at any conceivable sources of recovery for our clients including pharmaceutical supply places that may have dealt with this company in the past," he said.


Ten years ago, seven fungal meningitis illnesses and deaths were linked to injectable steroid from a South Carolina compounding pharmacy. That resulted in fewer than a dozen lawsuits, a scale much smaller than the litigations mounting up against NECC.


Two companies that insured the South Carolina pharmacy and its operators tried unsuccessfully to deny payouts. An appellate court ruled against their argument that the pharmacy willfully violated state regulations by making multiple vials of the drug without specific prescriptions, but the opinion was unpublished and doesn't set a precedent for the current litigation.


The lawsuits represent a way for patients and their families recover expenses, but also to hold the pharmacy and others accountable for the incalculable emotional and physical toll of the disease.


A binder of snapshots shows what life is like in the O'Briens' rural Fentress County, Tenn., home: Dennis hooked up to an IV, Dennis in an antibiotics stupor, bruises on his body from injections and blood tests. He's had three spinal taps. His 11-day stay in the hospital cost over $100,000, which was covered by health insurance.


His wife said she sometimes quietly checks at night to see whether her husband of 35 years is still breathing.


"In my mind, I thought we were going to fight this and get over it. But we are not ever going to get over it," said Kaye O'Brien.


Marjorie Norwood, a 59-year-old grandmother of three who lives in Ethridge, Tenn., has spent just shy of two months total in the hospital in Nashville battling fungal meningitis after receiving a steroid injection in her back. She was allowed to come home for almost a week around Thanksgiving, but was readmitted after her symptoms worsened.


Family members are still dealing with much uncertainty about her recovery, but they have not filed a lawsuit, said their attorney Mark Chalos. He said Norwood will likely be sent to a rehabilitation facility after her second stay in the hospital rather than return home again.


Marjorie Norwood's husband, an autoworker, has taken time off work to care for her and they depend on his income and insurance.


"It doesn't just change her life, it changes everyone else's life around her because we care about her and want her to be happy and well and have everything that she needs," said her daughter, Melanie Norwood.


Read More..

Wall Street adds gains, S&P at highest since early November


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks extended gains on Tuesday as an advance in tech shares sent indexes up 1 percent, helping the S&P 500 retrace all of its losses since the U.S. presidential election.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 123.10 points, or 0.93 percent, to 13,292.98. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 14.54 points, or 1.02 percent, to 1,433.09. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> climbed 44.30 points, or 1.48 percent, to 3,031.27.


The S&P 500 rose as high as 1,434.27, matching an intraday high seen on Nov 2.


(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)



Read More..

Cheikh Modibo Diarra, Mali’s Prime Minister, Resigns After Arrest





BAMAKO, Mali — Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister at his residence late Monday night, signaling new turmoil in a West African nation racked by military interference and an Islamist takeover in the north.







Associated Press

Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared on state television and announced his government’s resignation on Tuesday.







Hours later, Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared grim-faced on national television to announce his government’s resignation. A spokesman for soldiers who seized power earlier in the year — and later nominally relinquished it to Mr. Diarra — confirmed the prime minister’s arrest on Tuesday morning, accusing him of “playing a personal agenda” while the country faced a crisis in the north. The soldiers arrived at Mr. Diarra’s home around 11 p.m. Monday as he was preparing for a flight to Paris for a medical checkup, said the military spokesman, Bakary Mariko. The prime minister was taken to the military encampment at Kati, just outside Bamako, the capital, where Capt. Amadou Sanogo, the officer who led the March military coup, and others told him “there were proofs against him that he was calling for subversion,” Mr. Mariko said.


On Tuesday morning, the streets of Bamako appeared calm following what appeared to be the country’s second coup d’état in less than a year. But the new upheaval is likely to be considered a setback to Western efforts to help Mali regain control of territory lost to Qaeda-linked militants earlier in the year.


The West has watched with growing alarm as Islamist radicals have constructed a stronghold in the country’s vast north. The United Nations, regional African bodies, France and the United States have tried to aid the faltering Malian Army in a military strike to take back the lost north. Those efforts have so far not coalesced into a coherent plan, despite numerous meetings and United Nations resolutions. More meetings at the United Nations are planned for later this month.


The latest political turmoil in the capital will almost certainly slow down any campaign in the north, however. Already, the United States has expressed reluctance to provide too much direct military assistance, given the shakiness of the political order here. Those doubts are only likely to increase following the latest upheaval.


Mr. Diarra — appointed last spring as a caretaker prime minister until new elections could be organized — was known to disagree with Captain Sanogo on military policy.


He has been an advocate of immediate international military assistance to recapture the north from the Islamists. Captain Sanogo has rebuffed suggestions that the Malian military is incapable of handling the job on its own. Indeed, the captain for weeks resisted the notion that troops from other African nations should even approach the capital.


While Mr. Diarra has made the rounds of foreign capitals, pleading for help to fight the increasingly aggressive Islamists, military leaders have remained at the Kati base, grumbling.


That conflict was evident in the declarations of the military’s spokesman on Tuesday. “Since he has been in power, he has been working simply to position his own family,” Mr. Mariko said. “There has been a paralysis in government.”


Read More..

WebMD to cut 14 percent of workforce to reduce expenses






(Reuters) – Health information website WebMD Health Corp said it will cut around 250 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs.


The company, which had about 1700 employees according to Thomson Reuters data, said it would take a charge of about $ 6 million to $ 8 million in the fourth quarter, primarily on severance and other restructuring-related costs.






WebMD, which is a popular and long-trusted destination for checking health and disease related information, has lost its sheen for investors in recent times as it struggled to convert its growing user base into a steady revenue stream.


The company named a former Pfizer Inc executive Cavan Redmond as CEO earlier this year, entrusting the industry veteran with the task of reviving the website’s flagging business.


Its previous CEO, Wayne Gattinella, resigned after the company took itself off the auction block in January.


WebMD also said on Tuesday that it plans to streamline its operations and focus resources on increasing user engagement, customer satisfaction and innovation, and expects these efforts to reduce annualized operating expenses by about $ 45 million.


While most of the job cuts will be effective at the end of the year, other cost saving actions will be implemented in the first quarter of 2013, the company said in a statement.


The company reported a third-quarter loss in November, compared with a profit in the year-ago quarter, and said revenue fell 13 percent.


WebMD’s shares, which have lost nearly 40 percent of their value over the past six months, were down about 2 percent in premarket trade. They closed at $ 13.85 on Monday on the Nasdaq.


(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Camille Grammer: Kelsey Won't Let My Kids Say My Name in His House















12/11/2012 at 11:35 AM EST







From left: Camille Grammer, Rosanna Scotto and Anderson Cooper



Kelsey and Camille Grammer's bitter split has led to a fragile co-parenting relationship that Camille says is all but broken – marred by an almost complete lack of communication made even worse, she claims, by a weird rule Kelsey has at his home.

"They're not allowed to same my name in the house," the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 44, says in an interview airing Tuesday on Anderson Live. "These poor kids, my daughter and my son, can't say my name in their father's house."

"I think they can say 'Mom' or 'The other household,' " she adds. "But they can't say my name. They can't say 'Camille.' "

She says she consulted her lawyers to see if she could do anything about it. "I said, 'What's my recourse in this? What do I do as a parent?' " she says. "It must be stressful for them to not be able to say their mother's name. But there is no recourse because we already settled our custody."

A rep for Kelsey had no comment on the claims.

Co-Parenting a Struggle

More generally, Camille says co-parenting daughter Mason, 11, and son Jude, 8, is a daily struggle – mostly, she claims, because she wants to be amicable about things and Kelsey doesn't.

"It's very difficult to co-parent with somebody that won't speak to you, text you or email you," she says. "I've reached out to him. I think it's very important to be amicable to raise children, and he refuses to. There's just so much I can do at this point."

Asked how they do communicate, she replies: "It's usually through lawyers. So, we are spending a fortune just to try to co-parent, which is ridiculous."

Elsewhere in the interview, Camille says she and Kelsey are still not officially divorced – even though they split in 2010, and he has since married Kayte Walsh – because, she claims, he still hasn't signed the papers.

"Release me! Set me free!" she says. "You're married; you have a child. We are going to meet before a judge again very soon, so hopefully this time it will be over."

Read More..

New tests could hamper food outbreak detection


WASHINGTON (AP) — It's about to get faster and easier to diagnose food poisoning, but that progress for individual patients comes with a downside: It could hurt the nation's ability to spot and solve dangerous outbreaks.


Next-generation tests that promise to shave a few days off the time needed to tell whether E. coli, salmonella or other foodborne bacteria caused a patient's illness could reach medical laboratories as early as next year. That could allow doctors to treat sometimes deadly diseases much more quickly — an exciting development.


The problem: These new tests can't detect crucial differences between different subtypes of bacteria, as current tests can. And that fingerprint is what states and the federal government use to match sick people to a contaminated food. The older tests might be replaced by the new, more efficient ones.


"It's like a forensics lab. If somebody says a shot was fired, without the bullet you don't know where it came from," explained E. coli expert Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.


The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that losing the ability to literally take a germ's fingerprint could hamper efforts to keep food safe, and the agency is searching for solutions. According to CDC estimates, 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from foodborne illnesses each year, and 3,000 die.


"These improved tests for diagnosing patients could have the unintended consequence of reducing our ability to detect and investigate outbreaks, ultimately causing more people to become sick," said Dr. John Besser of the CDC.


That means outbreaks like the salmonella illnesses linked this fall to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter might not be identified that quickly — or at all.


It all comes down to what's called a bacterial culture — whether labs grow a sample of a patient's bacteria in an old-fashioned petri dish, or skip that step because the new tests don't require it.


Here's the way it works now: Someone with serious diarrhea visits the doctor, who gets a stool sample and sends it to a private testing laboratory. The lab cultures the sample, growing larger batches of any lurking bacteria to identify what's there. If disease-causing germs such as E. coli O157 or salmonella are found, they may be sent on to a public health laboratory for more sophisticated analysis to uncover their unique DNA patterns — their fingerprints.


Those fingerprints are posted to a national database, called PulseNet, that the CDC and state health officials use to look for food poisoning trends.


There are lots of garden-variety cases of salmonella every year, from runny eggs to a picnic lunch that sat out too long. But if a few people in, say, Baltimore have salmonella with the same molecular signature as some sick people in Cleveland, it's time to investigate, because scientists might be able narrow the outbreak to a particular food or company.


But culture-based testing takes time — as long as two to four days after the sample reaches the lab, which makes for a long wait if you're a sick patient.


What's in the pipeline? Tests that could detect many kinds of germs simultaneously instead of hunting one at a time — and within hours of reaching the lab — without first having to grow a culture. Those tests are expected to be approved as early as next year.


This isn't just a science debate, said Shari Shea, food safety director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.


If you were the patient, "you'd want to know how you got sick," she said.


PulseNet has greatly improved the ability of regulators and the food industry to solve those mysteries since it was launched in the mid-1990s, helping to spot major outbreaks in ground beef, spinach, eggs and cantaloupe in recent years. Just this fall, PulseNet matched 42 different salmonella illnesses in 20 different states that were eventually traced to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter.


Food and Drug Administration officials who visited the plant where the peanut butter was made found salmonella contamination all over the facility, with several of the plant samples matching the fingerprint of the salmonella that made people sick. A New Mexico-based company, Sunland Inc., recalled hundreds of products that were shipped to large retailers all over the country, including Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains.


The source of those illnesses probably would have remained a mystery without the national database, since there weren't very many illnesses in any individual state.


To ensure that kind of crucial detective work isn't lost, the CDC is asking the medical community to send samples to labs to be cultured even when they perform a new, non-culture test.


But it's not clear who would pay for that extra step. Private labs only can perform the tests that a doctor orders, noted Dr. Jay M. Lieberman of Quest Diagnostics, one of the country's largest testing labs.


A few first-generation non-culture tests are already available. When private labs in Wisconsin use them, they frequently ship leftover samples to the state lab, which grows the bacteria itself. But as more private labs switch over after the next-generation rapid tests arrive, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be hard-pressed to keep up with that extra work before it can do its main job — fingerprinting the bugs, said deputy director Dr. Dave Warshauer.


Stay tuned: Research is beginning to look for solutions that one day might allow rapid and in-depth looks at food poisoning causes in the same test.


"As molecular techniques evolve, you may be able to get the information you want from non-culture techniques," Lieberman said.


___


Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick


Read More..

Wall Street edges up with help from McDonald's

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were modestly higher on Monday, helped by stronger-than-expected sales from McDonald's, but gains were constrained as investors awaited any sign of progress in talks to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.


Developments in Europe also tempered sentiment after Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said he would resign once the 2013 budget is approved. The move added to uncertainty about reducing euro zone debt and drove Italy's borrowing costs higher.


U.S. President Barack Obama met with Republican House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday to negotiate a deal for avoiding the "fiscal cliff" that is set to go into effect in the new year.


The two sides declined to provide details about the unannounced meeting. Obama is expected to make remarks at 2 p.m. (1900 GMT) from Michigan where he is touring an auto plant.


The fiscal cliff talks have kept markets on edge in the last month as investors worry the scheduled measures could send the economy into recession if politicians do not reach a deal.


While the negotiations are at the forefront of investors' minds, most have adopted the position that a deal will be reached, even if it is at the last minute, said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio.


"We haven't had any 'progress' the last two weeks or so, yet all in all equity markets have continued to hang tough," said Detrick. "The rhetoric from Washington is strong, but Wall Street is betting something probably will get done."


The Dow was helped by a gain in McDonald's Corp . The fast food chain's stronger-than-expected November sales marked a rebound after a decline in October. The stock was up 1 percent at $89.33.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 32.64 points, or 0.25 percent, to 13,187.77. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 1.09 points, or 0.08 percent, to 1,419.16. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 9.90 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,987.95.


Ingersoll-Rand Plc said it will spin off its security division and announced a $2 billion share buyback, sending its shares up 2.4 percent at $49.86.


Cisco Systems boosted the Nasdaq after it laid out its midterm growth strategy on Friday. Its shares were up 2 percent at $19.72.



Read More..

U.S. Forecast as No. 2 Economy, but Energy Independent





WASHINGTON — A new intelligence assessment of global trends projects that China will outstrip the United States as the leading economic power before 2030, but that America will remain an indispensable world leader, bolstered in part by an era of energy independence.




Russia’s clout will wane, as will the economic strength of other countries reliant on oil for revenues, the assessment says.


The product of four years of intelligence-gathering and analysis, the study, by the National Intelligence Council, presents grounds for optimism and pessimism in nearly equal measure. The council reports to the director of national intelligence and has responsibilities for long-term strategic analysis.


One remarkable development it anticipates is a spreading affluence that leads to a larger global middle class that is better educated and has wider access to health care and communications technologies like the Internet and smartphones. The report assesses global trends until 2030.


“The growth of the global middle class constitutes a tectonic shift,” the study says, adding that billions of people will gain new individual power as they climb out of poverty. “For the first time, a majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world.”


At the same time, it warns, half of the world’s population will probably be living in areas that suffer from severe shortages of fresh water, meaning that management of natural resources will be a crucial component of global national security efforts.


But these developments also bring significant risks, allowing radicalized groups to enter world politics on a scale even more violent than that of current terrorist organizations by adopting “lethal and disruptive technologies,” including biological weapons and cyberweapons.


The study warns of the risk that terrorists could mount a computer-network attack in which the casualties would be measured not by the hundreds or thousands killed but by the millions severely affected by damaged infrastructure, like electrical grids being taken down.


“There will not be any hegemonic power,” the 166-page report says. “Power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.”


It warns that at least 15 countries are “at high risk of state failure” by 2030, among them Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda and Yemen.


The study acknowledges that the future “is malleable,” and it lists important “game changers” that will most influence the global scene until 2030: a crisis-prone world economy, shortcomings in governance, conflicts within states and between them, the impact of new technologies and whether the United States can “work with new partners to reinvent the international system.”


The best-case situation for global security until 2030, according to the study, would be a growing political partnership between the United States and China. But it could take a crisis to bring Washington and Beijing together — something like a nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan resolved only by bold cooperation between the United States and China.


The worst-case situation envisions a stalling of economic globalization that would preclude any advancement of financial well-being around the world. That would be a likely outcome after an outbreak of a health pandemic that, even if short-lived, would result in closed borders and economic isolationism.


The chief author and manager of the project, Mathew Burrows, who is counselor for the National Intelligence Council, said the findings had been presented in advance in more than 20 nations to groups of academic experts, business leaders and government officials, including local intelligence officers.


In an interview, Mr. Burrows noted that the audiences in China were far more accepting of the American intelligence assessments — both those predicting China’s economic ascendancy and those warning of political dangers if there was no reform of governance in Beijing — than were audiences in Russia.


Read More..

Hug It Out: Public Charter and District Schools Given $25 Million to Get Along






If you need a loan, ask Bill and Melinda Gates. Or better yet, ask one of the seven cities that are splitting a new $ 25 million grant courtesy of the couple’s philanthropic foundation.


The funds are going to promote cross collaboration between charter and district schools, which have previously operated in a strict and contentious independence from one another.






The foundation announced the award this week, and the cities benefiting are Boston, Denver, Hartford (CT), New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia and Spring Branch (TX).


How did they get so lucky? They’re among a group of 16 communities that signed the Gates-sponsored “District-Charter Collaboration Compacts” pledging for an open-source collaboration between public charter and district public schools.


Communication between these two models is unusual to say the least; they’ve had a long and illustrious history of battling each other over tax dollars, students and even building space.


But when charter schools first opened 20 years ago, their original purpose was to create an experimental educational space which would then share its best methods with public district schools. Instead, the two grew into rivals and critics of each are vehemently opposed to the other.


Among the complaints, charter schools are seen as selfishly siphoning off the most motivated students from the district while upholding a rich-poor educational divide and failing to live up to the promise of a better education. Others say its district schools that are the issue for their unionized teacher complacency and a consistent inability to keep a large margin of students from falling through the cracks.


In truth, neither system is a slam-dunk, and both are experiencing closures nationwide due to underperformance.


The goal of the District-Charter Collaboration Compacts is to restore the original relationship of the two camps, effectively establishing a regular protocol of sharing their best practices, innovations and resources.


Don Shalvey, the deputy director at teh Gates Foundation told The New York Times, “It took Microsoft and Apple 10 years to learn to talk. So it’s not surprising that it took a little bit longer for charters and other public schools. It’s pretty clear there is more common ground than battleground.”


But what will this grand collaboration yield? If all goes according to plan, students from both camps will benefit from new teacher effectiveness practices, college-ready tools and supports, and innovative instructional delivery systems.


According to the Gates Foundation, only one-third of students meet the criteria of college ready by the time they graduate. And most of the kids who don’t are often minority students from lower income areas. By creating collaborative aims with charter and district, kids from all over can have access to a wider swath of teaching frameworks and curriculums. 


Related Stories on TakePart:


• Public Dollars for Private Schools? Voices from the Voucher Debate


• School Vouchers: The Debate Heats Up Across the U.S.


• Howard Fuller: One of the Most Powerful Educators in America



A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a webeditor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Shannen Doherty Helps Police Thwart a Fan's Threatened Suicide















12/10/2012 at 11:35 AM EST



Shannen Doherty recently called 911 to help save a Twitter follower who was sending messages about wanting to commit suicide.

The former Beverly Hills 90210 star, 41, who was in California, was so concerned by the message from a distraught fan who'd aggressively Tweeted at her before, that she called police in Westhampton, N. J., and asked them for help. TMZ.com, which first reported the story, released the 911 call on Sunday.

"This is going to sound incredibly strange," she told a police dispatcher on the call. "My name is Shannen Doherty and I'm an actress. I am on Twitter, sadly, and there is a girl that is threatening to shoot herself and she lives somewhere over there. I'm completely untrained to deal with somebody threatening to commit suicide, especially via Twitter."

Still, Doherty was smart enough to put the police on the right trail, and even coaxed an address out of the woman.

As Doherty stayed on the line – "I'm sitting here, like, you know, freaking out and held hostage and I can't even do anything," she says on the tape – police found the woman, who was okay.

But not before the dispatcher let Doherty know he was a fan.

"All my co-workers can't believe who I'm on the phone with," the dispatcher told to an appreciative-sounding Doherty. "They all want your Twitter account."

Read More..

Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana


SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.


Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.


A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.


"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"


Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.


Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.


In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.


The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.


King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.


Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.


Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."


Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.


In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.


Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."


He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"


"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."


Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.


But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.


The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.


"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."


The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.


That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.


Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.


"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.


___


Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle


Read More..