Tom Brokaw Welcomes First Grandson















02/13/2013 at 11:45 AM EST



This just in!

Tom Brokaw welcomed a grandson on Monday, a spokesperson for NBC confirms to PEOPLE.

The NBC News Special Correspondent's daughter, Sarah Brokaw – a licensed therapist specializing in relational dynamics and a New York Times best selling author – gave birth to Archer Thomas Merritt Brokaw.

Sarah's book, Fortytude: Making the Next Decades the Best Years of Your Life – through the 40s, 50s and Beyond, explores the core values of aging.

Archer is the first grandson born to the news anchor, 73, who has six granddaughters.

With Reporting by CHARLOTTE TRIGGS

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Report: Tracking system needed to fight fake drugs


WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting the problem of fake drugs will require putting medications through a chain of custody like U.S. courts require for evidence in a trial, the Institute of Medicine reported Wednesday.


The call for a national drug tracking system comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the cancer drug Avastin that lacked the real tumor-killing ingredient.


Fake and substandard drugs have become an increasing concern as U.S. pharmaceutical companies move more of their manufacturing overseas. The risk made headlines in 2008 when U.S. patients died from a contaminated blood thinner imported from China.


The Institute of Medicine report made clear that this is a global problem that requires an international response, with developing countries especially at risk from phony medications. Drug-resistant tuberculosis, for example, is fueled in part by watered-down medications sold in many poor countries.


"There can be nothing worse than for a patient to take a medication that either doesn't work or poisons the patient," said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University who led the IOM committee that studied how to combat the growing problem.


A mandatory drug-tracking system could use some form of barcodes or electronic tags to verify that a medication and the ingredients used to make it are authentic at every step, from the manufacturing of the active ingredient all the way to the pharmacy, he said. His committee examined fakes so sophisticated that health experts couldn't tell the difference between the packaging of the FDA-approved product and the look-alike.


"It's unreliable unless you know where it's been and can secure each point in the supply chain," Gostin said.


Patient safety advocates have pushed for that kind of tracking system for years, but attempts to include it in FDA drug-safety legislation last summer failed.


The report also concluded that:


—The World Health Organization should develop an international code of practice that sets guidelines for monitoring, regulation and law enforcement to crack down on fake drugs.


—States should beef up licensing requirements for the wholesalers and distributors who get a drug from its manufacturer to the pharmacy, hospital or doctor's office.


__Internet pharmacies are a particularly weak link, because fraudulent sites can mimic legitimate ones. The report urged wider promotion of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's online accreditation program as a tool to help consumers spot trustworthy sites.


The Institute of Medicine is an independent organization that advises the government on health matters.


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Wall Street pauses after gains, awaits Obama address

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 holding near multi-year highs ahead of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.


The economy will be a major topic of Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress set for 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Wednesday). Investors will listen for any clues on a deal with Republicans to avert automatic spending cuts due to take effect March 1.


The S&P 500 has risen in the past six weeks and is up 6.5 percent so far this year. But gains have been harder to come by since the benchmark S&P index hit a five-year high on February 1. The market has to consolidate strong gains at the year's start while investors search for reasons to drive stocks higher.


"The market itself at this point has got to digest this six-plus percentage point move ... we are due for that pause," said Drew Nordlicht, managing director at HighTower Advisors in San Diego.


Investors are "looking for more data at this point going forward to support the thesis that corporate profits will continue to grow and the economy has turned the corner."


The White House has signaled Obama in his speech will urge U.S. investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education. He is also expected to call for comprehensive trade talks with the European Union.


With earnings season moving to its latter stages, of the 353 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 70.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters according to Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning.


Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.3 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 27.65 points, or 0.20 percent, to 13,998.89. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 1.03 points, or 0.07 percent, to 1,518.04. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dipped 1.60 points, or 0.05 percent, to 3,190.41.


Coca-Cola Co shares fell 1.9 percent to $37.88 and were the biggest drag on the Dow after the world's largest soft drink maker reported quarterly revenue slightly below analysts' estimates, hurt by a weaker-than-expected performance in Europe.


Housing shares climbed, led by a 12.9 percent jump in Masco Corp to $20.09 after the home improvement product maker posted fourth-quarter earnings and said it expects new home construction to show strong growth in 2013. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> gained 2.7 percent.


Avon Products shares surged 16.7 percent to $20.16 after the beauty products company reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit.


Goodyear Tire & Rubber shares lost 3.1 percent to $13.48 after it posted a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit but cut its 2013 forecast due to weakness in the European automotive market.


Michael Kors Holdings shares jumped 10.9 percent to $63.24 after the fashion company handily beat Wall Street's estimates and raised its full-year outlook.


(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 12

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Android 4.2.2 update reportedly rolling out to Nexus devices









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Julianna Margulies: Every Day with My Son Is a New Adventure




Celebrity Baby Blog





02/12/2013 at 11:00 AM ET



Julianna Margulies LEGO/Duplo Read Build Play
Timothy Hyatt/Getty


Reading is fundamental for Julianna Margulies, especially when it comes to her 5-year-old son Kieran Lindsay.


“Since I’ve had a child [there hasn't been a day] that we haven’t read to him at night,” The Good Wife star, 46, tells PEOPLE Thursday at an event she hosted for LEGO/Duplo’s Read! Build! Play!


“And if I can’t be there my husband is or the babysitter is. Somebody is always there reading to him before he goes to sleep.”


To that end, weekly library trips have become routine in Margulies’ household.

“We have a great little neighborhood library, so once a week we take seven books out and then we bring them back and switch them,” she explains. “If we don’t go on a Monday, Kieran’s like, ‘Wait — it’s library day.’”


Margulies is continually surprised by what she refers to as her son’s “undying curiosity.”


“Everything is new and exciting, so it makes you look through their eyes and see the world that way. He wakes up 6 a.m. and just starts talking. Everything is interesting. And it can be anything — it can be a shadow on the wall or a prism light that you suddenly see a rainbow coming out of. Every day is a new adventure with him.”


–Shakthi Jothianandan


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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life


The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.


There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.


"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.


Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.


When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."


One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.


The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."


In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."


"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.


Experts on aging agreed.


"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."


Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.


But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.


"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.


"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.


Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.


In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.


Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.


The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.


Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.


Other leaders who are still working:


—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.


—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.


—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.


—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.


__


Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.


___


Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Wall Street dips from multiyear highs, Fed's Yellen on tap

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks slipped at the open on Monday, with the S&P and Nasdaq dipping from multiyear highs, as Google shares weighed on the market on plans by its former chief executive to sell a large chunk of his stake in the Internet company.


Trading volume was relatively low, which could make the market volatile and exaggerate moves.


Google fell 0.9 percent at $777.94 after the company said in a filing former chief executive Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his Google stake, a move that could potentially net him $2.51 billion.


The decline was partly offset by gains in Apple , up 1.2 percent at $480.78 after a New York Times report that the iPhone maker is experimenting with the design of a device similar to a wristwatch.


No economic data or major earnings reports are scheduled for Monday, but Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen is due to speak about the economic recovery at 1 p.m.


Upbeat U.S. and Chinese data last week helped the S&P 500 extend its weekly winning streak to six. The benchmark is up more than 6 percent so far this year after a steep rally in January that has stalled as the S&P and Dow industrials near record highs.


The large market rally so far this year has created space for hesitation in the absence of clear catalysts, according to Steve Goldman, principal at Goldman Management in Short Hills, New Jersey.


"Some positives behind the market rally are still there, and the path of least resistance is likely to be higher," he said.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 35.39 points or 0.25 percent, to 13,957.58, the S&P 500 <.spx> lost 1.94 points or 0.13 percent, to 1,515.99 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 5.75 points or 0.18 percent, to 3,188.12.


US Airways shares edged up as people familiar with the matter said an $11 billion merger with AMR Corp appeared closer. The deal would create the world's largest airline by passenger traffic.


Opposition grew to the $24.4 billion buyout of Dell Inc , the No. 3 personal computer maker, as three of the largest investors joined Southeastern Asset Management on Friday in raising objections. Dell said in a regulatory filing it had considered many strategic options before opting to go private in a buyout led by Chief Executive Michael Dell.


Dell shares hovered near $13.65, the buyout offer price.


Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc shares jumped 8 percent to $179.11 after Sanofi said it plans to buy Regeneron's common stock.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kenneth Barry)



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The Lede: Latest Updates on the Pope’s Resignation

The Lede is providing updates on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on Monday that he intends to resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries.
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Australia to grill Apple, others on pricing






CANBERRA (Reuters) – Apple Inc has been ordered to appear before Australia‘s parliament with fellow technology giants Microsoft Inc and Adobe Systems Inc to explain why local consumers pay so much for their products, despite the strong Aussie dollar.


Broadening a row between the world’s most valuable company and Australian lawmakers over corporate taxes paid on Apple‘s operations, Apple executives were formally summonsed on Monday to front a parliamentary committee in Canberra on March 22.






“In what’s probably the first time anywhere in the world, these IT firms are now being summoned by the Australian parliament to explain why they price their products so much higher in Australia compared to the United States,” said ruling Labor government MP Ed Husic, who helped set up the committee.


High local prices and soaring cost-of-living bills for basic services are hurting the popularity of the minority Labor government ahead of a September 14 election it is widely tipped to lose, giving political momentum to the inquiry.


All three companies have so far declined to appear before the special committee set up in May last year to investigate possible price gouging on Australian hardware and software buyers, despite the Australian dollar hovering near record highs above the U.S. currency around A$ 1.03.


A 16GB WiFi iPad produced by Apple with Retina display sells in Australia for A$ 539, $ 40 above the price in the U.S., despite the stronger local currency. Microsoft’s latest versions of office 365 home premium cost A$ 119 in Australia versus $ 99.99 in the United States.


IT firms and other multinationals have blamed high operating costs in Australia including high local wages and conditions, as well as import costs and the relatively small size of the retail market in the $ 1.5 trillion economy.


Failure to appear before the committee as ordered could leave all three firms open to contempt of parliament charges, fines or even jail terms.


“For some time consumers and businesses have been trying to work out why they are paying so much more, particularly for software, where if it’s downloaded there is no shipping or handling, or much of a labor cost,” Husic told Reuters.


Adobe and Microsoft have previously provided separate written statements and submissions to the inquiry. But executives have been reluctant to explain their pricing before a public inquiry.


Apple executives in Australia declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.


“The companies have blamed each other for not appearing. One will say ‘we’re not going to appear if the other is not going to appear’. So we’ve cut straight to the chase and said we’ll just summons you,” Husic said.


Price gouging in IT for hardware and software, Husic said, could be costing Australia’s more than 2 million small and medium businesses as much as $ 10 billion extra.


Husic took aim at Apple last week over local taxes paid by the company, telling parliament that Apple generated A$ 6 billion in revenue in Australia in 2011, but paid only A$ 40 million in tax – less than one percent of turnover.


“While they generated A$ 6 billion in revenue, they apparently racked up from what I understand A$ 5.5 billion in costs. How?” Husic said. “They do not manufacture here. They have no factories here.”


He accused Apple executives of maintaining a “cloak of invisibility”, while dodging scrutiny of operations. Apple has been criticized elsewhere for its zealous secrecy.


“Ask anyone who has sought answers from them about their Australian operations and you will hear a common theme. They will not talk,” he said.


(Editing by Shri Navaratnam)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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