India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 22

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Sony confirms PlayStation 4 will play used games

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Renée Zellweger Puckers Up with Doyle Bramhall II in Hawaii: Photo

By Andrea Billups

02/22/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

Doyle Bramhall II and Renée Zellweger

AKM-GSI

Renée Zellweger was feeling the love – and the surf – during her recent Hawaiian vacation.

Zellweger, 43, joined her boyfriend, musician Doyle Bramhall II, 44, for some kayaking, paddle-boarding and romantic kissing on the beach. Wearing matching black beachwear, the Texas natives were not shy about their happiness, holding hands and smiling broadly as they vacationed together.

But soon it's back to work for Zellweger, who's set to appear on the Oscar telecast Sunday in Los Angeles. The Academy Award winner will reportedly join her Chicago cast as presenters, marking the 10th anniversary of their musical film earning Best Picture honors.

Bramhall, a guitarist and songwriter who toured with Roger Waters and Eric Clapton, was last linked to Sheryl Crow in 2011.

The 85th annual Academy Awards will air live on ABC starting at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Sunday, Feb. 24, from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla (kad-SY'-luh) from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a double-shot of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug may offer a clear advantage over older drugs because it delivers more medication with fewer side effects.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug.

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was co-developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech and ImmunoGen Inc., of Waltham, Mass. ImmunoGen developed the technology that binds the drug ingredients together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 33 cents, or 2.27 percent, to $14.63 in midday trading.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 21

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U.S. seeks to tackle trade-secret theft by China, others

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Faced with the growing theft of U.S. trade secrets, the White House said on Wednesday it was stepping up diplomatic pressure and mulling tougher laws to stem the threat to American businesses and security from China and other nations.

The plan includes working with like-minded governments to put pressure on bad actors, using trade policy tools, increasing criminal prosecutions and launching a 120-day review to see whether new U.S. legislation is needed.

“A hacker in China can acquire source code from a software company in Virginia without leaving his or her desk,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at a White House event to unveil the strategy.

Although the White House report did not cite China by name, many see the Asian giant as the main threat. A study released this week by a private security firm accused the Chinese military of orchestrating numerous cyber attacks against U.S. businesses, a charge Beijing has denied.

The Obama administration said its strategy aims to counter what Holder called “a significant and steadily increasing threat to America’s economy and national security interests.”

“As new technology has torn down traditional barriers to international business and global commerce, they also make it easier for criminals to steal secrets and to do so from anywhere, anywhere in the world,” Holder said.

Last week, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said U.S. companies suffered estimated losses in 2012 of more than $ 300 billion due to theft of trade secrets, a large share due to Chinese cyber espionage.

The White House report listed 17 cases of trade-secret theft by Chinese companies or individuals since 2010, far more than any other country mentioned in the report.

U.S. corporate victims of trade-secret theft have included General Motors, Ford, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Motorola, Boeing and Cargill. A target company can see the payoff from research investment evaporate as a result of corporate espionage and lose market position, competitive advantage and efficiencies.

“We have repeatedly raised our concerns about trade-secret theft by any means at the highest levels with senior Chinese officials and we will continue to do so,” said Robert Hormats, an undersecretary of state.

Those cases cited mostly involved employees stealing trade secrets on the job rather than cyber attacks.

Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property rights enforcement coordinator, said the effort aims to protect the innovation that drives the U.S. economy and job creation.

MIXED RESPONSE

Cybersecurity and intelligence experts welcomed the White House plan as a first step, but some said much more needed to be done.

“You’ve got a nation-state taking on private corporations,” said former CIA Director Michael Hayden. “That’s kind of unprecedented … We have not approached resolution with this at all.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, offered a lukewarm statement of support, while other industry groups expressed more enthusiasm for the effort.

“We strongly endorse and applaud the administration’s focus on curbing theft of trade secrets, which poses a serious and growing threat to the software industry around the world,” said Business Software Alliance President and CEO Robert Holleyman.

The report that laid out the strategy repeated a 2011 White House recommendation that the maximum sentence for economic espionage be increased to at least 20 years, from 15 currently.

Another part of the solution is promoting a set of “best practices” that companies can use to protect themselves against cyber attacks and other espionage, Espinel said.

The report also said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was “expanding its efforts to fight computer intrusions that involve the theft of trade secrets by individual, corporate and nation-state cyber hackers.”

In an interview, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the problem of trade-secret theft in China was a factor in the decisions of some U.S. companies to move operations back to the United States.

The companies have “had very frank conversations with the Chinese, (saying) ‘You know it’s one thing to accept a certain level of copyright knock-offs, but if you’re going to take our core technology, then we’re better off being in our home country,’” Kirk told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Deborah Charles; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Eric Beech)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Taylor Swift Channels Beyoncé at Brit Awards

By Aaron Parsley

02/21/2013 at 11:40 AM EST

Does Sasha Fierce have a pop-country cousin?

During a sassy performance of "I Knew You Were Trouble" at Wednesday's Brit Awards, Taylor Swift shed a white wedding dress to reveal a black embellished jumpsuit, sexy boots – and some familiar moves.

Striking a pose, tossing her hair and even falling to her knees to belt out the hit song, Swift, 23, resembled Beyoncé in her highly buzzed-about Super Bowl halftime performance on Feb. 3. Flip through a carousel of photos from the performance above.

At the awards ceremony at London's O2 arena, Swift handed out the best British female prize to soulful Scottish singer and songwriter Emeli Sandé, who also took home the best album prize for her debut, Our Version of Events.

A nominee for international female solo artist, Swift lost in that category to another American, Lana Del Rey.

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Adults get 11 percent of calories from fast food

ATLANTA (AP) — On an average day, U.S. adults get roughly 11 percent of their calories from fast food, a government study shows.

That's down slightly from the 13 percent reported the last time the government tried to pin down how much of the American diet is coming from fast food. Eating fast food too frequently has been seen as a driver of America's obesity problem.

For the research, about 11,000 adults were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours to come up with the results.

Among the findings:

— Young adults eat more fast food than their elders; 15 percent of calories for ages 20 to 39 and dropping to 6 percent for those 60 and older.

— Blacks get more of their calories from fast-food, 15 percent compared to 11 percent for whites and Hispanics.

— Young black adults got a whopping 21 percent from the likes of Wendy's, Taco Bell and KFC.

The figures are averages. Included in the calculations are some people who almost never eat fast food, as well as others who eat a lot of it.

The survey covers the years 2007 through 2010 and was released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The authors couldn't explain why the proportion of calories from fast food dropped from the 13 percent found in a survey for 2003 through 2006.

One nutrition professor cast doubts on the latest results, saying 11 percent seemed implausibly low. New York University's Marion Nestle said it wouldn't be surprising if some people under-reported their hamburgers, fries and milkshakes since eating too much fast food is increasingly seen as something of a no-no.

"If I were a fast-food company, I'd say 'See, we have nothing to do with obesity! Americans are getting 90 percent of their calories somewhere else!'" she said.

The study didn't include the total number of fast-food calories, just the percentage. Previous government research suggests that the average U.S. adult each day consumes about 270 calories of fast food — the equivalent of a small McDonald's hamburger and a few fries.

The new CDC study found that obese people get about 13 percent of daily calories from fast food, compared with less than 10 percent for skinny and normal-weight people.

There was no difference seen by household income, except for young adults. The poorest — those with an annual household income of less than $30,000 — got 17 percent of their calories from fast food, while the figure was under 14 percent for the most affluent 20- and 30-somethings with a household income of more than $50,000.

That's not surprising since there are disproportionately higher numbers of fast-food restaurants in low-income neighborhoods, Nestle said.

Fast food is accessible and "it's cheap," she said.

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Wall Street dips on weakness in energy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks dipped on Wednesday, with energy shares falling as investors found few reasons to buy following a rally that has held major indexes near five-year highs for three weeks.

In addition, investors waited for the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's January meeting due at 2 p.m. (1900 GMT) for clues to the interest rate outlook.

Traders said there were unconfirmed rumors in the market that a troubled hedge fund was selling assets.

"I heard the chatter about a hedge fund liquidating things today but how big, I don't know. Certainly it sparks concern," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.

A jump in January of permits for future home building offered hope the housing market's recovery remains on track. A separate report showed wholesale prices rose last month for the first time in four months.

The S&P 500 has jumped about 7 percent so far this year, and is on track for its eighth straight week of gains. However, many of those weekly gains have been slight, with equities trading within a narrow range for the past few weeks, suggesting valuations may be stretched at current levels.

"The market seems very tired and listless, and investors are prone to take profits now as they wait for the music to stop," said Matt McCormick, money manager at Bahl & Gaynor in Cincinnati.

Energy companies were among the weakest, hurt by disappointing corporate results and a 2.4 percent drop in crude oil prices.

Newfield Exploration fell 5.8 percent to $25.73 while Devon Energy Corp fell 1.6 percent to $59.60. Both companies posted fourth-quarter losses, with Devon hurt as it wrote down the value of its assets by $896 million due to weak natural gas prices.

Groundbreaking to build new U.S. homes fell 8.5 percent in January but new permits for construction rose to a 4 1/2-year high while producer prices rose in January for the first time in four months.

Investors will look to the minutes from the Fed's January meeting for any indication as to how long the Fed will keep buying $85 billion in bonds each month to bolster U.S. employment. Economic data should enable the Fed to maintain its easy monetary policy.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 16.03 points, or 0.11 percent, to 14,019.64. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 5.81 points, or 0.38 percent, to 1,525.13. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 13.82 points, or 0.43 percent, to 3,199.77.

Shares of OfficeMax Inc fell 3.8 percent to $12.51 while Office Depot slumped 13 percent to $4.37 as the companies announced a $1.2 billion merger agreement. The shares had risen sharply earlier this week after a source said a deal would be announced. Rival Staples Inc fell 3.5 percent.

Toll Brothers Inc lost 4 percent to $35.43 after the largest luxury homebuilder in the United States, reported first-quarter results well below analysts' estimates.

The stock is up 9 percent so far this year, building on jump of nearly 60 percent in 2012.

"Valuations appear a bit high at these levels, and if I was in a name that had seen a huge run, I'd want to take some chips off the table," said McCormick, who helps oversee about $8.2 billion in assets.

SodaStream dropped 6.5 percent to $49.04 after the seller of home carbonated drink maker machines posted fourth-quarter earnings and provided a 2013 outlook.

According to Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning, of the 405 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 71 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.7 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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IHT Rendezvous: True or False? The Tussle Over Ping Fu's Memoir

Did Ping Fu, a prominent Chinese-American businesswoman and author of a recent memoir, “Bend, not Break,” make up her horrible experiences during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution in order to gain United States citizenship? Did they help her become an American by claiming political asylum?

That’s what her critics, many of them fellow Chinese-Americans, say. It’s an accusation that can stick. As a recent New York Times investigation showed, claiming persecution has spawned an immigration industry involving lawyers prepping clients to make false asylum claims.

As I write in my Letter from China this week, Ms. Fu is being accused of making up a lot of things in her memoir. She’s also a successful entrepreneur: the U.S. government honored Ms. Fu, the founder of the software company Geomagic (in the process of being sold to 3D Systems), with a “2012 Outstanding American by Choice” award.

Ms. Fu is on the board of the White House’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and is a member of the National Council on Women in Technology, according to the Web site of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Ms. Fu, who says in her memoir she was “quietly deported” to the U.S. in 1984 for writing about female infanticide while still a college student, denies the accusations. But until now she hadn’t explained in public how she became an American.

In an interview with the International Herald Tribune, she said, apparently for the first time, the reason she kept quiet was she was trying to protect her first husband, an American, whom she does not mention in her memoir. The marriage took place while she was living in California, she said.

“I had a first marriage and that’s how I got my green card,” she said by telephone. She married on Sept. 1, 1986 and divorced three years later. Until now she had kept silent because of a “smear” campaign against her online, mostly by fellow Chinese who accuse her of lying, which extended to real-life harassment, she said: “They smear my name, they try to get my daughter’s name on the Internet, they sent people to Shanghai to surround my family and to Nanjing to harass my neighbors.” She said the accusers, who are “angry” for reasons she doesn’t really understand, contacted U.S. immigration authorities to challenge her award and her citizenship, as well as shareholders of 3D Systems to warn them she was a “liar,” and not to buy Geomagic. Her second husband, Herbert Edelsbrunner, whom she has since divorced, received many “hate e-mails,” she said. “I just don’t want to hurt innocent people.”

If a first, unpublicized marriage might lay to rest one contentious issue, there are others. Some were the result of exaggeration or unclear communication with her ghostwriter, MeiMei Fox of Los Angeles, she said.

In the interview, she volunteered an example of an error: a widely criticized account of the ‘‘period police,’’ the authorities who checked a woman’s menstrual cycle to ensure she wasn’t pregnant in the early days of the one-child policy. To stop women substituting others’ sanitary pads for inspection, they were sometimes required to use their own finger to show blood. Through a misunderstanding with Ms. Fox, Ms. Fu said this was portrayed as the use of other people’s fingers — an invasion of the woman’s body.

Ms. Fox “wrote it wrong,’’ she said. ‘‘I corrected it three times but it didn’t get corrected.’’ Women used their own finger to show blood, she said, but the mistake went into print anyway.

In general, Ms. Fox may have ‘‘just made some searches on the Internet that maybe weren’t correct,’’ Ms. Fu said.

Chiefly the errors involved use of the words ‘‘all, never, any,’’ that generalized unacceptably, Ms. Fu said. And, ‘‘She doesn’t know China’s geography,’’ she said.

At the beginning of her memoir, Ms. Fu writes of being kidnapped by a Vietnamese-American on arrival in the U.S. state of New Mexico and locked in his apartment to care for his very young children, whose mother had left, in a bizarre incident. A spokeswoman at the Albuquerque Police Department’s Records Office, where the alleged kidnapping took place, said she could not locate such an incident in their records. Asked about it, Ms. Fu repeated that she did not press charges as, fresh from China, she was terrified of all police, “So I don’t know how they keep records, if there is no criminal charges or record.”

And in an e-mail to me, she admitted she made mistakes about a magazine she said she helped edit, called Wugou, or “No Hook,” produced in 1979 by students at her college, then called the Jiangsu Teacher’s College (later it changed its name to Suzhou University, she said.) It was not that magazine but another one, This Generation, that was taken to a meeting in Beijing of student magazine writers from around the country, she wrote in the e-mail. “A good case that shows everyone’s memory can be wrong,” she wrote.

But bigger questions about the scale of the online vitriol from parts of the Chinese and Chinese-American community remain. “I really haven’t known China for 20-something years, and it didn’t occur to me that what I wrote would generate so much anger,” she said. In the last years, “as China got stronger, nationalistic views got stronger,” she said, making a “civil conversation” about disagreements apparently harder.

Additional reporting by Cindy Hao in Seattle.

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