Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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India Ink: New Focus on Village of Delhi Rape Victim's Father

MEDAWARA, Uttar Pradesh — A makeshift helipad was being built this week in this remote dusty village in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The potholed single-lane road that leads the village was under repair, and journalists, district officials and local politicians had come to call.

Medawara, population 2,000, has never seen this kind of action and attention before, residents said.

A brutal rape took place 600 miles away in New Delhi that shook the conscience of the nation and sparked angry nationwide protests. The rape victim, who struggled for her life for 12 days before dying, belongs to Medawara village. Her family came here to perform 13 days of death rituals.

The family’s presence in the village brought members of the media, which in turn brought politicians who were apparently eager to make political capital out of the situation. And the visits of the politicians brought other government officials.

The village is 7 kilometers (4 miles) from a real road and gets electricity for only three to five hours a day. There are no health facilities, and a government primary school up to fifth grade and a private school up to eighth are the only means of education. No other signs of development are visible in the village.

Residents largely depend upon agriculture for their livelihood, and they grow wheat, sugarcane, pulses, rice, potatoes and onions. The village lies in the floodplains of the Ganges River and its tributaries, and it experienced massive floods in 1972, 1982 and 1994.

Like the family of the rape victim, many others from the village have migrated to Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, Gujarat for to earn a living.

Local politicians who were visiting the village this week told journalists “facts” about the village that were easy to disprove.

“The village gets electricity for 16 to 18 hours a day” said one, speaking to journalists sitting the victim’s family courtyard. “The village has a government high school” said another. Villagers who were there gave sceptical looks, but did not correct his statement.

“They do their dirty political games in every situation” one man who had lived in the village his entire life said after the politicians had  left the family courtyard.

After decades of being ignored, though, this week backhoes were levelling the ground and tractors were bringing bricks to construct the makeshift helipad in a private school ground. Road rollers were pressing the freshly put growl to fill the road potholes. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was coming to visit, villagers said.

The locals were not immediately impressed by all the work.

“What will the helipad give to the village?” asked Ashwani Kumar, the founder of the private school. “If the big leaders would have come by road at least they will see the road condition and the backwardness of the area.”

Mr. Kumar is also worried that no one will remove the makeshift helipad from the school playground, leaving his students nowhere to play.

The state government was spending 3 million rupees ($55,000) sprucing up the village and its connecting road, a local official told India Today.  Earlier, the state government said it would give 2 million rupees to the family of the rape victim.

On Friday, the chief minister touched down, carrying a check for that amount. He also promised development of the village, including construction of a primary health center.

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The Raspberry Pi mini-computer has sold more than 1 million units

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Britney & Jason's Love Story in 6 Sweet Shots

From a snuggle in the surf to a surprise engagement, see the former couple's most romantic moments

Credit: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage

Updated: Friday Jan 11, 2013 | 07:00 AM EST
By: Cara Lynn Shultz

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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.

"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."

The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.

Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.

"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."

Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.

Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.

At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.

Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.

And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.

So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.

"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."

Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.

Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.

"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.

Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.

Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.

"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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Asian shares, Brent retreat after China CPI; yen slides

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares and Brent crude futures fell on Friday as a pick-up in Chinese inflation prompted profit-taking, although an improving outlook for global economies curbed losses, while the yen slid on renewed expectations for bold monetary easing in Japan.

China's annual consumer inflation rate accelerated to a seven-month high of 2.5 percent in December on rising food prices, narrowing the scope for the central bank to boost the economy by easing monetary policy. The producer price index fell 1.9 percent in December from a year earlier, marking the 10th consecutive month of declines, but improved from November's 2.2 percent annual drop.

Brent crude futures fell 0.4 percent to $111.50 a barrel and U.S. crude trimmed earlier rises to trade nearly flat at 93.86.

"China's inflation was hotter than expected which might add a little bit of downside risk and some investors may be cashing in profits," said Ben Le Brun, market analyst at OptionsXpress.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> eased 0.2 percent, erasing morning gains that brought the index near its highest level since August 2011 hit last week. The index looked set to end the week virtually flat after starting the first week of 2013 with a 2.4 percent jump.

Shanghai shares <.ssec> tumbled 1.3 percent, dragging Hong Kong shares <.hsi> into negative territory, while Australian shares <.axjo> ended down 0.3 percent.

"It's not the end of the world. We have been trending in overbought territory for more than a week anyway, so this higher headline inflation is a trigger for some profit-taking. We are in a consolidation phase," said Hong Hao, Bank of Communication International's chief equity strategist, based in Hong Kong.

Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo, said the China inflation data offered some positive signs but, given the market's rapid rally over the past month, it was probably used as an excuse to book profits.

"The slight pickup in inflation is still well below the 3.5 percent forecast by China, and may also reflect recovery in consumption," he said, adding that the data was unlikely to significantly dent an overall trend in improving risk appetite.

Unexpectedly strong Chinese trade data on Thursday buoyed hopes that demand from the world's second-largest economy will rise, while cautiously optimistic comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi eased anxiety over the euro zone debt problems.

European markets will likely sustain optimism. Financial spread-betters predicted London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open as much as 0.3 percent higher. U.S. stock futures were little changed, hinting at steady Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>

EPFR Global noted that equity mutual funds have brought in $6.8 billion of inflows over the last four business days, with equity flows exceeding bond flows.

In a sign of some stability, South Korea's central bank held interest rates steady for a third consecutive month on Friday as expected, to assess the effect from two cuts last year. However, the bank also revised down its outlook for South Korea's GDP growth in 2013 to 2.8 percent from 3.2 percent, which along with a sharp rise in the won hurt Seoul shares.

ABE FUELS NIKKEI BUYING

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> closed up 1.4 percent at a 23-month high as the yen's further slide boosted exporters. Japanese financial markets will be closed on Monday for a public holiday. <.t/>

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "is seen seriously committed to making the economy better as he is becoming more detailed, and investors are feeling it is possible under his government," said Kyoya Okazawa, head of global equities at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.

Japan's cabinet approved on Friday an economic stimulus package in the biggest spending boost since the financial crisis as Abe pursues an ambitious agenda to spur growth and end stubborn deflation.

The dollar jumped to 89.35 yen, its highest since June 2010, on strengthening speculation Abe will exert strong pressure on the Bank of Japan to pursue aggressive easing steps. Abe said in an interview with the Nikkei newspaper on Friday that the BOJ should consider maximizing employment as a monetary policy goal to help boost the economy.

The euro surged to 118.58 yen, its highest since May 2011.

The yen selling gained momentum after data on Friday showed Japan had logged a current account deficit in November for the first time in 10 months at 222.4 billion yen ($2.5 billion), overshooting a 3.5 billion yen deficit forecast.

"Fresh short-term players, who know nothing about Japan and have never traded the yen before, are now joining the yen selling, and these fresh faces are responding to headlines," said Yunosuke Ikeda, a senior FX strategist at Nomura Securities.

The euro was last at $1.3261 after earlier hitting a one-week high of $1.3280, helped by a smooth first bond sale of the year from Spain on Thursday, which pushed benchmark 10-year Spanish government bond yields to a 10-month low of 4.90 percent.

As the yen fell, Tokyo gold futures rallied to a record high on Friday to as high as 4,820 yen per gram, exceeding the previous record of 4,754 yen marked on September 7, 2011.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo, Clement Tan in Hong Kong and Ramya Venugopal in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Paul Tait and Chris Gallagher)

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Report on Savile Sexual Abuse Scandal to Be Released

LONDON — British police and the country’s leading children’s charity were preparing on Friday to publish comprehensive details of the sexual abuse scandal involving former television host Jimmy Savile that has convulsed the nation’s public broadcaster, drawn in a mounting tally of suspects and raised questions about the protection of children from predators.

The report was expected to claim that children as young as 10 were among the victims of Mr. Savile, who died October 2011 at age 84. A few weeks later, “Newsnight,” a flagship current affairs program on the British Broadcasting Corporation, canceled an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Mr. Savile shortly before the BBC broadcast Christmas tributes to him.

As the scandal grew, it forced the resignation of the former director general of the BBC, George Entwistle. Police officials said last month that 589 people have made accusations related to the scandal, including 450 allegation of abuse by Mr. Savile, once depicted as a somewhat zany national treasure devoted to charitable works. The accusation include 31 of rape.

In addition, police investigations into abuse by Mr. Savile and other prominent figures in the entertainment industry have led to 10 men being interviewed about sexual accusations that they all deny. Six more men, who have not been identified by name, are under investigation.

The Guardian newspaper said on Friday that the report to be published by Scotland Yard and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children would accuse Mr. Savile of abusing children as young as 10. The institutions where abuse took place included a hospice for the dying, several hospitals and prisons and BBC premises, British news reports said.

Before the report was published, John Cameron, the head of child protection for the children’s charity, told The Guardian: “It is very clear that Savile assaulted very young children and that he was a prolific pedophile, there is no doubt about that. We want this to mark a cultural shift so that if a child speaks out about someone, we take what they are saying seriously and we act upon it always in future.”

A report commissioned by the BBC concluded last month that lax leadership hampered by “rigid management chains” left the corporation “completely incapable” of dealing with the crisis.

A 200-page report by Nick Pollard, a veteran British broadcast executive, strongly criticized the editorial and management decisions that prompted the BBC to cancel the broadcast in 2011 that would have exposed decades of abuse.

But Mr. Pollard absolved top management of applying “undue pressure” in the decision to stop the broadcast.

The report also did not challenge the assertions of Mark Thompson, then head of the BBC, that he had no role in killing the Savile investigation and was unaware of the sexual abuse accusations until he left the BBC this September. Mr. Thompson is now president and chief executive of The New York Times Company.

The report’s central conclusion was that confusion and mismanagement, not a cover-up, lay at the heart of the decision to drop the Savile segment on “Newsnight.”

A second BBC inquiry into the culture of the BBC over decades of abuse is continuing.

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Native Canadians could block development, chief warns

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Native Canadians are so angry that they could resort to blocking resource development and bring the economy “to its knees” unless the Conservative government addresses their grievances, an influential chief said on Thursday.

Native Canadian chiefs are due to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to discuss the poor living conditions facing many of Canada’s 1.2 million aboriginals.

“We have had enough. Our young people have had enough. Our women have had enough … . We have nothing left to lose,” said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak from the province of Manitoba.

Activists have already blockaded some rail lines and threatened to close Canada’s borders with the United States in a campaign they call “Idle No More.”

Canada has 633 separate native “bands,” each of which have their own communities and lands, and not all share the same opinions. The chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the aboriginal umbrella group, said his members had come to a tipping point, but he made no mention of damaging the economy.

“You cannot ignore what is happening with Idle No More… We will drive the final stake in the heart of colonialism and it will happen in this generation,” Shawn Atleo told a separate news conference.

“First Nations are not opposed to resource development, they are just not supportive of development at any cost,” he said.

Native Canadian leaders say they want more federal money, a greater say over what happens to resources on their land and more respect from the federal Conservative government.

“These are demands, not requests,” said Nepinak. “The Idle No More movement has the people – it has the people and the numbers – that can bring the Canadian economy to its knees. It can stop Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s resource development plan,” Nepinak told reporters in Ottawa.

“We have the warriors that are standing up now, that are willing to go that far. So we’re not here to make requests, we’re here to demand attention,” he said.

Aboriginal bands are unhappy about Enbridge Inc’s plans to build a pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific province of British Columbia, and some say they will not allow the project to go ahead.

Some aboriginal bands oppose the Enbridge pipeline on the grounds that it is too environmentally dangerous while others say the company did not do enough to consult them before applying for permission to go ahead with the project.

“DIPLOMATIC HAND”

Nepinak said he wants to extend a “diplomatic hand” toward resolving the issues and gave no details about what he meant by bringing the economy to its knees.

Nepinak and other Manitoba chiefs are also demanding that Ottawa rescind parts of two recent budget acts they say reduce environmental protection for lakes and rivers, and make it easier to sell lands on the reserves where many natives live.

“We’ve been working tirelessly to gain access through various channels into this Harper regime … . How do we trust the words of this prime minister?” Nepinak asked.

Successive Canadian governments have struggled for decades to improve the life of aboriginals.

Ottawa spends around C$ 11 billion ($ 11.1 billion) a year on its aboriginal population, yet living conditions for many are poor, particularly for those on reserves with high rates of poverty, addiction, joblessness and suicide.

As part of the Idle No More campaign, protesters blocked a Canadian National Railway Co line in Sarnia, Ontario, in late December and early January.

($ 1=$ 0.99 Canadian)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway, Xavier Briand and David Brunnstrom)

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Audrey Hepburn: Remembering the Private Legend

By Elizabeth McNeil

01/10/2013 at 07:35 PM EST

Audrey Hepburn with her son, Luca Dotti, in 1985

Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund

She captivated the world with her doe-eyed beauty, but behind the Givenchy glamour, there was an Audrey Hepburn few people knew.

She thought her nose too big, her feet too large and her neck too long. She loved to shop for groceries (but not clothes), didn't wear makeup at home, never went to the gym and enjoyed two fingers of Scotch every night. 

"She was not this ethereal creature," says Robert Wolders, 76, the Dutch actor who was her companion for the last 13 years of her life. "She was an earthy woman with a ribald sense of humor."

What Hepburn had, adds Wolders, "was more than beauty. It was this extraordinary mystique."

Hepburn left Hollywood at age 34 at the height of her fame, moving into a 1732 farmhouse in Tolochenaz, a small Swiss village, where she found happiness raising two sons and purpose in her charity work for UNICEF. 

Two decades after her death from abdominal cancer at 63 on Jan. 20, 1993, her children and her last love remember the Audrey they adored. 

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Flu season strikes early and, in some places, hard

NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.

Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.

While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30 of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.

Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.

"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say. It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people sicker and really lay them low.

David Smythe of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even get up," he said.

Also, the flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.

"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.

Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.

"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.

The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.

One hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.

On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by people with flu-like symptoms.

All the flu activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line with what's been seen in other years.

The vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.

In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years. She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.

But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.

Europe is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has seen a surge in cases of norovirus.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. That's an estimate — the agency does not keep a running tally of adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so far.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.

___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

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Wall Street rises after Alcoa reports earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday, rebounding from two days of losses, as investors turned their focus to the first prominent results of the earnings season.

Stocks had retreated at the start of the week from the S&P 500's highest point in five years, hit last Friday, on worries about possible earnings weakness.

Shares of Alcoa Inc were down 0.5 percent to $9.08 after early gains, following the company's earnings release after the bell on Tuesday. The largest U.S. aluminum producer said it expects global demand for aluminum to grow in 2013.

Herbalife Ltd stock rose 4.2 percent to $39.95 in its most active day of trading in the company's history after hedge fund manager Dan Loeb took a large stake in the nutritional supplements seller. Prominent short-seller Bill Ackman had previously accused the company of being a "pyramid scheme," which Herbalife has denied.

Traders have been cautious as the current quarter shaped up like the previous one, with companies recently lowering expectations, said James Dailey, portfolio manager of Team Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Lower expectations leave room for companies to surprise investors even if their results are not particularly strong.

"The big question and focus is on revenue, and Alcoa had better-than-expected revenue," which calmed the market a little, Dailey said.

Overall, corporate profits were expected to beat the previous quarter's meager 0.1 percent rise. Both earnings and revenues in the fourth quarter are expected to have grown by 1.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 61.66 points, or 0.46 percent, to 13,390.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 3.87 points, or 0.27 percent, to 1,461.02. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 14.00 points, or 0.45 percent, to 3,105.81.

Facebook Inc shares rose above $30 for the first time since July 2012, trading up 5.3 percent at $30.59. Facebook, which has been tight-lipped about its plans after its botched IPO in May, invited the media to its headquarters next week.

Clearwire Corp shares jumped 7.2 percent to $3.13 after Dish Network bid $2.28 billion for the company, beating out a previous Sprint offer and setting the stage for a takeover battle for the wireless service provider that owns crucial mobile spectrum.

Apollo Group Inc slid after heavier early losses, a day after it reported lower student sign-ups for the third straight quarter and cut its operating profit outlook for 2013. Apollo's shares were last off 7.8 percent at $19.32.

Volume was below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion shares traded per day, as 6.10 billion were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,014 to 963, while on the Nasdaq advancers beat decliners 1,603 to 859.

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Censored Newspaper in China Returns to Publication Amid Struggles

GUANGZHOU, China — Propaganda officials in the southern province of Guangdong have agreed to loosen some controls over an embattled newspaper whose struggle against censorship has galvanized free-speech advocates across China, according to journalists at the newspaper. But the paper’s weekly Thursday edition went to press late partly because of internal disputes over content, one senior editor said.

The agreement, reached late Tuesday, was part of a compromise in which reporters and editors who had said they would strike continued to work to put out the newspaper, Southern Weekend, also known as Southern Weekly. It is an iconic liberal publication that has regularly challenged Communist Party officials and policies but has come under tighter control in recent years, particularly since the summer.

The publication delay on Thursday was due in part to a disagreement between the newspaper’s leadership and employees over whether to publish an editorial defending the newspaper and letters of support from readers, the senior editor said. The leadership chose not to publish the editorial or the letters in an effort to calm the crisis, he said.

In Beijing, talk of another newsroom in crisis emerged on Wednesday as reporters at Beijing News, a newspaper co-founded by the parent company of Southern Weekend, said propaganda officials forced the newspaper, against the judgment of its publisher and top editors, to run an editorial attacking Southern Weekend. Some journalists broke down in tears in the newsroom, according to various accounts, and the publisher, Dai Zigeng, threatened to resign, but was still in his job Wednesday night.

The deal in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, appeared to bring a tentative peace to a newsroom in turmoil, though journalists said they would have to see whether provincial officials followed through on their promises.

The journalists appeared to back down from their demands that the top provincial propaganda official, Tuo Zhen, leave his post. Newspaper employees have accused Mr. Tuo of putting in place much stricter censorship rules since he began his job in May; in particular, they said, he had a hand in the rewriting of a New Year’s editorial that was supposed to have been a call for enforcement of constitutional rights but that ended up being more of a paean to the current system. It is unclear what role Mr. Tuo played in the changes, which ignited the call last weekend among some journalists to carry out a strike.

Journalists at Southern Weekend said that under rules imposed by Mr. Tuo, propaganda officials regularly reviewed the content of the paper before it went to print and vetted reporting topics proposed by journalists. Those rules are supposed to be abolished under the new agreement.

Zeng Li, a veteran journalist who reviews articles in-house at Southern Weekend to guard against riling the censors, said, “Now things are calming down.”

“To publish a good paper is the hope of both the leaders and the staff,” he added.

Hu Chunhua, the new party chief of Guangdong, China’s most liberal province, helped mediate the settlement, journalists said. The clash over censorship is the first big test for Mr. Hu, 49, who is considered one of the party’s rising stars and a candidate to be the leader of China in a decade.

The battle at Southern Weekend also poses a challenge for the central authorities. Xi Jinping, the new party chief, made a trip to Guangdong late last year to stress the need to open the economy further. Analysts have wondered whether he will also call for greater political freedoms. Mr. Xi has made remarks, though, that underscore the need for China to remain true to its socialist roots.

Central propaganda officials appear to have taken a tough line on the censorship issue by demanding this week that the biggest news Web sites and some important publications print an editorial criticizing Southern Weekend that was originally published by Global Times, a populist newspaper, and widely derided by Chinese journalists. Beijing News ran a truncated version.

One journalist described the scene in the Beijing News office in a blog post: “Some people look sad; some burst into tears; some shout that they are going to quit.”

The post continued: “We don’t want to kneel down, but our knees have been shattered. We are kneeling down this one time while gnashing our teeth.”

Edward Wong reported from Guangzhou, and Jonathan Ansfield from Beijing. Mia Li contributed research from Guangzhou, and Shi Da from Beijing.

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Facebook to hold press event, stock passes $30

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Facebook are pushing above $ 30 for the first time since July after it sent out invitations to “come and see what we’re building” Tuesday at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

The company will say nothing more about the event. Speculation Wednesday ranged from a Facebook phone, something the company has consistently denied exists, to new search capabilities that would put it into direct competition with Google Inc.

The company emailed invitations to reporters and bloggers Tuesday and by Wednesday, shares passed the $ 30 mark for the first time since July.

Though still below its initial public offering price of $ 38, shares of Facebook Inc. have risen steadily since November as investors grow more confident that the social media site can make money through its growing mobile audience.

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Sandra Bullock Honored at People's Choice Awards for New Orleans Support

By Alison Schwartz

01/09/2013 at 10:45 PM EST

Sandra Bullock at the People's Choice Awards

Jason Merritt/Getty

Sandra Bullock took home big honors for her work in the Big Easy Wednesday night.

The People's Choice Awards crowned the Oscar-winning actress the favorite humanitarian for her career-spanning philanthropic efforts, including her dedication to New Orleans's Warren Easton Charter High School

"I'm not at all being modest when I say I'm not doing anything compared to what they do on a daily basis," Bullock, 48, told the crowd gathered at Los Angeles's Nokia Theatre.

Just six months after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the actress showed her support by adopting the school, which sustained $4 million in damages during the storm. She donated hundreds of thousands of dollars for renovations, telling PEOPLE years later that she "felt such a profound need to do something for them."

Her generosity helped the charter school – the first public high school for boys in Louisiana – afford renovations, new band uniforms, athletic equipment and a new health clinic in a city that's close to her heart. After all, she adopted her son, Louis, from New Orleans in 2010 and also has a home in the Garden District.

She pointed to the tireless dedication of the school's students, teachers and tough principal. "I've seen her," she joked. "Yeah, you don't want to go into that office."

Bullock then gave a shout-out to her son, who was sick as home, she said.

"[The students] compete, but they never cut each other down," she added. "And all that happens not because it's easy, but because they do not allow themselves any other option than to succeed."

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.

Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.

How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in the ovaries or the lining of the uterus, and float down to rest in the cervix, where Pap tests are performed. These cells are too rare to recognize under the microscope. But researchers from Johns Hopkins University used some sophisticated DNA testing on the Pap samples to uncover the evidence — gene mutations that show cancer is present.

In a pilot study, they analyzed Pap smears from 46 women who already were diagnosed with either ovarian or endometrial cancer. The new technique found all the endometrial cancers and 41 percent of the ovarian tumors, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

This is very early-stage research, and women shouldn't expect any change in their routine Paps. It will take years of additional testing to prove if the so-called PapGene technique really could work as a screening tool, used to spot cancer in women who thought they were healthy.

"Now the hard work begins," said Hopkins oncologist Dr. Luis Diaz, whose team is collecting hundreds of additional Pap samples for more study and is exploring ways to enhance the detection of ovarian cancer.

But if it ultimately pans out, "the neat part about this is, the patient won't feel anything different," and the Pap wouldn't be performed differently, Diaz added. The extra work would come in a lab.

The gene-based technique marks a new approach toward cancer screening, and specialists are watching closely.

"This is very encouraging, and it shows great potential," said American Cancer Society genetics expert Michael Melner.

"We are a long way from being able to see any impact on our patients," cautioned Dr. Shannon Westin of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She reviewed the research in an accompanying editorial, and said the ovarian cancer detection would need improvement if the test is to work.

But she noted that ovarian cancer has poor survival rates because it's rarely caught early. "If this screening test could identify ovarian cancer at an early stage, there would be a profound impact on patient outcomes and mortality," Westin said.

More than 22,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and more than 15,000 die. Symptoms such as pain and bloating seldom are obvious until the cancer is more advanced, and numerous attempts at screening tests have failed.

Endometrial cancer affects about 47,000 women a year, and kills about 8,000. There is no screening test for it either, but most women are diagnosed early because of postmenopausal bleeding.

The Hopkins research piggybacks on one of the most successful cancer screening tools, the Pap, and a newer technology used along with it. With a standard Pap, a little brush scrapes off cells from the cervix, which are stored in a vial to examine for signs of cervical cancer. Today, many women's Paps undergo an additional DNA-based test to see if they harbor the HPV virus, which can spur cervical cancer.

So the Hopkins team, funded largely by cancer advocacy groups, decided to look for DNA evidence of other gynecologic tumors. It developed a method to rapidly screen the Pap samples for those mutations using standard genetics equipment that Diaz said wouldn't add much to the cost of a Pap-plus-HPV test. He said the technique could detect both early-stage and more advanced tumors. Importantly, tests of Paps from 14 healthy women turned up no false alarms.

The endometrial cancers may have been easier to find because cells from those tumors don't have as far to travel as ovarian cancer cells, Diaz said. Researchers will study whether inserting the Pap brush deeper, testing during different times of the menstrual cycle, or other factors might improve detection of ovarian cancer.

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Asian shares rise as earnings eyed

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Wednesday as investors resumed buying after taking profits from a sharp rally at the start of the year while warily bracing for corporate earnings season to kick off in full force.

European shares were seen following Asia's lead with a modest rise, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open as much as 0.3 percent higher. U.S. stock futures suggested a firmer Wall Street start with a 0.1 percent gain. <.l><.eu><.n/>

The yen's rebound as part of broader market position adjustments was also short-lived, with the dollar erasing earlier losses to rise 0.5 percent to 87.48 yen on sustained expectations of further monetary easing in Japan.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.4 percent. Hong Kong shares <.hsi> were among the top gainers with a 0.5 percent climb, bouncing from their lowest in a week as Chinese banks were supported by a brokerage upgrade. Shanghai shares <.ssec> rose 0.3 percent.

"We are running into chart resistance now, so investors are looking to rotate into laggards. There is no need to be too bearish right now, at least in the first quarter," said Hong Hao, Bank of Communication International Securities' chief strategist.

Australian shares <.axjo> ended up 0.4 percent to break a three-day losing streak.

Alcoa Inc , the largest aluminum producer in the U.S., with customers in a wide range of industries, launched the U.S. earnings season on Tuesday. It reported a fourth-quarter profit of $242 million, in line with Wall Street expectations.

U.S. corporate profits are expected to be higher than the third quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' estimates are down sharply from where they were in October.

Credit Suisse said in a research note that Asian equity market price indices may start to catch up with earnings estimates which had been outperforming market prices, suggesting further upside scope for Asian share prices.

The consensus earnings forecast so far is flat in January, following virtually flat revisions in December, it said.

"It was the persistent EPS downgrades that led to the gap between equity market price indices and EPS. These flat revisions could act as a catalyst for equity market price indices to converge with EPS," Credit Suisse said.

Data flows were light with Australian retail sales surprisingly fell 0.1 percent in November from October, against forecasts for a 0.3 percent rise on the month, sending the Australian dollar down to session lows of $1.0486 from $1.0517 before the data was released.

China will release its December trade data on Thursday, which includes initial estimates for metals imports and exports.

U.S. crude and Brent both eased 0.1 percent to $93.03 a barrel and $111.86 respectively.

"What we're seeing in the oil markets is the cautious sentiment playing up ahead of some key economic events this week," said Ker Chung Yang, senior investment analyst at Phillips Futures Pte in Singapore.

Australian retail sales: http://link.reuters.com/zew92t

China exports graphic: http://link.reuters.com/kun94t

Euro zone retail sales: http://link.reuters.com/tyb25s

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YEN STAYS WEAK

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> erased earlier losses to end 0.7 percent higher, bolstered by the yen's resumed weakness. The dollar had risen about 12 percent over the past two months against the yen, contributing to the Nikkei's 22 percent jump in the same period. <.t/>

Expectations of much bolder monetary easing from the Bank of Japan to help Tokyo beat deflation under new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have encouraged investors to sell the yen.

But as trading resumed from year-end holidays, analysts and traders said markets were ripe for position adjustments.

"After a good run in risk assets since December, we entered in a phase of consolidation which is moving from Japanese equities to short JPY positions," said Sebastien Galy, FX strategist at Societe Generale in New York, in a note, adding that the dollar could consolidate to 85 yen but must first take out the first Fibonacci retracement at 85.75 yen.

Yen crosses which had been bought the most, including the yen/Korean won, are the most exposed to the correction.

"Such a washout in JPY crosses is the opportunity many long-term investors will be waiting for to continue their switch into strategic short yen positions," he said.

The dollar earlier on Wednesday fell as low as 86.825 yen, having scaled its highest since July 2010 at 88.48 on Friday. The euro also added 0.2 percent to 114.475 yen, off the day lows of 113.55. The euro last week hit 115.995 yen, its highest since July 2011.

The Bank of Japan will consider easing monetary policy again at its January 21-22 meeting, by likely boosting buying of government bonds and treasury discount bills, while considering a doubling of its inflation target to 2 percent.

The euro held steady against the dollar at $1.3086, ahead of Thursday's European Central Bank policy meeting and Spanish and Italian bond auctions toward the end of the week.

Sentiment turned cautious in Asian credit markets, with the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index widening slightly by 1 basis point.

(Additional reporting by Clement Tan in Hong Kong and Ramya Venugopal in Singapore; Editing by Eric Meijer)

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Q. and A. With Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his office on Saturday.

WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration weighs how many troops to keep in Afghanistan after 2014, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal cautioned that the United States still needs to keep forces there to help stabilize the country and urged a continued effort to advise the Afghan military that appears to be more extensive than the White House has in mind.

“If we allow Afghanistan to become completely unstable, Pakistan’s stability is really difficult,” the former American commander in Afghanistan said in a recent interview. “So I think there’s a geostrategic argument for it.”

General McChrystal offered his analysis of Afghanistan in the interview, which coincided with the release of his book “My Share of the Task: A Memoir,” published by Portfolio/Penguin.

The general, who is retired from the Army, was fired by President Obama from his post in 2010 after an article in Rolling Stone quoted him and his staff as making dismissive comments about the White House.

His comments come as Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is scheduled to begin a series of high-level meetings this week in Washington.

Regarding Afghanistan, some analysts have urged that the United States rely mainly on small numbers of commandos to carry out raids against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

But General McChrystal asserted that such “counterterrorism” operations work best when they are coupled with “counterinsurgency” efforts to build up the ability of the host nation to govern and bolster the capability of its forces.

He also noted that to carry out commando raids, the American military needs bases, an intelligence network and arrangements for medical evacuation. “But if you don’t have the support of the Afghan people, if you are just in there doing what you want to do on their terrain, there’s no reason for them to be supportive of this,” he said. “We’d be fighting our own war on their territory, and they’re just not that interested in that.”

On troop numbers, General McChrystal declined to say how many troops the United States might need to keep in Afghanistan after 2014. (The White House is considering retaining a force of 3,000 to 9,000 troops, which would be complemented by a much smaller number of troops from other NATO nations).

General McChrystal agreed that the American force, currently 66,000 troops, should be substantially reduced. But he cautioned advised against retaining too small a force.

“We had 7,500 in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 when I was first stationed there,” he said. “And 7,500 wouldn’t do much.”

An important question for the NATO mission after 2014 is what level of the Afghan military hierarchy would allied nations advise. Under the largest of the troop options under consideration by the White House, it is generally expected that NATO would advise seven regional Afghan Army corps and several regional Afghan police headquarters.

It is unlikely that NATO officers will advise Afghan battalions on the battlefield under this option as that would require many more advisers than the alliance is likely to muster.

But General McChrystal suggested that a more extensive advisery effort was needed to make the Afghan military more effective. “My personal tendency would be to get advisers a little bit lower than corps; I’d want them down to battalion level,” he said.

General McChrystal said he voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 but declined to say whom he had voted for in 2012. He would not discuss the Rolling Stone article in detail but insisted that he had intended no disrespect for the president or his aides.

After the article was published, General McChrystal said that he arrived at his fateful meeting with Mr. Obama on June 23, 2010, with his resignation in hand. The decision whether to accept it was up to the president.

Nick Hubbard contributed research.

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Samsung’s big push for 2013: content, corporates

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics, the global leader in consumer smartphones, is planning two major thrusts in 2013: bulking up mobile content and moving faster into the corporate market dominated by Research in Motion.

The South Korean electronics company is investing in devices that enterprise users like corporations will endorse, with a higher level of security and reliability than general users need. In doing so, Samsung is capitalizing on doubts about the longevity of the BlackBerry as its Canadian maker struggles to revive growth.

Samsung’s corporate market ambitions have advanced as the Galaxy SIII, its popular flagship smartphone, won the requisite security certifications from companies, said Kevin Packingham, chief product officer for Samsung Mobile USA.

As RIM prepares to launch its next-generation BlackBerry 10 this quarter, the company’s future remains shaky. Corporate technology officers have begun to explore other smartphones, such as those by Apple Inc or Samsung.

“The enterprise space has suddenly become wide open. The RIM problems certainly fueled a lot of what the CIOs are going through, which is they want to get away from a lot of the proprietary solutions,” Packingham said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “They want something that integrates what they are doing with their IT systems. Samsung is investing in that area.”

“It’s been a focus for a long time but the products have evolved now that we can really take advantage of that,” he added. “We knew we had to build more tech devices to successfully enter the enterprise market. What really turned that needle was that we had the power of the GS3.”

Samsung in 2012 overtook Apple as the world’s largest maker of smartphones, with a vastly larger selection of cellphones that attacked different price points and proved popular in emerging markets.

German business software maker SAP provides employees with Samsung’s Galaxy S III, the larger Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab, SAP Chief Information Officer Oliver Bussmann said in an interview.

“The one clear trend in enterprise is the shift away from one device to multiple devices,” said Bussman, who makes 10 devices available to SAP employees for official use. The list includes Apple’s iPhone and iPad, Nokia Lumia and RIM’s Blackberry.

“Because of the fragmentation of the Android software, we decided to go with just one Android company and we went with Samsung,” he added.

Now, the Korean hardware specialist is beefing up its software – an area in which it has lagged arch-enemy Apple, which revolutionized the mobile phone from 2007 with its content-rich, developer-led iPhone ecosystem.

Packingham sees an area ripe for innovation – combining the mobile phone with Samsung’s strength, the TV, which has barely evolved in the past decade.

Still, the U.S.-based executive remained cagey about Samsung’s plans for content and enterprise.

“You are going to see from content services, we’ll start to integrate what’s happening on the big screen, what’s happening on the tablet,” he said.

“We know now that people like to explore content that they are watching on TV while they have a tablet in their lap, and that’s going to be a big theme for this year.”

(Editing by Richard Chang)

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Kangaroo Gets Loose at Melbourne Airport

People Pets

01/08/2013 at 08:00 PM EST

Travelers passing through Australia's Melbourne Airport on Monday may have been greeted by an unexpected baggage handler.

At around 7 a.m., a 3-year-old eastern gray kangaroo was spotted in the airport's parking garage, where it hopped around for almost two hours, giving security officers the slip in the process.

Wildlife officer Manfred Zabinskas was then called in to catch the young animal, who was tranquilized in order to be transported to safety. Analyzing the critter, Zabinskas noted he had been away from his natural habitat for some time, and that the romp through the parking garage had done some damage to his feet. Prior to being re-released into the wild, the kangaroo will be looked at by a veterinarian.

This is the second time a kangaroo has paid a visit to the Melbourne Airport. Last October, another marsupial made its way up to the fifth floor of the parking garage before being spotted.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Wall Street edges off five-year high, awaits earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks lost ground on Monday, as investors drew back from recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high, in anticipation of sluggish growth in corporate profits.

Shares of financial companies dipped after a group of major U.S. banks agreed to pay a total of $8.5 billion to end a government inquiry into faulty mortgage foreclosures. The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, was down 0.3 percent.

Other sectors were hit as well, most notably energy and utilities. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.gspe> fell 0.8 percent and the utilities sector <.gspu> was off 1.1 percent.

The day's decline came a session after the S&P 500 finished at a five-year high, boosted by a budget deal and strong economic data. The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent last week, the best weekly gain in more than a year.

"It's a little bit of taking some risk off the table ahead of profit season, you're not going to see anything all that great" on earnings, said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results, and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Fourth-quarter earnings growth is expected to come in at 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Aluminum company Alcoa Inc begins the reporting season by announcing its results after Tuesday's market close. Alcoa shares fell 1.7 percent at $9.10.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 50.92 points, or 0.38 percent, to 13,384.29. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 4.58 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,461.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 2.84 points, or 0.09 percent, to 3,098.81.

Ten mortgage servicers - including Bank of America , Citigroup , JPMorgan , and Wells Fargo - agreed on Monday to pay $8.5 billion to end a case-by-case review of foreclosures required by U.S. regulators.

In a separate case, Bank of America also announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans.

The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.

Bank of America shares lost 0.2 percent at $12.09 while Nationstar Mortgage Holdings jumped 16.8 percent to $38.83.

Citigroup shares were up 0.09 percent to $42.47, and Wells Fargo shares fell 0.5 percent to $34.77.

"The financials probably have the wind behind them now with a lot of the regulations coming out ... the market has to absorb a lot of the gains, and for that reason there's a pullback from this level," said Warren West, principal at Greentree Brokerage Services in Philadelphia.

Shares of U.S. jet maker Boeing Co dropped 2 percent after a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with no passengers on board caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport on Monday morning.

Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock. Shares were up 3.6 percent at $268.46.

Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 3.4 percent to $99.20 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.

Walt Disney Co stock fell 2.3 percent to $50.97. The company started an internal cost-cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

Volume was lower than average, as 4.78 billion shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq. This is well below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion per session.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,629 to 1,363, while on the Nasdaq decliners beat advancers 1,438 to 1,066.

(Reporting By Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Videos of Chávez Promote Stability During Illness

Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

In Caracas on Saturday, Venezuelans showed support for President Hugo Chávez, who is in Cuba after an operation.

CARACAS, Venezuela — They run around the clock on state television, highly polished videos of President Hugo Chávez hugging children, kissing grandmothers, playing baseball and reciting poetry. As supporters around the world hold up hand-lettered signs that say, “I Am Chávez,” the president’s voice is heard in one of them shouting, “I demand absolute loyalty because I am not me, I am not an individual, I am a people!”

In reality, officials say, Mr. Chávez lies in a Cuban hospital bed, struggling through complications from cancer surgery while his country heads toward a constitutional showdown over his absence.

Mr. Chávez’s fragile health has thrown Venezuela into political uncertainty. After being re-elected in October, he is supposed to be sworn in for the start of his new term on Thursday, but the charismatic leader who has dominated every aspect of government here for 14 years may be too ill to return in time, much less continue in office for the next six years. Top government officials insist that the swearing-in is just a formality. The opposition, meanwhile, says the Constitution requires that Mr. Chávez be present or, in his absence, that a process begin that could lead to new elections.

The government’s television barrage seems intent on reassuring loyalists — and anyone who might raise questions — that Mr. Chávez is still very much the head of the nation. By keeping his image front and center, analysts say, the government can bolster its position as the caretaker of his legacy, mobilize its supporters for the battle over interpreting the Constitution and build momentum for itself in elections should Mr. Chávez die or prove too sick to govern.

“They have combined the mechanisms of left-wing struggle with the best marketing team there is,” said J. J. Rendón, a political consultant who opposes the government.

He compared the saga over Mr. Chávez’s illness to a telenovela, one of the popular Latin American soap operas, with its unexpected plot twists that keep viewers on edge. “They are always prepared for different scenarios,” he said of the government.

During past trips to Cuba for cancer treatment over the last year and a half, Mr. Chávez worked to maintain his customary visibility back home, heading televised cabinet meetings, making phone calls to government-run television programs and posting on Twitter.

But this time is different. He has not been seen or heard from since his surgery on Dec. 11.

To fill the void, the government montages combine elements of campaign ads and music videos, sometimes with the feel of a religious revival broadcast.

They are Mr. Chávez’s greatest hits, showing him on the campaign trail or in scenes from happier times during his many years in office, a nostalgic and emotionally charged way for his supporters to connect with their absent leader. Set to rock, rap or folk music, they mine parallels between Mr. Chávez and his hero, the Venezuelan independence leader Simón Bolívar, and resonate with the religious devotion with which some of his followers regard him.

In one, Mr. Chávez is seen reciting a favorite poem exalting Bolívar. Another shows glowing pictures of Mr. Chávez while choirlike voices sing, “Chávez is the triumphant commander, Chávez is pure and noble love.”

“There is a process of converting Chávez into a myth with religious roots,” said Andrés Cañizalez, a communication professor at the Andrés Bello Catholic University.

The television spots, he said, are part of “a political strategy to keep alive this idea that Chávez is not just a political leader but he’s the father of the country, he’s a patriarch, he’s a figure who protects us, who takes care of everything for us, something more than a president.”

Many of Mr. Chávez’s followers already speak of him in religious terms, as a godlike presence, and the campaign seems intended to feed those perceptions.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

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181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter

Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals on Twitter, people who adorn their profiles with credentials like “social media freak” and “social media wonk” and “social media authority.”

RELATED: Teens Hacking Their Friends’s Twitter Accounts Is All the Rage

B.L. Ochman at Advertising Age, whose heroic research produced the final tally, first noted the trend three years ago — when she recorded, among other distinctions, 68 “social media stars” and 79 “social media ninjas” on Twitter alone — and has been keeping track ever since. This isn’t just the stuff of legitimate Twitter news-breakers like Anthony DeRosa and Andy Carvin — Ohman provides a helpful breakdown of the terms she looked for — you know, like “social media warrior.” (We’re tempted to argue that such diligence makes Ochman something of a social media warrior herself.) Ochman also warns of using “guru” — a Sanskrit term — to describe oneself:

While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let’s save “guru” (Sanskrit for “teacher”) for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.

I’d argue, in fact, that “social media” and “guru” should never appear in the same sentence.

Whatever the term, social media seems to be a growth industry: there were only 15,740 “mavens” (or whatever) in 2009 — less than a tenth of those represented today.

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Justin Bartha Is Dating Trainer Lia Smith

01/07/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Lia and Justin in Hawaii New Years Day

Pacific Coast News

Justin Bartha's "mystery woman" is in fact his girlfriend, trainer Lia Smith, a source reveals to PEOPLE.

The pair recently enjoyed a cozy trip to Smith's native Hawaii and were snapped basking in the sun on Maui on New Year's Day, which got people buzzing about her identity.

"They were very cute with each other," says an eyewitness. "They had their arms around each other and were kissing."

The couple also spent time with Smith's parents on Oahu. Bartha, who currently stars on The New Normal, was previously linked to Scarlett Johansson and dated Ashley Olsen for two years before breaking up in 2011.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Asian shares slip, Basel ruling supports banks

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian stocks drifted down on Monday as investors booked profits from a New Year rally that had pushed markets to multi-month highs, although financial stocks gained after global regulators decided to relax draft plans for tough new bank liquidity rules.

Commodity prices mostly held steady, supported by data showing the U.S. economy continuing on a path of slow but steady recovery that propelled Wall Street stocks to a five-year high.

Financial bookmakers called Europe's main share indexes to open flat or slightly lower, while S&P 500 index futures traded in Asia eased 0.2 percent, pointing to a weaker start in New York.

"It just seems like markets are entering a consolidation phase after recent gains and with most markets trading at fresh 12-month highs," said Stan Shamu, market strategist at financial spreadbetting firm IG in Melbourne.

The dollar fell against the yen, coming off a two-and-a-half year peak it had logged against the Japanese currency as investors adjusted to the possibility of more monetary stimulus in 2013 from the Bank of Japan and less from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus>, which had reached its highest level since August 2011 on Thursday, eased 0.1 percent, while Tokyo's Nikkei share average <.n225> retreated after touching a 23-month high in early trade to close down 0.8 percent. <.t/>

CASH BUFFERS

The MSCI benchmark's financial sector sub-index <.miapjfn00pus> firmed after the Basel Committee of banking supervisors agreed on Sunday to give banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers so they can use some of their reserves to help struggling economies.

HSBC Holdings Hong Kong shares rose 1 percent, while Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd gained 0.6 percent. <.hk><.ax/>

Shares in Japanese exporters were supported by the trend of a weakening yen, which traded around 87.85 to the dollar, up 0.3 percent on the day, after the U.S. currency rose as far as 88.40 yen, its highest in nearly two-and-a-half years, on Friday.

The dollar posted a gain of around 2.7 percent against the yen last week, its biggest weekly rise in more than a year. Its gains had accelerated after minutes from the Federal Reserve's December meeting showed some policymakers had considered ending the Fed's bond-buying program as early as this year.

By contrast, many investors are now betting that Japan's new government, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will push to weaken the yen and drive through aggressive fiscal stimulus, and pressure the Bank of Japan to do the same on the monetary side.

Although the dollar may pull back against the yen given the speed of its rise over the past month, its uptrend seems likely to remain intact, said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan for UBS in Tokyo.

"My sense is that the market could still head much higher," Maeba said. "I think 90 yen might be reached pretty soon."

The dollar firmed against the euro, which traded around $1.3035.

The U.S. stock benchmark S&P 500 index <.spx> closed at its highest level since December 2007 on Friday after data showed a steady pace of jobs growth and brisk expansion of the services sector in the world's biggest economy.

That offered support to growth-sensitive commodities, with copper little changed just below $8,100 a tonne, while Brent crude oil eased a little to around $111.20.

Spot gold firmed 0.3 percent to around $1,660 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Masayuki Kitano; Editing by Eric Meijer)

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