IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Feb. 19

NEWS An overwhelming percentage of online attacks toward U.S. companies, organizations and government agencies originate from one area of a Shanghai neighborhood, home to a Chinese army unit, according to a report by the computer security firm Mandiant. David E. Sanger, David Barboza and Nicole Perlroth report.

In a surprise predawn homecoming, President Hugo Chávez returned to Venezuela more than two months after having cancer surgery in Cuba, potentially clearing up some of the legal questions that have roiled the nation during his absence but doing little to dispel the uncertainty over who is running the country. William Neuman reports from Caracas.

With conditions continuing to deteriorate, President Obama may reopen the debate over providing weapons to opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria. Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon report from Washington.

The president of the European Central Bank sought to ease fears that countries including Japan were deliberately weakening their currencies. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

Striking ground workers and flight attendants for Iberia, the money-losing Spanish airline, clashed with riot police officers at Madrid-Barajas Airport on the first day of work stoppages to protest a plan to eliminate more than 3,800 jobs. Nicola Clark reports.

The online retailer Amazon severed all contact with the security company whose guards are alleged to have worn clothing associated with neo-Nazis and intimidated immigrant temporary workers. Melissa Eddy reports from Berlin.

FASHION Christopher Kane’s first show for PPR is a blend of original ideas, new silhouettes and otherworldly effects. Suzy Menkes writes from London.

ARTS Two exhibitions in Udine, Italy, reflect the grand ambitions of Giambattista Tiepolo, the 18th-century Venetian artist. Roderick Conway Morris reviews from Udine, Italy.

SPORTS Back on top at age 31, Serena Williams’s achievement should rank high on a list of career achievements that already includes 15 Grand Slam singles titles. Christopher Clarey reports.

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Burger King apologizes after Twitter hacking

Somebody hacked Burger King‘s Twitter account on Monday, posting obscene messages and changing its profile picture to a McDonald’s logo.

The tweets stopped after a little more than an hour, and Burger King said it had reached out to Twitter to suspend the account. A Twitter spokesman did not immediately respond to a phone message left on Monday.

Late Monday, Burger King tweeted: “Interesting day here at BURGER KING, but we’re back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!”

Burger King, which usually tweets several times a week, typically does so to promote sales on chicken sandwiches, or to ask questions such as how many bites it takes to eat a chicken nugget.

But just after noon EST on Monday, someone tweeted via Burger King’s account, “We just got sold to McDonalds!” They also changed the icon to rival McDonald Corp.‘s golden arches and the account’s background picture to McDonald’s new Fish McBites.

About 55 tweets and retweets followed over the next hour and a quarter, including some that contained racial epithets, references to drug use and obscenities. The account tweeted: “if I catch you at a wendys, we’re fightin!”

Monday’s appropriation of Burger King’s Twitter account was a relatively mild example of cybersecurity problems, which are causing increasing concern in Washington and for industry. Media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have all said this year that their computer systems were breached, while several NBC websites were briefly hacked in November. White House officials and some lawmakers are pursuing legislation that would make it easier for the government and industry to share information on how to defend against hacking.

Burger King didn’t know who hacked the account, and no other social media accounts were affected, said Bryson Thornton, a spokesman for Miami-based Burger King Worldwide Inc. Its social media team and an outside agency manage the Twitter account, but Thornton declined to say how many people knew the account’s password. Late Monday, Thornton issued an apology to the company’s Twitter followers.

“Earlier today, our official BK Twitter Account was compromised by unauthorized users,” Thornton said in a statement. “Upon learning of this incident, our social media teams immediately began working with Twitter security administrators to suspend the compromised account until we could re-establish our brand’s official Twitter page. We apologize to our loyal fans and followers, whom might have received unauthorized tweets from our account. We are pleased to announce that the account is now active again.”

Twitter acknowledged on Feb. 1 that cyber attackers may have stolen user names and passwords of 250,000 users. It said at the time that it notified users of the breach.

Competitors were sympathetic.

McDonald’s responded on Twitter that it empathized with its Burger King counterparts. “Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking.”

“My real life nightmare is playing out” on Burger King’s twitter feed, wrote Wendy’s social media worker Amy Rose Brown.

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Mindy McCready: Under Police Scrutiny at Time of Suicide?

By Steve Helling and Mike Fleeman

02/18/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

Mindy McCready and David Wilson

Courtesy Mindy McCready

When Mindy McCready talked to police in recent weeks, her account of how her boyfriend came to be found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head concerned police, a law enforcement source tells PEOPLE.

"At first, she said she hadn't heard the gunshot because the TV was too loud. Then she said she had heard the gunshot," the source says. "So obviously there were a lot of questions, and the Sheriff was asking for clarification."

But before investigators could re-interview her, the long-troubled country singer also would die under eerily similar circumstances, her body discovered at the same Heber Springs, Ark., house just feet away from where David Wilson died.

McCready's death was blamed on what "appears to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound," the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

This differed from how the sheriff characterized Wilson's case. His cause and manner of death still have not been established by the coroner. It was McCready's publicist, and not a law enforcement official, who announced that Wilson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

After Wilson's death, McCready, 37, spoke to investigators three times, but they didn't feel as if they were through with her.

"At no point did [police] tell her she was a suspect, and she wasn't officially one," says the source. "But she knew that some of her answers didn't stand up to questioning. She was very cooperative, but she just wasn't making a lot of sense."

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women

CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.

The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.

"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.

Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.

"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."

Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.

That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.

The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.

"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."

___

Online:

Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com

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Japan stocks rally to near four-year highs, yen resumes fall after G20

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese shares surged 2.1 percent on Monday and were on the brink of revisiting four-year highs tapped recently, as the yen slumped after Tokyo dodged direct criticism from G20 peers on its aggressive reflation plans that have weakened the currency.

The G20 opted not to single out Tokyo, but committed members to refrain from competitive devaluations and said monetary policy would be directed only at price stability and growth. Japan said this decision is a green light to pursue its expansionary policies.

The market's focus is now on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's nominee for the next Bank of Japan governor. Abe is expected to announce his choice in coming days.

Sources told Reuters on Friday that former top financial bureaucrat Toshiro Muto is leading the field of candidates to govern the bank. He may intensify stimulus efforts to energise the economy but might not pursue unconventional easing measures.

"The G20 basically gave tacit approval for currency weakening as a result of monetary easing, and not intervention. So that puts focus on what the BOJ will do next. As long as the BOJ shows its seriousness about stamping out deflation, the yen's decline will likely be tolerated," said Citibank Japan chief FX strategist Osamu Takashima.

The dollar gained 0.5 percent to 93.97 yen inching closer to its highest since May 2010 of 94.465 hit on February 11. The euro added 0.3 percent to 125.34 yen, still below its peak since April 2010 of 127.71 yen touched on February 6.

The Nikkei average <.n225> closed up 2.1 percent as exporters and banks led the pack on the softening yen, after surging as much 2.4 percent earlier to come close to its highest level since September 2008 of 11,498.42 tapped on February 6. <.t/>

"The G20 effect is already seen in Abe's general comments on forex today which steered away from giving specifics on a preferred level or direction for the yen," said Yunosuke Ikeda, a senior FX strategist at Nomura Securities.

Abe said on Monday that the BOJ's monetary easing is aimed at beating deflation, not at manipulating the forex market and weakening the yen, and said correcting excessive yen rises would be an appropriate policy direction. Previously, Japanese officials have noted that the current yen selling was a correction to the past excessive yen strength.

The yen's weakness weighed on emerging Asian currencies while South Korean shares <.ks11> eased 0.3 percent on concerns about the eroding competitive edge for the country's exporters.

Japan will keep pursuing its current policy, said Yuna Park, a currency and bond analyst at Dongbu Securities in Seoul. "The rest of Asia will not just wait and see. That will put more pressure on Asian currencies," he said.

A weaker yen would make other currencies relatively stronger against the dollar and fuel speculation that other Asian countries could step in to curb the strength of their currencies, Nomura's Ikeda said.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> paused, after moving in a narrow range. The pan-Asian index briefly hit a 18-1/2-month high on Friday and had its best performance since the week of January 6 with a 1.2 percent weekly gain.

Australian shares led the pan-Asian index with a 0.6 percent rise as a string of earnings reports supported a view that the local economy was in better-than-expected shape.

Markets in China and Taiwan resumed trading after a week-long holiday.

Indonesian stocks <.jkse> inched up 0.1 percent after setting a record high for a fifth straight session on Friday, while shares in Thailand <.seti> were up 0.2 percent as the country's economy grew a robust 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months.

European markets may track lower, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open down 0.1 percent. U.S. stock futures were barely changed. U.S. markets will be closed on Monday for the President's Day holiday. <.l><.eu><.n/>

STOCKS CONSOLIDATE

Data from EPFR Global on Friday underscored that a consolidation was underway in global equities after their recent rally. It showed investors worldwide pulled $3.62 billion from U.S. stock funds in the latest week, the most in ten weeks after taking a neutral stance the prior week. But demand for emerging market equities remained strong, with investors putting $1.81 billion in new cash into stock funds, the fund-tracking firm said.

Commodities markets awaited clues on demand from China, the top consumer.

"China's overall economy is still strong, so the appetite for base metals after Chinese New Year will gradually pick up," said Helen Lau, senior commodity analyst at UOB-Kay Hian in Hong Kong.

London copper fell 0.4 percent to $8,170 a tonne as traders played catch up after a week-long holiday in China, with worries about the euro zone economy weighing on sentiment.

U.S. crude fell 0.2 percent to $95.68 a barrel but Brent inched up 0.1 percent to $117.82.

Gold rebounded from a six-month low on bargain hunting and as jewellers in China returned to the physical market after the Lunar New Year holiday.

(Additional reporting by Jongwoo Cheon; and Melanie Burton in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Eric Meijer)

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IHT Rendezvous: In Singapore's Immigration Debate, Sign of Asia's Slipping Middle Class?

BEIJING — Immigration is a hot-button issue nearly everywhere in the world, though the contours of the debate vary from place to place. In the United States, sweeping changes to the law may offer legal residency for millions of people who have entered the country illegally, my colleague Ashley Parker reports.

In Singapore, the debate looks somewhat different: The government plans to increase the population from just over five million to a possible high of nearly seven million by 2030, via regulated, legal immigration, and this is provoking opposition.

So much so that on Saturday, about 3,000 people turned out for what some commentators said was one of the biggest demonstrations in the nation’s history. (If the number seems small, it reflects the tight political control exerted over Singapore life by the People’s Action Party, which has run the country for about half a century and discourages public protest.)

What are the contours of the debate in Singapore?

Concern over booming immigration, often focused on new arrivals from increasingly rich China, has been simmering in the nation, with many feeling that the immigrants do not play by the same rules, that their manners are poor and that they are pushing up prices. That feeling crystallized last year when a wealthy Chinese man driving a Ferrari at high speed killed three people (including himself) in a nighttime accident.

(Similar sentiments are found in Hong Kong, as my colleagues Bettina Wassener and Gerry Mullany wrote.)

Vividly illustrating the resentment, Singaporeans sometimes call the wealthy immigrants “rich Chinese locusts,” according to an article in the Economic Observer’s Worldcrunch.

So the Singapore government’s Population White Paper that passed in Parliament earlier this month, just before Chinese New Year, was bound to stir things up.

The government is presenting the rise in immigration as a target that is needed if Singapore, where immigrants already make up about 40 percent of the population, and which has the highest concentration of millionaires in the world, is to continue to flourish, reports said. Singaporeans just are not having enough children, said the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong.

“In my view, in 2030, I think six million will not be enough to meet Singaporeans’ needs as our population ages because of this problem of the baby boomers and bulge of aging people,” Mr. Lee said in Parliament, adding that 6.9 million was not a target but a number to be used to help plan for infrastructure.

“Do we really need to increase our population by that much?” wrote a person called Chang Wei Meng in a letter to The Straits Times, according to Reuters. “What happened to achieving the Swiss standard of living?”

Gilbert Goh, a main organizer of the rally Saturday at Singapore’s Speaker’s Corner in a public park, said the protesters had a message: “They want to tell the government, please reconsider this policy. The turnout is a testimony that this policy is flawed and unpopular on the ground,” The Associated Press quoted Mr. Goh as saying.

Yet amid the familiar rhetoric about immigrants, heard around the world – they don’t fit in, they’re rude, they’re different – might something more important be going on here?

In a blog post on Singapore News Alternative, Nicole Seah, a politician who has run for Parliament and comments on social issues, wrote: “Along with many other Singaporeans, I oppose the White Paper.”

Why? She is looking for “a society that lives in harmony, rather than tense and overcrowded conditions,” she writes.

“Not the Singapore Inc. that has been aggressively forced down our throats the past few years – a Singapore which is in danger of becoming a transient state where people from all over, come, make their fortunes, and leave.”

Not “a Singapore that has become a playground for the rich and the people who can afford it. A Singapore where the middle class is increasingly drowned out because they do not have the social clout or sufficient representatives in Parliament to voice their concerns.”

Ms. Seah’s statements raise an interesting question: Is this part of a phenomenon that the columnist Chrystia Freeland has written about so ably for this newspaper, the ascendancy of a wealthy, “plutocrat” class and the slipping status of the middle class?

As Ms. Freeland wrote last week: “The most important fact about the United States in this century is that middle-class incomes are stagnating. The financial crisis has revealed an equally stark structural problem in much of Europe.” Is it hitting Asia, too, and does Singapore’s protest speak, at least in part, to this? Hong Kong’s dissatisfaction too?

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Can Vanilla Ice, Hardwick take Streamys to the mainstream?

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Nerd god Chris Hardwick, 1990s rap icon Vanilla Ice and a gallant troupe of YouTube stars have the same mission this weekend – to turn the unknown Streamy Awards into the Golden Globes of online video.

That’s why Tubefilter, which conceived the show to honor the best in online video and helped produce its first two iterations, has partnered with Dick Clark Productions, the company that produces the Globes, as well as the American Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards.

Unlike those events, this show will not be broadcast — it will stream online — but DCP and Tubefilter have planned the event like a major awards show.

They recruited Hardwick, a popular figure with the young, male online community. A former radio DJ turned stand-up comedian and creator of Nerdist Industries, he is something of a professional emcee, hosting podcasts and TV shows — and an unavoidable presence at Comic-Con in San Diego.

They’ve set it at the Palladium, square in the middle of Hollywood, with an after party on the Sunset Strip.

Deep-pocketed companies like Coca-Cola have agreed to sponsor the show, adding a veneer of credibility to a show three years removed from disaster.

Technological glitches, tasteless jokes and streakers marred the 2010 edition, prompting the board of directors of the International Academy of Web Television, which produced the show, to pen a self-lacerating memo.

“Last night in the end was a step backwards for all of us,” Michael Wayne, the board of directors for the IAWTV, wrote. “Like you we watched the show with great embarrassment as our industry was ridiculed and debased.”

He concluded with: “I hope you will judge us not by how hard we have fallen, but by how well we get up, dust ourselves off, and learn from our mistakes.”

Yet IAWTV abandoned the show, launching its own awards that occur during January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Streamys took three years off, and Tubefilter brought in DCP to, in the words of DCP’s Ariel Elazar, “reinvigorate the brand.”

Still, doubts remain.

“An awards show should highlight the best of what it’s honoring for the public outside of that community to have an understanding of what’s going on. Because of problems over the last few years of shows attempting to do that and failing miserable, we may still be too early,” Rafi Fine, who with his brother Benny constitute popular YouTubers The Fine Brothers, told TheWrap.

The Fine Brothers created original video content for each of the first two shows, and though apprehensive, expressed some optimism that the show has found the right formula. They are nominated nine times and are also presenting.

Tubefilter co-founder Drew Baldwin said the first two shows suffered because they were tailored to people in the industry rather than outside fans.

Taking a cue from the Grammys and AMAs, they hope to overcome that problem with Hardwick and memorable musical performances. The lineup mixes well-known musical acts like Vanilla Ice and Soulja Boy with YouTube talent, such as DeStorm and Mike Tompkins.

“At the Golden Globes, Dick Clark brought out Bill Clinton, and it was one of those moments where everyone was freaking out,” Baldwin said.

While few would equate Vanilla Ice with the former president, the goal this year is to inspire through collaboration. Just as the Grammys pair iconic musicians with up-and-comers, Streamy producers hope pairing nouveau digital stars with more mainstream talent will push the awards toward the mainstream without alienating its core audience.

The third edition of the Streamys arrive at a golden time for the online video industry. Premiere Hollywood talent has jumped into the space, writing, directing, producing and starring in shows for YouTube, Yahoo and others. YouTube stars like The Annoying Orange and Fred have amassed enough fans on YouTube — with millions of subscribers — to cross over into television and film. Successful shows like Yahoo’s “Burning Love” are screening at film festivals like South by Southwest.

“The YouTube culture, in a way, does shun television culture and other forms of media,” Corey Moss, vice president of digital at Principato-Young, which manages talent and produces shows, told TheWrap. “There are fans of KassemG and Toby Turner who don’t want their idol to start popping up on TV or awards shows. On the opposite end of that, there are people making great digital content with A-list Hollywood talent who would appreciate that their talent is recognized.”

To please both sides, Dick Clark and Tubefilter have created separate awards for user-generated content and higher-budget series.

So, for example, in the Best Host category, old media stalwart Larry King will compete against YouTube sensation KassemG and the relatively unknown Mark Malkoff.

The Best Comedy Series category pits “Burning Love,” a Yahoo series whose backers include Ben Stiller and Paramount, against “MyMusic,” a channel from the Fine Brothers, YouTube pioneers unknown to wide swaths of the population.

“Every time I’ve seen the nominees list for the Streamys or IAWTV it made me go ‘we’re nowhere,’” Benny Fine told TheWrap. “Until the Streamys this year where I felt OK. It could be the first time outsiders looking in have something to really look at.”

(Editing by Chris Michaud)

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Downton Abbey's Season 3 Finale: Shocking, Says PEOPLE's TV Critic

Downton Abbey

By Tom Gliatto

02/17/2013 at 10:00 PM EST

Downton Abbey season 3 cast

Carnival Film & Television/PBS

Downton Abbey's third season finale on PBS's Masterpiece was, to say the least, a spoiler's paradise. The episode, which saw the Granthams and servants going on holiday in the Scottish Highlands, started on a joyful note – Lady Mary was pregnant! – and ended with a shock that would have knocked the hat off Lady Violet wobbling head.

SPOLIER ALERT: Major plot points to be revealed immediately.

Cousin Matthew (Dan Stevens) died in a car accident. He was driving back to Downton, so happy he was practically whistling, just after Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) had given birth to their son – the male Downton heir everyone has been so obsessed with since Season 1.

Many viewers probably saw this coming: For one thing, Stevens had said he was thinking of decamping before season 4 started shooting. And after the finale had its premiere broadcast in Britain in December, he blabbed all about it, including for an interview posted online by The New York Times.

Even so, the death was almost sadistically abrupt and arbitrary, especially after the soft tenderness and growing love between Mary and Matthew in recent episodes. Now we saw dead poor Matthew dumped on the cold mossy ground, eyes wide open.

You can never be sure Downton writer-creator Julian Fellowes won't pull some shameless stunt to kick-start a story – in season 2 Matthew, paralyzed during the war, suddenly leaped out of his wheelchair – but he seemed to want us to be sure that Matthew was 100% gone. I wouldn't have been surprised if the car backed over the corpse.

So ended a terribly sad season of Downton.

We already suffered the loss in childbirth of Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay). Her deathbed scene was unflinching and deeply moving as she gasped for breath and called for help. Her poor mother (Elizabeth McGovern) sobbed in despair, and the doctors couldn't agree on what to do.

Millions of viewers cried, too, and sighed for a long time afterward. Those who didn't are probably evil.

That scene was the heart of the season: Sybil was so beautiful and kind and gracious and spirited, and so different from her fractious sisters. It was if one were to discover a rare, transcendent soul among the Kardashians. Her death robbed the show of a lovely presence, and also brought out the best moments yet from McGovern and Maggie Smith, as Lady Violet.

It never ceases to annoy me, to be honest, that Lady Violet's feeble witticisms are treated as if they were Oscar Wilde one-liners on loan, like Harry Winston jewels. If you want real witticisms, try any contemporary American sitcom, including FX's Archer.

But this season, as Violet grieved, we saw how much depth Smith can invest in a single moment. At one point in the finale, she looked up as dinner was announced, and in her enormous eyes you saw a woman who wished she could just chuck the whole damn thing and dwell on her memories.

I wish I could say I will miss Matthew, but all in all an unattached Lady Mary is better than a married one. She was never sexier than in the first season, when she sneaked off to bed with velvety, sensual Mr. Pamuk, who unfortunately kicked the bucket while they made love.

Mary is a wonderful creation – the show's most original, complex character – capable of bouncing from romance to sorrow to sarcasm. You could say her love for Matthew transformed her, but it also had the potential to dull her.

Matthew was blandly handsome and good and patient and full of improving notions, but not terribly exciting. He was like a Bachelor from a much earlier period.

There isn't much else to say about the finale. Fellowes worked through a number of plots with his usual tangy glibness. The performances were all delightful, tart, full of emotion, humor and regret.

For now, we can look forward to Lady Mary at her most beautiful, because most woeful, in season 4.

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Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior

SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.

The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.

"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.

The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.

Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.

At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.

By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.

"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.

The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.

Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.

Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.

"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.

Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.

During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.

Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.

"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.

____

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

___

Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship

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After decent rally, perhaps time for a pause

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance.

Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> by 6.6 percent since the start of the year.

The S&P 500 ended up 0.1 percent for the week, recovering from a late sell-off on Friday after a Bloomberg report about slow February sales at Wal-Mart triggered a slide in the retailer's shares. It was the index's seventh week of gains.

Odds of a pullback are increasing, with the market in slightly overbought territory, said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.

"I do suspect the closing of the earnings season will lead to at least a pause and possibly a pullback," Zaro said. The S&P 500 could shave 3 to 5 percent between now and early April, he said.

Fourth-quarter earnings have mostly beaten expectations. Year-over-year profit growth for S&P 500 companies is now estimated at 5.6 percent, up from a January 1 forecast for 2.9 percent growth, and 70 percent of companies are exceeding analyst profit expectations, above the 62 percent long-term average, according to Thomson Reuters data.

On Thursday, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is due to report results, unofficially closing out the earnings period. Investors will be keen to see its quarterly numbers, especially after the Friday's news report that rattled investors.

The S&P 500 has gained 4.3 percent since Alcoa kicked off the earnings season on January 8.

The approaching March 1 deadline for across-the-board federal budget cuts unless Congress reaches a compromise adds another reason for caution, especially with recent economic data indicating the recovery remains bumpy.

Manufacturing output fell 0.4 percent last month, the Federal Reserve said on Friday, but production in November and December was much stronger than previously thought.

TESTING RESISTANCE

The S&P 500 has been trading near five-year highs, and it notched its highest level since November 2007 this week. But the gains have pushed the benchmark index almost as far as it is likely to go in the near term, with strong resistance hovering around 1,525 and 1,540, one analyst said.

As a result, the index is set to move sideways, said Dave Chojnacki, market technician at Street One Financial in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania. "We just don't have the volume or the catalyst right now" to go above those levels, he said.

At the same time, other analysts say, the market has not shown significant signs of slowing, including a break below 15- and 30-day moving averages.

Such moves would be needed to show that momentum is slowing or that the market is at risk of a correction, said Todd Salamone, director of research for Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio. The S&P 500's 14-day moving average is at 1,511 while the 30-day is at 1,494. The index closed Friday at 1,519.

Recent M&A activity, including news this week of a merger between American Airlines and US Airways Group , helped provide some strength for the market this week and optimism that more deals may be on the way.

In the coming days, the market will focus on minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting, due to be released on Wednesday, which could provide support if they suggest the Fed will remain on its current course of aggressive monetary easing.

The Fed minutes released in January spooked markets a bit when they revealed that some Fed officials thought it would be appropriate to consider ending asset purchases later in 2013. U.S. Treasury yields rose on that news, though market worries about a near-term end to quantitative easing have since faded.

Among other companies expected to report earnings next week are Nordstrom , Hewlett-Packard and Marriott International

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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