"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.

Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.

That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.

Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.

In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.

"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.

Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.

U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.

Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.

"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.

REVENUE WORRIES

One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.

S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.

On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.

For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.

Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.

In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.

"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.

Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.

Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Venezuela lawmakers elect Chavez ally as Assembly chief

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan lawmakers re-elected a staunch ally of Hugo Chavez as leader of the National Assembly on Saturday, putting him in line to be caretaker president if the socialist leader does not recover from cancer surgery.

By choosing the incumbent, Diosdado Cabello, the "Chavista"-dominated legislature cemented the combative ex-soldier's position as the third most powerful figure in the government, after Chavez and Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

"As a patriot ... I swear to be supremely loyal in everything I do, to defend the fatherland, its institutions, and this beautiful revolution led by our Comandante Hugo Chavez," Cabello said as he took the oath, his hand on the constitution.

He had earlier warned opposition politicians against attempting to use the National Assembly to conspire against the people, saying they would be "destroyed" if they tried.

Thousands of the president's red-clad supporters gathered outside parliament hours before the vote, many chanting: "We are all Chavez! Our comandante will be well! He will return!"

If Chavez had to step down, or died, Cabello would take over the running of the country as Assembly president and a new election would be organized within 30 days. Chavez's heir apparent, Maduro, would be the ruling Socialist Party candidate.

Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area in mid-2011, has not been seen in public nor heard from in more than three weeks.

Officials say the 58-year-old is in delicate condition and has suffered multiple complications since the December 11 surgery, including unexpected bleeding and severe respiratory problems.

Late on Friday, Maduro gave the clearest indication yet that the government was preparing to delay Chavez's inauguration for a new six-year term, which is scheduled for Thursday.

'RESPECT DEMOCRACY'

Maduro said the ceremony was a formality, and that Chavez could be sworn in by the Supreme Court at a later date. The opposition says that is a "twisted reading" of the constitution.

"The president right now is president," Maduro told state television. "Don't mess with the people. Respect democracy."

The opposition says Chavez's absence would be just the latest sign that he is no longer fit to govern, and that new elections should be held in the South American OPEC nation.

Last year, the president staged what appeared to be a remarkable comeback from his illness to win re-election in October, despite being weakened by radiation therapy. He returned to Cuba for more treatment within weeks of his victory.

Should the president have to step down after 14 years in office, a new vote would probably pit Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state.

Capriles lost to Chavez in October's presidential election.

"I don't think Maduro would last many rounds in a presidential race. He's not fit for the responsibility they have given him," Capriles said after the vice president's appearance on state television.

Chavez's condition is being watched closely by leftist allies around Latin American who have benefited from his oil-funded generosity, as well as investors attracted by Venezuela's lucrative and widely traded debt.

The country boasts the world's biggest crude reserves. Despite the huge political upheaval Chavez's exit would cause, the oil industry is not likely to be affected much in the short term, with an extension of "Chavismo" keeping projects on track, while a change in parties could usher in more foreign capital.

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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The Secret iPad List to Bring Down Boehener

When the failed House Republican revolution came, it came by iPad. Now that House Speaker John Boehner has survived the rebellion, all of D.C. now knows which conservative House members were conspiring to mount a challenge, thanks to a list that one of the coup’s leaders brandished on the House floor during the vote.

RELATED: United Nation Fights the ‘Asshole Factor’

A Politico photographer captured Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas (pictured above), who Boehner had removed from a committee for refusing to cooperate, tapping his iPad during the roll call, checking off a list of names of other Congressmen he thought might join him in voting against Boehner. The list was titled, appropriately, “You would be fired if this goes out,” Politico’s Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan report. They hedge, “It’s not clear that any of the Republicans on Huelskamp’s list knew they were on it, or even knew of the list’s existence,” but let’s look at who were at least expected to vote against Boehner:

RELATED: Boehner Puts Down House Republican Coup

• Steve King of Iowa


• Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming


• Paul Gosar of Arizona


• Scott Garrett of New Jersey


• Steve Fincher of Tennessee


• Scott Desjarlais of Tennessee

Earlier this week, outgoing Louisiana Rep. Jeff Landry bragged to Breitbart News that the anti-Boehner ranks were 17 to 20 members strong, though in the end, only nine voted against their speaker, while two didn’t vote, and one voted present. Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle reports on Friday that there were several more names on Huelskamp‘s list:

RELATED: Boehner Was Afraid Issa Would Go Full Pumpkin-Shooter on His Holder Probe

• Jeff Duncan of South Carolina


• Mo Brooks of Alabama


• Sam Graves of Missouri


• Steve Southerland of Florida


• Trey Gowdy of South Carolina


• David Schweikert of Arizona


• Tom Cotton of Arkansas


• Brett Guthrie of Kentucky

Perhaps Huelskamp anticipated some would chicken out, since if some poor aide risked being “fired” for the list getting out, surely a House member might fear the wrath of Boehner for actually voting against him.

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Justin Bieber Weed Controversy Statement

After a photo of Justin Bieber allegedly holding a marijuana joint went viral on Friday, the singer took to Twitter in an attempt to clear the smoke.

RELATED - Justin Bieber Confronts Paparazzi 

"Everyday growing and learning. Trying to be better. U get knocked down, u get up," he posted on January 5. "I see all of u. I hear all of u. I never want to let any of you down. I love u."

RELATED - Bieber's Failed Murder Plot

While Bieber didn't directly address the photo, he went on to comment on his constant critics. "2013 ... new challenges. new doubters...Im ready. We are ready. see u all tomorrow and everyday after that," he wrote.

This was a rocky end to an already rough week for Bieber as a paparazzi attempting to get a photo of him was killed by a passing car. "While I was not present nor directly involved with this tragic accident, my thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victim," he said in a statement. "Hopefully this tragedy will finally inspire meaningful legislation and whatever other necessary steps to protect the lives and safety of celebrities, police officers, innocent public bystanders, and the photographers themselves."

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FDA: New rules will make food safer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.

The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.

The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. The new guidelines were announced Friday.

Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.

Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.

"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.

The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.

The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.

The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.

Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.

In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."

The new rules could cost large farms $30,000 a year, according to the FDA. The agency did not break down the costs for individual processing plants, but said the rules could cost manufacturers up to $475 million annually.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the success of the rules will also depend on how much money Congress gives the chronically underfunded agency to put them in place. "Resources remain an ongoing concern," she said.

The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.

Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.

"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

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Wall Street inches up after data; Apple extends fall

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged higher on Friday and the S&P 500 was on track for its biggest weekly gain in over a year after a jobs report showed employers kept the pace of hiring steady in December.

The S&P 500 index's weekly gain would be its largest since December 2011. The index recorded the largest daily gain in more than a year on Wednesday following the "fiscal cliff" agreement.

Shares of Apple Inc dropped 2.3 percent to $529.62, continuing its downward path of recent months and pressuring the Nasdaq.

Adding to concerns about the iPhone maker's ability to produce more innovative products, rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is expected to widen its lead over Apple in global smartphone sales this year with growth of 35 percent. Market researcher Strategy Analytics said Samsung had a broad product lineup.

The market improved modestly after data from the Institute for Supply Management, which showed the U.S. service sector grew at its fastest pace in 10 months in December, boosted by a rise in new orders.

"The jobs number today was somewhat benign. It was pretty close to what estimates were, so there wasn't much to draw out volatility," said Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York.

"I get the sense we're just sort of going to digest the events of earlier this week," he said, referring to the fiscal cliff deal.

The Labor Department said payrolls outside the farming sector grew by 155,000 jobs last month, slightly below November's level. Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to healthcare.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 19.04 points, or 0.14 percent, at 13,410.40. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 4.47 points, or 0.31 percent, at 1,463.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 4.06 points, or 0.13 percent, at 3,104.62.

Eli Lilly and Co stock rose 3.7 percent to $51.57 after the pharmaceuticals maker said it expects its 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share, excluding items, from $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012.

Shares of Mosaic Co gained 2.7 percent to $58.29. Excluding items, the fertilizer producer's quarterly earnings beat analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. [ID:nL4N0A93GG]

The Mosaic move helped boost the S&P Materials index <.gspm> to 0.8 percent, the biggest gainer of the major sector indexes.

The rise in payrolls shown by the jobs data did not make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, but it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.

Concerns about the duration of the Fed's stimulus program prompted a pull-back from the market Thursday after a rally.

Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, released Thursday, showed Fed officials were increasingly worried about the risks of asset purchases to financial markets, though they looked set to continue with the open-ended stimulus program for now.

"I think you saw that in the reaction yesterday," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles, adding that he thinks the equity markets will not be dragged further by the Fed minutes.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

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Abbas sees Palestinian unity as Fatah rallies in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave.

"Soon we will regain our unity," Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the 2007 civil war between the two factions, said in a televised address to hundreds of thousands of followers marching in Gaza on Friday, with yellow Fatah flags instead of the green of Hamas.

The hardline Hamas movement, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, expelled secular Fatah from Gaza during the war. It gave permission for the rally after the deadlock in peace talks between Abbas's administration and Israel narrowed the two factions' ideological differences.

The Palestinian rivals have drawn closer since Israel's assault on Gaza assault in November, in which Hamas, though battered, claimed victory.

Egypt has long tried to broker Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, but past efforts have foundered over questions of power-sharing, control of weaponry, and to what extent Israel and other powers would accept a Palestinian administration including Hamas.

An Egyptian official told Reuters Cairo was preparing to invite the factions for new negotiations within two weeks.

Israel fears grassroots support for Hamas could eventually topple Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.

"Hamas could seize control of the PA any day," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

The demonstration marked 48 years since Fatah's founding as the spearhead of the Palestinians' fight against Israel. Its longtime leader Yasser Arafat signed an interim 1993 peace accord that won Palestinians a measure of self rule.

Hamas, which rejected the 1993 deal, fought and won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006. It formed an uneasy coalition with Fatah until their violent split a year later.

Though shunned by the West, Hamas feels bolstered by electoral gains for Islamist movements in neighboring Egypt and elsewhere in the region - a confidence reflected in the fact Friday's Fatah demonstration was allowed to take place.

"The success of the rally is a success for Fatah, and for Hamas too," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "The positive atmosphere is a step on the way to regain national unity."

Fatah, meanwhile, has been riven by dissent about the credibility of Abbas's statesmanship, especially given Israel's continued settlement-building on West Bank land. The Israelis quit Gaza unilaterally in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.

"The message today is that Fatah cannot be wiped out," said Amal Hamad, a member of the group's ruling body, referring to the demonstration attended by several Abbas advisers. "Fatah lives, no one can exclude it and it seeks to end the division."

In his speech, Abbas promised to return to Gaza soon and said Palestinian unification would be "a step on the way to ending the (Israeli) occupation".

(Editing by Dan Williams, Alistair Lyon and Jason Webb)

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Did Microsoft Just Announce the Next Xbox with a Countdown? Probably.

Go countdowns, saving marketing departments untold piles of cash! Microsoft’s Larry Hryb, colloquially known by his Xbox LIVE handle “Major Nelson,” just threw one up on his blog, and it’s causing precisely the sort of speculative stir the company doubtless intended.

“And it’s on…” reads the ultra-austere post, followed by a simple Flash-based timer titled “Counting down to E3 2013″ (cribbed from a generic countdown-building site).

“O rly?” as a certain memetic predator might say.

I won’t speculate past the probability of the new console itself — everything I’ve noticed about specs and pricing amounts to echo chamber gossip. If you’d rather just goof around, hop on over to NeoGAF, where gamers go mostly to make fun of each other (and everything between), and you’ll find a rollicking thread full of cracks, quips, the usual goofy/creepy animated GIFs and occasional chants of “Let’s go, Durango” (“Durango” is supposedly what the next Xbox’s development kits are codenamed).

Could the countdown be to anything but the next Xbox? At this point, much as I’d like to see Microsoft wait another year or two before introducing new hardware to give developers more time to do amazing things with the Xbox 360′s more than competent internals, and as gimmicky as countdowns are, this one’s punchline feels inexorable.

Besides, imagine the disappointment in five months if it turned out to be simply a new franchise, the next Halo or heaven forbid, a standalone “Kinect 2.”

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Stars Without Makeup!

Jessie J

The usually dolled-up Jessie J went surprisingly bare-faced recently and shared the rare picture with her Twitter followers. "Holly taking pictures of me looking rough 'chillin with no makeup on,'" the Price Tag singer tweeted.

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FDA proposes sweeping new food safety rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens.

The long-overdue regulations are aimed at reducing the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.

The FDA's proposed rules would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.

Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in some of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at the Colorado farm where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout a New Mexico peanut processing plant and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems and how they would correct them.

"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.

The new rules come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.

In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are often eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.

None of the proposed regulations would take effect until after a 120-day comment period. The FDA also is giving the farmers ample time beyond that to comply. Larger farms wouldn't be regulated for more than two years; smaller farms would have even more time.

The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.

Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.

"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

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Wall Street rises after post-cliff deal rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged up on Thursday, adding to Wall Street's biggest single-day rally in a year on Wednesday after a deal in Washington to avert the "fiscal cliff."

Investors were more wary than in the previous sessions as they turned their focus to upcoming battles in Congress, including likely bitter fights over spending cuts and raising the federal debt ceiling.

"I would be cautious of big moves going forward. There are still some clouds over the horizon, with the fiscal issue of the government. We don't know how they're going to pan out, but in all likelihood there's not going to be a calamity," said Jeff Meyerson, head of trading at Sunrise Securities in New York.

Wednesday's rally began 2013 with Wall Street's best performance in over a year after the House of Representatives passed a measure to avert the fiscal cliff, which could have caused a recession.

The S&P Energy index <.gspe> rose the most of the major sector indexes, at 0.52 percent, led in part by CONSOL Energy , which said it expects to sell more non-core assets in 2013. CONSOL was up 3.5 percent to $32.09.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 6.30 points, or 0.05 percent, at 13,418.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 2.05 points, or 0.14 percent, at 1,464.47. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 5.12 points, or 0.16 percent, at 3,117.39.

Retailers were mixed on Thursday after releasing December sales reports in an uncertain economy.

Shares in U.S. retailer Costco Wholesale Corp rose 1.4 percent to $102.88 after the company reported a better-than-expected 9 percent rise in December sales at stores open at least a year, primarily boosted by an additional sales day in the reporting period.

Gap Inc stock rose nearly 2 percent to $31.99 following news that the retailer will buy women's fashion boutique Intermix Inc for $130 million to enter the luxury clothes market, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Family Dollar Stores Inc stock dropped 11.7 percent to $56.52 on the company's report of lower-than-expected quarterly profit as its emphasis on selling more everyday items like cigarettes and soft drinks put pressure on margins.

Hiring data did not boost equity prices despite showing U.S. private employers added more jobs than expected in December.

"The report now sets the stage, as we expect a strong non-farm payroll reading on Friday," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York

The government's broader monthly payrolls report, due on Friday, is expected to show the economy created 150,000 jobs compared with 146,000 in November, according to a Reuters poll. The U.S. unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 7.7 percent.

Another report on Thursday showed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, but year-end holidays likely distorted the picture of labor market conditions.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon, Editing by Bernadette Baum and Kenneth Barry)

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Syria rebels in push to capture air base

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - Rebels battled on Thursday to seize an air base in northern Syria, part of a campaign to fight back against the air power that has given President Bashar al-Assad's forces free rein to bomb rebel-held towns.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the 21-month-old uprising and civil war, the United Nations said this week, sharply raising the death toll estimate in a conflict that shows no sign of ending.

After dramatic advances over the second half of 2012, the rebels now hold wide swathes of territory in the north and east, but are limited in exerting control because they cannot protect towns and villages from Assad's helicopters and jets.

Hundreds of fighters from rebel groups were attempting to storm the Taftanaz air base, near the northern highway that links Syria's two main cities, Aleppo and the capital Damascus.

Rebels have been besieging air bases across the north in recent weeks, in the hope this will reduce the government's power to carry out air strikes and resupply loyalist-held areas.

A rebel fighter speaking from near the Taftanaz base overnight said the base's main sections were still in loyalist hands but insurgents had managed to infiltrate and destroy a helicopter and a fighter jet on the ground.

The northern rebel Idlib Coordination Committee said the rebels had detonated a car bomb inside the base.

The government's SANA news agency said the base had not fallen and that the military had "strongly confronted an attempt by the terrorists to attack the airport from several axes, inflicting heavy losses among them and destroying their weapons and munitions".

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain, said as many as 800 fighters were involved in the assault, including Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful group that Washington considers terrorists.

Taftanaz is mainly a helicopter base, used for missions to resupply army positions in the north, many of which are cut off by road because of rebel gains, as well as for dropping crude "barrel bombs" of explosives on rebel-controlled areas.

"WHAT IS THE FAULT OF THE CHILDREN?"

Near Minakh, another northern air base that rebels have surrounded, government forces have retaliated by regularly shelling and bombing nearby towns.

In the town of Azaz, where the bombardment has become a near nightly occurrence, shells hit a family house overnight. Zeinab Hammadi said her two wounded daughters, aged 10 and 12, had been rushed across the border to Turkey, one with her brain exposed.

"We were sleeping and it just landed on us in the blink of an eye," she said, weeping as she surveyed the damage.

Family members tried to salvage possessions from the wreckage, men lifting out furniture and children carrying out their belongings in tubs.

"He (Assad) wants revenge against the people," said Abu Hassan, 33, working at a garage near the destroyed house. "What is the fault of the children? Are they the ones fighting?"

Opposition activists said warplanes struck a residential building in another rebel-held northern town, Hayyan, killing at least eight civilians.

Video footage showed men carrying dismembered bodies of children and dozens of people searching for victims in the rubble of the destroyed building, shouting "God is greatest". The provenance of the video could not be independently confirmed.

In addition to their tenuous grip on the north, the rebels also hold a crescent of suburbs on the edge of Damascus, which have come under bombardment by government forces that control the center of the capital.

On Wednesday, according to opposition activists, dozens of people were incinerated in an inferno caused by an air strike on a petrol station in a Damascus suburb where residents were lining up for precious fuel.

The civil war in Syria has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts that rose out of uprisings across the Arab world in the past two years.

Assad's family has ruled for 42 years since his father seized power in a coup. The war pits rebels, mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, against a government supported by members of Assad's Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect and some members of other minorities who fear revenge if he falls.

The West, most Sunni-ruled Arab states and Turkey have called for Assad to leave power. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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More leaked BlackBerry Z10 pictures emerge along with new details

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Julianne Hough Speaks About Escaping Dark Past

ET was first to sit down with Julianne Hough on the set of her new movie Safe Haven and the actress opens up about a dark period in her past that "sucked the life out of me."

Hough, who recently revealed physical and mental abuse she suffered in the past, said she identifies with her character in Safe Haven, who's forced to confront her dark past. "Being Katie, I relate a lot to her. The fact that she had been in one situation that just sucked the life out of her, and it was a bad situation, and she needed to change and move on and kind of find her own again. And through that you find love and everything."

RELATED: Julianne Hough Reveals Horrific Childhood Abuse

The 24-year-old actress -- who is known for playing upbeat roles and appearing on Dancing with the Stars -- said it is the first time she's really opened up publicly about her darker times. "I think a lot of people got to know me through Dancing with the Stars and don't really know about my past before that, which I don't talk about much," Hough said.

"But yeah, I've been through certain things that have sucked the life out of me... and just the light about me was gone... and I was just a dark person," she added. "So I had to leave that situation and kind of come into my own again and I did."

VIDEO: Julianne Hough: Rock of Ages Set with Tom Cruise is a 'Blast'

Tune in to ET tonight for more of Julianne's interview.

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Flu? Malaria? Disease forecasters look to the sky

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a 10 percent chance of showers today, but a 70 percent chance of flu next month.

That's the kind of forecasting health scientists are trying to move toward, as they increasingly include weather data in their attempts to predict disease outbreaks.

In one recent study, two scientists reported they could predict — more than seven weeks in advance — when flu season was going to peak in New York City. Theirs was just the latest in a growing wave of computer models that factor in rainfall, temperature or other weather conditions to forecast disease.

Health officials are excited by this kind of work and the idea that it could be used to fine-tune vaccination campaigns or other disease prevention efforts.

At the same time, experts note that outbreaks are influenced as much, or more, by human behavior and other factors as by the weather. Some argue weather-based outbreak predictions still have a long way to go. And when government health officials warned in early December that flu season seemed to be off to an early start, they said there was no evidence it was driven by the weather.

This disease-forecasting concept is not new: Scientists have been working on mathematical models to predict outbreaks for decades and have long factored in the weather. They have known, for example, that temperature and rainfall affect the breeding of mosquitoes that carry malaria, West Nile virus and other dangerous diseases.

Recent improvements in weather-tracking have helped, including satellite technology and more sophisticated computer data processing.

As a result, "in the last five years or so, there's been quite an improvement and acceleration" in weather-focused disease modeling, said Ira Longini, a University of Florida biostatistician who's worked on outbreak prediction projects.

Some models have been labeled successes.

In the United States, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of New Mexico tried to predict outbreaks of hantavirus in the late 1990s. They used rain and snow data and other information to study patterns of plant growth that attract rodents. People catch the disease from the droppings of infected rodents.

"We predicted what would happen later that year," said Gregory Glass, a Johns Hopkins researcher who worked on the project.

More recently, in east Africa, satellites have been used to predict rainfall by measuring sea-surface temperatures and cloud density. That's been used to generate "risk maps" for Rift Valley fever — a virus that spreads from animals to people and in severe cases can cause blindness or death. Researchers have said the system in some cases has given two to six weeks advance warning.

Last year, other researchers using satellite data in east Africa said they found that a small change in average temperature was a warning sign cholera cases would double within four months.

"We are getting very close to developing a viable forecasting system" against cholera that can help health officials in African countries ramp up emergency vaccinations and other efforts, said a statement by one of the authors, Rita Reyburn of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea.

Some diseases are hard to forecast, such as West Nile virus. Last year, the U.S. suffered one of its worst years since the virus arrived in 1999. There were more than 2,600 serious illnesses and nearly 240 deaths.

Officials said the mild winter, early spring and very hot summer helped spur mosquito breeding and the spread of the virus. But the danger wasn't spread uniformly. In Texas, the Dallas area was particularly hard-hit, while other places, including some with similar weather patterns and the same type of mosquitoes, were not as affected.

"Why Dallas, and not areas with similar ecological conditions? We don't really know," said Roger Nasci of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is chief of the CDC branch that tracks insect-borne viruses.

Some think flu lends itself to outbreak forecasting — there's already a predictability to the annual winter flu season. But that's been tricky, too.

Seasonal flu reports come from doctors' offices, but those show the disease when it's already spreading. Some researchers have studied tweets on Twitter and searches on Google, but their work has offered a jump of only a week or two on traditional methods.

In the study of New York City flu cases published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors said they could forecast, by up to seven weeks, the peak of flu season.

They designed a model based on weather and flu data from past years, 2003-09. In part, their design was based on earlier studies that found flu virus spreads better when the air is dry and turns colder. They made calculations based on humidity readings and on Google Flu Trends, which tracks how many people are searching each day for information on flu-related topics (often because they're beginning to feel ill).

Using that model, they hope to try real-time predictions as early as next year, said Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University, who led the work.

"It's certainly exciting," said Lyn Finelli, the CDC's flu surveillance chief. She said the CDC supports Shaman's work, but agency officials are eager to see follow-up studies showing the model can predict flu trends in places different from New York, like Miami.

Despite the optimism by some, Dr. Edward Ryan, a Harvard University professor of immunology and infectious diseases, is cautious about weather-based prediction models. "I'm not sure any of them are ready for prime time," he said.

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Wall Street extends gains on "cliff" deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks jumped on the year's first day of trading, after Washington lawmakers cut a last-minute deal to avert automatic tax hikes that threatened to stunt economic growth.

With the gains, the S&P 500 was on target for its highest close since October 19.

The rally was broad-based, with nine stocks rising for every one falling on the New York Stock Exchange. All 10 S&P 500 industry sector indexes rose at least 1 percent, led by the S&P financial index <.gspf>, up 2.2 percent.

The S&P Information Technology index <.gspt> gained 2.1 percent. Among the strongest names in the sector was Hewlett-Packard , which climbed nearly 5 percent to $14.95. HP's gain followed a miserable 2012, when the stock fell nearly 45 percent.

On New Year's Day, while the U.S. stock market was closed, Congress passed a bill to raise taxes on wealthy individuals and families, and preserve certain benefits, while avoiding immediate austerity measures. The combination of mandatory tax hikes and reduced federal spending, which had been set to go into effect on January 1, had been known as the "fiscal cliff.

"We had three choices: We were going to be off the cliff, we were going to be on the cliff, or we were going to avoid the cliff, and we avoided it," said Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago.

"There's a relief rally, some progress because we raised revenue, but I think it's going to be short-lived because the relief rally today was created by politics, and the next cliff is going to be created by politics."

The vote avoided income-tax hikes for all U.S. households, but failed to resolve other political budget showdowns. Spending cuts of $109 billion in military and domestic programs were delayed for just two months, as another fight over the U.S. debt limit also looms then.

The market's surge was due to "the concrete news as opposed to a lack of specific news" that was common during the negotiations, said Stephen Carl, head of U.S. equity trading at The Williams Capital Group in New York.

U.S. stocks ended 2012 with the S&P 500 up 13.4 percent for the year, as investors largely shrugged off worries about the fiscal cliff. For the year, the Dow gained 7.3 percent and the Nasdaq jumped 15.9 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 223.60 points, or 1.71 percent, to 13,327.74. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> advanced 24.61 points, or 1.73 percent, to 1,450.80. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> climbed 66.87 points, or 2.21 percent, at 3,086.38.

Bank shares rose following news that U.S. regulators are close to securing another multibillion-dollar settlement with the largest banks to resolve allegations that they unlawfully cut corners when foreclosing on delinquent borrowers.

Bank of America Corp rose 3.4 percent to $11.99 and Wells Fargo shares added 2 percent to $34.87. JPMorgan Chase & Co shares rose 1.5 percent to $44.34.

Shares of Zipcar Inc jumped 48.4 percent to $12.23 after Avis Budget Group Inc said it would buy Zipcar for about $500 million in cash to compete with larger rivals Hertz and Enterprise Holdings Inc. Avis rose 4.5 percent to $20.72.

Shares of Apple rose 2.4 percent to $545, boosting technology stocks, following a report that the most valuable tech company has started testing a new iPhone and a new version of its iOS software. Apple stocks struggled in the final weeks of 2012 before a rally to end the year.

U.S. manufacturing expanded slightly in December after an unexpected November contraction, an Institute for Supply Management report showed on Wednesday.

A Commerce Department report showed U.S. construction spending fell in November for the first time in eight months, as an extended bout of weakness in the business sector outweighed modest growth in outlays on residential projects.

The stock market's reaction to both reports was muted.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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U.N. lifts Syria death toll to "truly shocking" 60,000

AMMAN/GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 60,000 people have died in Syria's uprising and civil war, the United Nations said on Wednesday, dramatically raising the death toll in a struggle that shows no sign of ending.

In the latest violence, dozens were killed in a rebellious Damascus suburb when a government air strike turned a petrol station into an inferno, incinerating drivers who had rushed there for a rare chance to fill their tanks, activists said.

"I counted at least 30 bodies. They were either burnt or dismembered," said Abu Saeed, an activist who arrived in the area an hour after the 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) raid in Muleiha, a suburb on the eastern edge of the capital.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in Geneva that researchers cross-referencing seven sources over five months of analysis had listed 59,648 people killed in Syria between March 15, 2011 and November 30, 2012.

"The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking," she said. "Given that there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013."

There was no breakdown by ethnicity or information about whether the dead were rebels, soldiers or civilians. There was also no estimate of an upper limit of the possible toll.

Previously, the opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the toll at around 45,000 confirmed dead but said the real number was likely to be higher.

FATAL RUSH FOR PETROL

Muleiha, the target of Wednesday's air strike, is a residential and industrial area in the eastern Ghouta region of Damascus that also houses a Syrian air defense base.

Video footage taken by activists showed the body of a man in a helmet still perched on a motorcycle amid flames engulfing the scene. Another man was shown carrying a dismembered body.

The video could not be verified. The government bars access to the Damascus area to most international media.

The activists said rockets were fired from the base at the petrol station and a nearby residential area after the air raid.

"Until the raid, Muleiha was quiet. We have been without petrol for four days and people from the town and the countryside rushed to the station when a state consignment came in," Abu Fouad, another activist at the scene, said by phone.

In Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad's forces fired artillery and mortars at the eastern districts of Douma, Harasta, Irbin and Zamlaka, where rebels are active, activists living there said.

Assad's forces control the centre of the capital, while rebels and their sympathizers hold a ring of southern and eastern suburbs that are often hit from the air.

The Observatory said a separate air strike killed 12 members of a family, most of them children, in Moadamiyeh, a southwestern district near the centre of Damascus where rebels have fought for a foothold.

The family of an American freelance journalist, James Foley, 39, said on Wednesday he had been missing in Syria since being kidnapped six weeks ago by gunmen. No group has publicly claimed responsibility for his abduction.

Syria was by far the most dangerous country for journalists in 2012, with 28 killed there.

The conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule and turned into an armed revolt after months of government repression.

Insurgents trying to topple Assad see his air power as their main threat. They hold swathes of eastern and northern provinces, as well as some outlying parts of Damascus, but have been unable to protect their territory from relentless attack by helicopters and jets.

In the north, rebels, some from Islamist units, attacked the Afis military airport near Taftanaz air base, firing machineguns and mortars at helicopters on the ground to try and make a dent in Assad's air might, the Observatory said.

The al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham Brigade and other units in northwestern Idlib province were attacking the base, which is near the main north-south highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, the Observatory said.

In recent months, rebel units have besieged military bases, especially along the highway, Syria's main artery.

The Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, said the attack was the latest of several attempts to capture the base. A satellite image of the airport shows more than 40 helicopter landing pads, a runway and aircraft hangars.

Syrian state media gave no immediate account of the Damascus air strikes or the fighting in the north.

"FOR GOD'S EYES"

Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities in the 21-month-old conflict, but the United Nations says the government and its allies have been more culpable.

In the latest evidence of atrocities, Internet video posted by Syrian rebels shows armed men, apparently fighters loyal to Assad, stabbing two men to death and stoning them with concrete blocks in a summary execution lasting several minutes.

Reuters could not verify the provenance of the footage or the identity of the perpetrators and their victims. The video was posted on Tuesday but it was not clear where or when it was filmed. However it does clearly show a summary execution and torture, apparently being carried out by government supporters.

At one point, one of the perpetrators says: "For God's eyes and your Lord, O Bashar," an Arabic incantation suggesting actions being carried out in the leader's name.

The video was posted on YouTube by the media office of the Damascus-based rebel First Brigade, which said it had been taken from a captured member of the shabbiha pro-government militia.

The perpetrators show off for the camera, smiling for close-up shots, slicing at the victims' backs, then stabbing them and bashing them with large slabs of masonry.

Syria's civil war is the longest and deadliest conflict to emerge from uprisings that began sweeping the Arab world in 2011 and has developed a significant sectarian element.

Rebels, mostly from the Sunni Muslim majority, confront Assad's army and security forces, dominated by his Shi'ite-derived Alawite sect, which, along with some other minorities, fears revenge if he falls.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alistair Lyon/Mark Heinrich)

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How to Sync All Your Calendars Onto One Smartphone

It’s a simple request: I just want my online calendars to sync with my smartphone… is that too much to ask? It took some initial research and finesse, but I’ve discovered the best ways to get your Yahoo and Google calendars to appear on either an Android or Apple IOS mobile device.

Google Calendar on Android Phone
When you first set up your Android phone, you had to create or enter your Google account info, so the phone already has the login info for your Google Calendar. Now you can go to your phone’s Settings, choose Accounts, click the Google account and then make sure “Sync Calendar” is checked. Then go to the Calendar App on your Android phone and it should be there.

For multiple calendars, hit the Settings button and then Calendars to customize which Google calendars you see.

Yahoo Calendar on Android Phone
Although it seems like it should be easy to add the Yahoo Calendar to your Android, I never got mine to sync. Theoretically, you would open the Android calendar on your phone, hit the Settings option, and Add Account. But depending on the flavor of Android I tried, I either couldn’t add a Yahoo account or when I did, it didn’t sync. It could just be me, but I found a lot of people online with the same issue. So I tried one of the most recommended apps to solve the problem – Smoothsync for Yahoo. It costs just under three dollars, and once you install it, you can sync all your Yahoo calendars into the native Android calendar. Ah, sweet relief.

[Related: New Tricks for New (and Old) Androids]

Yahoo Calendar on iPhone
On your IOS device, hit Settings. If you haven’t added your Yahoo Account yet, do so by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.” Once you’ve input your Yahoo login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure calendars is on. Hit the Home button, open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see all your calendars listed under Yahoo. If you only have one Yahoo calendar, make sure you check to have it show in your IOS Cal. Also, many people have multiple Yahoo calendars: a family calendar, a work calendar, a soccer team calendar for the kids, and a personal calendar. You can customize which of these Yahoo Calendars show up by checking or unchecking them in this screen.

Google Calendar on iPhone
It’s a little more complicated, but you can also put a Google or Gmail calendar on the iPhone. Here’s how:

If you only have your one personal Google calendar to sync, you do things the same way as with Yahoo: Go to Settings on your IOS device, add your Google account (if you haven’t done so yet) by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.”

Once you’ve input your Google login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure Calendars is on. Hit the Home button, then open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see your calendar listed under Google. You can track those Google dates in the IOS calendar and multiple Yahoo calendars at the same time.

But if you want multiple Google calendars, you need an app for that. Google does let you do this through their mobile site, but that’s basically just a website without the power of notifications and all the extras you like from your calendars. So I suggest getting the CalenMob app. It’s free with ads or $ 5 ad-free. It syncs all your Google calendars to the app (not the native IOS calendar) and adds in notification options, SMS functions and email alert options. It also syncs simultaneously to your Yahoo calendars.

[Related: True/False: Never Sell Your Old Phone]

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Jennifer Lawrence: Acting Is Stupid

Jennifer Lawrence may be an Oscar nominee and the lead in the wildly popular Hunger Games film franchise, but she doesn't take her job too seriously.

"Not to sound rude, but [acting] is stupid," the actress told Vanity Fair magazine's February issue. "Everybody's like, 'How can you remain with a level head?' And I'm like, 'Why would I ever get cocky?' I'm not saving anybody's life. There are doctors who save lives and firemen who run into burning buildings. I'm making movies. It's stupid."

RELATED: JLaw takes on TV role

That being said, Lawrence does admit that her Hunger Games role as Katniss has trickled over into her personal life, revealing that she keeps a bow and arrow at her home. "One time I actually used it for defense. I pulled into my garage and I heard men in my house. And I was like, 'I'm not letting them take my stuff.' I had just gotten back from training, so I had the bow and arrows in the back of my car. I went to my car and I put this quiver on me and I had my bow and I loaded it and I'm walking up the stairs. And I look, and my patio doors were open, and there were guys working right there, and I was like, 'Heyyy, how you doin?'"

RELATED VIDEO: Is this JLaw's funniest interview ever?

Despite being on the A-list, this 22-year-old actress is just like us when it comes to meeting her idols. She confessed to VF, "Once I'm obsessed with somebody, I'm terrified of them instantly. I'm not scared of them - I'm scared of me and how I will react. Like, for instance, one time someone was introducing me to Bill Maher, and I saw Meryl Streep walk into the room, and I just stared at Meryl Streep. I just creepily stared at her."

Do you agree with Lawrence? Is acting "stupid"?

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

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

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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"Fiscal cliff" moves to House, timing and outcome uncertain

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington's last-minute scramble to step back from a recession-inducing "fiscal cliff" shifted to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday after the Senate approved a bipartisan deal to avoid steep tax hikes and spending cuts.

In a rare late-night show of unity, the Senate voted 89 to 8 to raise some taxes on the wealthy while keeping income taxes low on more moderate income voters.

The bill's prospects were less certain in the House, where a vote had not yet been scheduled. Many conservative Republicans have rejected tax increases on any Americans, no matter how wealthy. Some liberal Democrats were also upset with a complex deal that they thought gave away too much.

Lingering uncertainty over U.S. tax and spending policy has unnerved investors and depressed business activity for months, and lawmakers had hoped to reach a deal before Tuesday, when a broad range of automatic tax increases and spending cuts would begin to punch a $600 billion hole in the economy.

Financial markets have avoided a steep plunge on the assumption that Washington would ultimately avoid pushing the country off the fiscal cliff into a recession.

With financial markets closed for the New Year's Day holiday, lawmakers have one more day to close the deal.

"My district cannot afford to wait a few days and have the stock market go down 300 points tomorrow if we don't get together and do something," Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, said on the House floor.

The bill passed by the Senate at around 2 a.m. would raise income taxes on families earning more than $450,000 per year. Low temporary rates that have been in place for less affluent taxpayers for the past decade would be made permanent, along with a range of targeted tax breaks put in place by President Barack Obama in the depths of the 2009 recession.

However, workers would see up to $2,000 more taken out of their paychecks as a temporary payroll tax cut was set to expire.

The bill would also delay an across-the-board 8 percent spending cut to domestic and military programs for two months, and extend jobless benefits for 2 million people who otherwise would see them run out.

Obama in a statement on Monday urged the House to vote. "There's more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I'm willing to do it," he said.

Republicans had hoped to include significant spending cuts in the deal to narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits. Conservatives were already looking forward to the next battle over the debt ceiling, in late February, to extract deficit reduction measures from the Democratic president.

Vice President Joe Biden, who was instrumental in pushing through the Senate measure, was scheduled to address a closed-door meeting of House Democrats. Their support likely will be needed to pass the bill.

Republican members were to meet to discuss "a path forward," a senior aide said.

The meeting could help Republicans leaders decide when to begin consideration of the White House-backed measure. A vote could come later in the day, but was not yet scheduled.

The conservative Club for Growth urged a "no" vote on the Senate measure, saying it would be on its "congressional scorecard" used to challenge members of Congress.

Liberal groups also have urged Democrats to reject the deal.

Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO labor union, wrote on Twitter that the deal does not raise taxes enough on the wealthy and "sets the stage for more hostage taking" by Republicans in future budget confrontations.

Republican Representative Tom Cole said his House colleagues should pass the Senate bill rather than try to change it.

"We ought to take this deal right now, and we'll live to fight another day," Cole said on MSNBC. "Putting to bed this thing before the markets (open on Wednesday) is really a pretty important thing to do."

(Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Fred Barbash and Vicki Allen)

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About 60 crushed to death in Ivory Coast stampede

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - About 60 people were crushed to death in a stampede outside a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan after a New Year's Eve fireworks display, the government said on Tuesday.

The incident took place near Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium where a crowd had gathered to watch fireworks, emergency officials said.

One of the injured, speaking to Reuters at a hospital, said security forces had arrived to break up the crowd, triggering a panic in which many people fell over and were trampled.

"The provisional death toll is 60 and there are 49 injured," Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said in a statement broadcast on national television.

President Alassane Ouattara, visiting injured people at the hospital, called the incident a national tragedy and said an investigation was underway to determine what happened.

A Reuters correspondent said blood stains and abandoned shoes littered the scene outside the stadium on Tuesday morning.

"My two children came here yesterday. I told them not to come but they didn't listen. They came when I was sleeping. What will I do?" said Assetou Toure, a cleaner.

She did not know if her children had escaped unhurt.

The incident was the worst of its kind in Abidjan since 2010, when a stampede at a stadium during a football match killed 18 people.

Ivory Coast, once a stable economic hub for West Africa, is struggling to recover from a 2011 civil war in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Alain Amontchi; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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No surprise: YouTube, Angry Birds, Instagram and Facebook among 2012′s top apps

Title Post: No surprise: YouTube, Angry Birds, Instagram and Facebook among 2012′s top apps
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Kim K. Exclusive: Pregnancy is Hard

Entertainment Tonight's Christina McLarty was the first to catch up with Kim Kardashian in Las Vegas at her first appearance since her boyfriend, rap star Kanye West, announced that they are expecting a child together.

Pics: Kim's Pre-Pregnancy Style 

Kardashian tells ET that pregnancy is harder than she imagined and the changes to her body are difficult. She also tells McLarty that she is taking a lot of naps.

"I wouldn't say it's been easy," she said. "When people say that pregnancy is fun and they love it I would have to disagree. ... Even my sister has made it look easy, but it's not as easy as people think. ... I heard it's all worth it so I'm looking forward to that."

Related: Kardashians and Friends Tweet Congrats for Pregnancy

Kardashian hosted a New Year’s Eve event at 1OAK Nightclub at The Mirage.

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to recover in a New York hospital where she's being treated for a blood clot in her head.

Her doctors say blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery. Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.

Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said. The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.

In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.

Clinton's complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton's care.

The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus.

This isn't the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remains a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

"Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a problem."

It isn't uncommon for presidential candidates' health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

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Market rallies on emerging "fiscal cliff" deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks jumped on Monday after a deal emerged from negotiations in Washington to avert the "fiscal cliff," sources familiar with the talks said.

Equities surged in a thinly traded session, on track to break a five-day streak of losses, as the sources said a majority of Senate Republicans were expected to support the legislation.

If adopted by Congress and President Barack Obama, the plan would sidestep a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that many feared could push the economy into recession.

The deal, which would still need to be approved by both the Senate and House of Representatives, would raise tax rates for individuals with annual income over $400,000 a year but permanently extend middle class tax cuts.

"The market just wants this resolved and especially resolved in a way where the impact is pushed as far down the road as possible," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont. "That is exactly what the market wants and I'm hoping that is what they deliver."

President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak on the fiscal cliff at 1:30 p.m.

"Right now the market is up 70 points, an hour from now we could be down 70 points, it all depends on what these people say," Mendelsohn said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 50.38 points, or 0.39 percent, at 12,988.49 after trimming some of its gains. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 9.73 points, or 0.69 percent, at 1,412.16. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 31.37 points, or 1.06 percent, at 2,991.68.

The S&P 500 is now up 12.4 percent for the year, compared with a flat performance in 2011. The Dow is about 6.4 percent higher and the Nasdaq is up 15 percent.

Gains in Apple Inc , the most valuable U.S. company, helped lift the Nasdaq. The stock rose 3.2 percent to $525.71, lifting the S&P information technology sector <.gspt> up 1 percent. For the year so far, Apple is up 29.1 percent.

The Dow was lifted by Caterpillar Inc and General Electric , both of which rallied more than 1 percent.

While a deal on the cliff is not yet official, investors may be ready to take on more risk next year in hopes of a greater reward.

Bank stocks rose after a New York Times report that U.S. regulators are nearing a $10 billion settlement with several banks that would end the government's efforts to hold lenders responsible for faulty foreclosure practices.

Bank of America Corp was up 0.8 percent at $11.46.

Financial stocks were among the strongest of the year, with the S&P financial index surging 24.5 percent for 2012 so far. Bank of America is the top-performing Dow component, with its stock price more than doubling over the past 12 months.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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