Wall Street gains on hopes for "fiscal cliff" deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks turned higher on Wednesday on investors' hopes that a compromise could be reached to avoid the "fiscal cliff" after comments from U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama.

Shares of Costco Wholesale Corp jumped 5.5 percent to $101.81 after the retailer became the latest company to announce a special dividend in case taxes jump next year.

The market sharply pared losses in volatile late morning trading after Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said he was optimistic that a deal on the "fiscal cliff" to avert large tax hikes and spending cuts could be reached. That helped reverse a slide of 1 percent.

Adding to the more positive tone, the president, speaking later in the day, said he hoped to get a deal done before Christmas.

For weeks now, the market has been swinging back and forth on headlines from Washington. Wednesday's gyrations served to once again highlight the extent that the impasse is affecting the market and the likelihood of more volatility to come.

"There's only one issue in front of the financial markets, and it's the debate on the fiscal cliff," said Jack De Gan, chief investment officer of Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"That's the only issue out there, and I think in the short term, there's not much that we can do other than watch, and try to anticipate what's going to happen."

One possible result of the deficit-reduction talks is a rise in the tax rate on dividends, prompting some companies to issue special dividends or move up plans for dividends.

The latest example is retailer Costco, which said it will pay a special dividend of roughly $3 billion to investors - the largest payout so far from any company ahead of a likely increase in the dividend tax. Costco also posted monthly same-store sales that beat forecasts. [ID:nL5E8MS8MP] Costco's stock hit an intraday high of $102.14, close to its 2012 high of $104.43 set on October 10.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 79.75 points, or 0.62 percent, to 12,957.88. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 5.87 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,404.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 9.04 points, or 0.30 percent, to 2,976.83.

Knight Capital Group Inc shares jumped 14.1 percent to $3.39 on news that Getco LLC has sent a proposal for a merger between Getco and Knight Capital at a price of $3.39 per share, according to a regulatory filing.

Obama is meeting on Wednesday at the White House with chief executives from top corporations, including Goldman Sachs , Deloitte LLP and Caterpillar Inc , to discuss U.S. fiscal problems.

"While there's little that the president and vice president could do at today's meeting to improve moods in America's corner office, we still believe a legislative compromise will be reached before 'fiscal cliff' detonates," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of BMO Private Bank, in Chicago.

"In the meantime, we expect daunting headlines and emotional market volatility."

On the earnings front, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc forecast quarterly and full-year earnings well ahead of analysts' expectations, helped by an expanded lineup of single-serve coffee makers and drinks. The company's stock surged 24 percent to $35.91.

The S&P 500's drop of 1 percent in the morning was partly caused by data that showed U.S. single-family home sales fell in October, casting a shadow over what has been one of the brighter spots in the U.S. economy.

Housing stocks fell after the data. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> slipped 0.5 percent. D.R. Horton Inc , the biggest U.S. home builder, fell 1.2 percent to $19.34.

(Reporting by Ed Krudy; Additional reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Egypt assembly seeks to wrap up constitution

CAIRO (Reuters) - The assembly writing Egypt's constitution said it could wrap up a final draft later on Wednesday, a move the Muslim Brotherhood sees as a way out of a crisis over a decree by President Mohamed Mursi that protesters say gives him dictatorial powers.

But as Mursi's opponents staged a sixth day of protests in Tahrir Square, critics said the Islamist-dominated assembly's bid to finish the constitution quickly could make matters worse.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protest set off by Mursi's decree.

The Brotherhood hopes to end the crisis by replacing Mursi's controversial decree with an entirely new constitution that would need to be approved in a popular referendum, a Brotherhood official told Reuters.

It is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief that they can mobilize enough voters to win the referendum: they have won all elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power.

But the move seemed likely to deepen divisions that are being exposed in the street.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies called for protests on Saturday in Tahrir Square, setting the stage for more confrontation with their opponents, who staged a mass rally there on Tuesday.

The constitution is one of the main reasons Mursi is at loggerheads with non-Islamist opponents. They are boycotting the 100-member constitutional assembly, saying the Islamists have tried to impose their vision for Egypt's future.

The assembly's legal legitimacy has been called into question by a series of court cases demanding its dissolution. Its popular legitimacy has been hit by the withdrawal of members including church representatives and liberals.

"We will start now and finish today, God willing," Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of its latest session in Cairo, saying Thursday would be "a great day".

"If you are upset by the decree, nothing will stop it except a new constitution issued immediately," he said. Three other members of the assembly told Reuters there were plans to put the document to a vote on Thursday.

ENTRENCHING AUTHORITARIANISM

Just down the road from the meeting convened at the Shura Council, protesters were again clashing with riot police in Tahrir Square. Members of the assembly watched on television as they waited to go into session.

"The constitution is in its last phases and will be put to a referendum soon and God willing it will solve a lot of the problems in the street," said Talaat Marzouk, an assembly member from the Salafi Nour Party, as he watched the images.

But Wael Ghonim, a prominent activist whose online blogging helped ignite the anti-Mubarak uprising, said a constitution passed in such circumstances would "entrench authoritarianism".

The constitution is supposed to be the cornerstone of a new, democratic Egypt following Mubarak's three decades of autocratic rule. The assembly has been at work for six months. Mursi had extended its December 12 deadline by two months - extra time that Gheriyani said was not needed.

The constitution will determine the powers of the president and parliament and define the roles of the judiciary and a military establishment that had been at the heart of power for decades until Mubarak was toppled. It will also set out the role of Islamic law, or sharia.

The effort to conclude the text quickly marked an escalation, said Nathan Brown, a professor of political science at George Washington University in the United States.

"It may be regarded with hostility by a lot of state actors too, including the judiciary," he said.

Leading opposition and former Arab League chief figure Amr Moussa slammed the move. He walked out of the assembly earlier this month. "This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly," he told Reuters.

Once drafted, the constitution will go to Mursi for approval, and he must then put it to a referendum within 15 days, which could mean the vote would be held by mid-December.

COURTS DECLARE STRIKE

Deepening the crisis further on Wednesday, Egypt's Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree.

The judiciary, largely unreformed since the popular uprising that unseated Mubarak, was seen as a major target in the decree issued last Thursday, which extended his powers and put his decisions temporarily beyond legal challenge.

"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, an unemployed man, in Tahrir.

Showing the depth of distrust of Mursi in parts of the judiciary, a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which earlier this year declared void the Islamist-led parliament, said it felt under attack by the president.

In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.

"The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court," said the spokesman Maher Samy.

Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers.

Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.

The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length.

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges.

A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected, and until that time Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. An election could take place in early 2013.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)

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German lawmakers condemn Google campaign against copyright law

BERLIN (Reuters) – Senior German politicians have denounced as propaganda a campaign by Google to mobilize public opinion against proposed legislation to let publishers charge search engines for displaying newspaper articles.

Internet lobbyists say they are worried the German law will set a precedent for other countries such as France and Italy that have shown an interest in having Google pay publishers for the right to show their news snippets in its search results.

Lawmakers in Berlin will debate the bill in the Bundestag (lower house) on Thursday. Google says the law would make it harder for users to retrieve information via the Internet.

Google launched its campaign against the bill on Tuesday with advertisements in German newspapers and a web information site called “Defend your web”.

“Such a law would hit every Internet user in Germany,” Stefan Tweraser, country manager for Google Germany, said in a statement. “An ancillary copyright means less information for consumers and higher costs for companies.”

The campaign has caused outrage among some members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition.

“The campaign initiated by Google is cheap propaganda,” said conservative lawmakers Guenter Krings and Ansgar Heveling.

“Under the guise of a supposed project for the freedom of the Internet, an attempt is being made to coopt its users for its own lobbying,” the two said in a statement.

Supporters of the law argue that newspaper publishers should be able to benefit from advertising revenues earned by search engines using their content.

Under the plans, publishers would get a bigger say over how their articles are used on the Internet and could charge search engines for showing articles or extracts.

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a member of the Free Democrats (FDP) who share power in Merkel’s government, said she was astonished that Google was trying to monopolize opinion-making. She is responsible for the law.

“PANIC MONGERING”

Germany’s newspaper industry, suffering from economic slowdown and keen to get its hands on any revenues it can, backs the plans and railed against Google’s campaign.

“The panic mongering from Google has no justification,” Germany’s BDZV newspaper association said in a statement.

“The argument from search engine companies that Internet searching and retrieval will be made more difficult is not serious. Private use, reading, following links and quoting will be possible, just as before.”

Internet lobbyists in Brussels fear the European Commission is sympathetic to publisher demands for a piece of Google’s profits online. Recent statements, they say, are proof.

“Consumers are not the only ones facing difficulties,” Michel Barnier, the EU’s internal market commissioner, said in a speech on November 7. “Think of newspaper publishers who see the content they produce being used by others to attract consumers on the net and generate advertising revenues.”

French newspapers and magazines want Google to pay them for linking to their articles on Google. The French government has named a mediator to negotiate with the press and Google to try to get a deal by the end of the year.

If no deal emerges, President Francois Hollande’s government will ask parliament to draft a law modifying copyright laws to protect the press from appropriation of its content online, according to a letter signed by two ministers on November 28.

(Additional reporting by Harro ten Wolde in Frankfurt, Claire Davenbport in Brussels and Leila Abboud in Paris; Writing by Madeline Chambers, Editing by Gareth Jones and)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Actors' Body Transformations For Roles

Jared Leto

After a major weight gain in the 2007 film Chapter 27, Jared Leto slimmed down drastically in 2012 for his role as a transsexual named Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club, the same movie Matthew McConaughey dropped weight for. "I waxed my entire body, including my eyebrows. I've lost a lot of weight because I'm playing a young person with AIDS," he told ETonline at the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards. "It's been challenging but really inspiring too." Leto revealed his weight loss in a Terry Richardson photo shoot.

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing infections from surgery is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million.

The measures included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Practices were standardized at the seven hospitals.

The Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons directed the project. They announced results on Wednesday.

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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

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Wall Street flat as caution reigns supreme

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks barely budged on Tuesday as wrangling continued in Washington over key budget talks, counterbalancing progress in easing Greece's debt burden and a slew of positive U.S. economic data.

A deal in Europe to release emergency aid to debt-laden Greece gave a brief early lift to stocks, but the news was not enough to sustain the gains as investors confronted the looming "fiscal cliff" at home that could bring higher taxes and spending cuts.

As Democrats and Republicans prepared to resume efforts to bridge their sharp differences over taming the federal debt this week in Washington, the market resumed its cautious stance.

A number of companies, including Wal-Mart and Las Vegas Sands , have issued special dividends aimed at helping investors avoid what could be a substantially increased tax burden next year. That continued on Tuesday, with Supertex and Heico Corp both announcing dividends. The number is expected to grow through the end of the year.

Las Vegas Sands, which made the announcement late Monday, jumped 5.7 percent to $46.54. Heico climbed 3 percent to $41.56, while Supertex rose 2.8 percent to $17.31.

"It's about your money, and it's about right now," said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago. "At this point, you have to make your moves and avoid the threat of more taxes.

"Until there is deal, I would expect to see more of those machinations - just in case," he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 23.45 points, or 0.18 percent, to 12,943.92. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> inched up just 0.15 of a point, or 0.01 percent, to 1,406.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 4.70 points, or 0.16 percent, to 2,981.48.

The market's worry is whether Congress and the White House can agree on ways to avoid some $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases that are due to kick in early next year. Some fear that dramatic fiscal restraint could push the U.S. economy into recession.

Market reaction was muted as data showed U.S. consumer confidence in November hit the highest level in more than four years and home prices in September rose for an eighth straight month.

In addition, a gauge of planned U.S. business spending increased by the most in five months in October, according to the Commerce Department's data on durable goods orders.

As of Monday's close, the S&P 500 was holding above 1,400, the level it reclaimed last week. But volume continued to be weak as traders waited for signs of any progress in negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff. Last week, the S&P 500 gained nearly 4 percent.

Among individual stocks, Corning Inc shares rose 7.8 percent to $12.24 after the specialty glass maker said it expects full-year sales of its Gorilla glass, used in smartphones and tablets, to approach $1 billion.

McMoRan Exploration Co shares tumbled 12.5 percent to $8.44 after the oil and gas exploration company said on Monday that it could not achieve a measurable flow test at its Davy Jones No. 1 deep gas well in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Reporting by Edward Krudy; Additional reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Mursi opponents clash with police in Cairo

CAIRO (Reuters) - Opponents of President Mohamed Mursi clashed with Cairo police on Tuesday as thousands of protesters around the nation stepped up pressure on the Islamist leader to scrap a decree they say threatens Egypt with a new era of autocracy.

Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in streets off the capital's Tahrir Square, heart of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year. Protesters also turned out in Alexandria, Suez, Minya and cities in the Nile Delta.

A 52-year-old protester died after inhaling teargas in Cairo, the second death since last week's decree that expanded Mursi's powers and barred court challenges to his decisions.

Tuesday's protest called by leftists, liberals and other groups deepened the worst crisis since the Muslim Brotherhood politician was elected in June, and exposed a divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.

Mursi's administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation. Opponents say it shows he has dictatorial instincts.

"The people want to bring down the regime," protesters in Tahrir chanted, echoing slogans used in the anti-Mubarak revolt.

Mursi's move provoked a rebellion by judges and battered confidence in an economy struggling after two years of turmoil.

Opponents have accused Mursi of behaving like a modern-day pharaoh, a jibe long leveled at Mubarak. The United States, a benefactor to Egypt's military, has expressed concern about more turbulence in a country that has a peace treaty with Israel.

"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," 32-year-old Ahmed Husseini said in Cairo.

Some protesters have been camped out since Friday in Tahrir, and violence has flared around the country, including in a town north of Cairo where a Muslim Brotherhood youth was killed in clashes on Sunday. Hundreds have been injured.

Supporters and opponents of Mursi threw stones at each other and some hurled petrol bombs in the Delta city of el-Mahalla el-Kubra. A doctor said nine people were brought to hospital, but he expected numbers to rise to dozens.

SHOW OF STRENGTH

The protest was a show of strength by the non-Islamist opposition, whose fractious ranks have been brought together by the crisis. Well-organized Islamists have consistently beaten more secular-minded parties at the ballot box in elections held since Mubarak was ousted in February, 2011.

"The main demand is to withdraw the constitutional declaration (decree). This is the point," said Amr Moussa, former Arab League chief and presidential candidate who has joined the opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front.

Some scholars from the prestigious al-Azhar mosque and university joined Tuesday's protest, showing that Mursi and his Brotherhood have alienated some more moderate Muslims. Members of Egypt's large Christian minority also joined in.

Mursi formally quit the Brotherhood on taking office, saying he would be a president for all Egyptians, but he is still a member of its Freedom and Justice Party.

The decree issued on Thursday expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review until the election of a new parliament expected in the first half of 2013.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said it gives Mursi more power than the interim military junta from which he took over.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told an Austrian paper he would encourage Mursi to resolve the issue by dialogue.

Trying to ease tensions with judges outraged at the step, Mursi has assured Egypt's highest judicial authority that elements of the decree giving his decisions immunity would apply only to matters of "sovereign" importance. Although that should limit it to issues such as a declaration of war, experts said there was room for much broader interpretation.

In another step to avoid more confrontation, the Muslim Brotherhood cancelled plans for a rival mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday to support the decree. Violence has flared in the past when both sides have taken to the streets.

But there has been no retreat on other elements of the decree, including a stipulation that the Islamist-dominated body writing a new constitution be protected from legal challenge.

LEGITIMACY UNDERMINED

"The decree must be cancelled and the constituent assembly should be reformed. All intellectuals have left it and now it is controlled by Islamists," said 50-year-old Noha Abol Fotouh.

With its popular legitimacy undermined by the withdrawal of most of its non-Islamist members, the assembly faces a series of court cases from plaintiffs who claim it was formed illegally.

Mursi issued the decree on November 22, a day after he won U.S. and international praise for brokering an end to eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas around the Gaza Strip.

Mursi's decree was seen as targeting in part a legal establishment still largely unreformed from Mubarak's era, when the Brotherhood was outlawed.

Though both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.

Rulings from an array of courts this year have dealt a series of blows to the Brotherhood, leading to the dissolution of the first constitutional assembly and the lower house of parliament elected a year ago. The Brotherhood dominated both.

The judiciary blocked an attempt by Mursi to reconvene the Brotherhood-led parliament after his election victory. It also stood in the way of his attempt to sack the prosecutor general, another Mubarak holdover, in October.

In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack that prosecutor and appoint a new one. In open defiance of Mursi, some judges are refusing to acknowledge that step.

Mursi has repeatedly stated the decree will stay only until a new parliament is elected - something that can happen once the constitution is written and passed in a popular referendum.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Seham Eloraby, Marwa Awad and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo and Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Anna Willard, David Stamp and Alastair Macdonald)

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Nintendo says more than 400,000 Wii Us sold in US

NEW YORK (AP) — Nintendo has sold more than 400,000 of its new video game console, the Wii U, in its first week on sale in the U.S., the company said Monday.

The Wii U launched on Nov. 18 in the U.S. at a starting price of $ 300. Nintendo said the sales figure, based on internal estimates, is through Saturday, or seven days later.

The Wii U is the first major game console to launch in six years. It comes with a new touch-screen controller that promises to change how people play games by offering different people in the same room a different experience, depending on the controller used.

Six years ago, Nintendo Co. sold 475,000 of the original Wii in that console’s first seven days in stores, according to data from the NPD Group. The original Wii remains available, and Nintendo said it sold more than 300,000 of them last week, along with roughly 250,000 handheld Nintendo 3DS units and about 275,000 of the Nintendo DS.

At this early stage, demand isn’t the only factor dictating how many consoles are sold. Supply is, too. This means it’s likely that more people wanted to buy the Wii U in the first week than those who were able to. The original Wii was in short supply more than a year after it went on sale.

As of Monday afternoon, the website of Best Buy Co. was sold out of the Wii U. Video game retailer GameStop Corp. said there was at least a three day wait for a deluxe Wii U, which costs $ 350, has more memory and comes with a game called “Nintendo Land.” GameStop still had the basic, $ 300 version available.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates that Nintendo will ship 1 million to 1.5 million Wii Us in the U.S. through the end of January.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Independent Spirit Awards 2013 Nominations

The 2013 Film Independent Spirits Award nominations were announced this morning, and more than a few familiar faces heard their names announced by emcees Anna Kendrick, Zoe Saldana and Common.

VIDEO - Silver Linings Stars Talk Dance Scene Fears

Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bernie, Keep the Lights On, Moonrise Kingdom, and Silver Linings Playbook all scored nods in the Best Feature category, while several of the stars also received acting nominations.

"The nominations this year represent an astonishingly strong group of artists both in front of and behind the camera," said Film Independent Co-president Josh Welsh. "At Film Independent, we nurture artist-driven filmmaking all year long and I can't imagine a more fitting or worthy group of films to celebrate here today."

The winners will be announced at the Spirit Awards on Saturday, February 23, 2013 (broadcast at 10 p.m. on IFC), but for now, check out the list of nominees below!

Best Feature
Beasts of the Southern Wild

Bernie

Keep the Lights On

Moonrise Kingdom

Silver Linings Playbook

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Linda Cardellini, Return

Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere

Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Smashed

BEST MALE LEAD

Jack Black, Bernie

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

John Hawkes, The Sessions

Thure Lindhardt, Keep the Lights On

Matthew McConaughey, Killer Joe

Wendell Pierce, Four

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Rosemarie DeWitt, Your Sister's Sister

Ann Dowd, Compliance

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Brit Marling, Sound of My Voice

Lorraine Toussaint, Middle of Nowhere

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike

David Oyelowo, Middle of Nowhere

Michael Pena, End of Watch

Sam Rockwell, Seven Psychopaths

Bruce Willis, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom

Julia Loktev, The Loneliest Planet

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST SCREENPLAY

Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks

Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.

Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns

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