HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.

LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.

Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.

HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.

“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.

“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.

Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”

Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.

LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.

HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.

The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.

HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.

WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.

(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)

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Buzzmakers: Oscar Fashion and Janet Jackson Marries Wissam Al Mana

What had ETonline readers buzzing this week?

1. The Best & Worst Oscar Gowns of 2013

They came, they soared and several forward-thinking fashionistas conquered The 2013 Oscars red carpet, leaping onto ETonline's list of Best Dressed thanks to a magical mix of classic cuts and edgy embellishments.

And while 10 women hit new highs, some of the biggest stars stumbled in the bright lights, landing on our Worst Dressed List.

Click here to see who was the top and who was a flop!

2. Exclusive: Janet Jackson Confirms Marriage!

Rumors that Janet Jackson is planning her wedding to Wissam Al Mana have been flying fast and furious for weeks now. There's only one problem: they're already married!

In their first joint statement as a couple, Janet Jackson and Wissam Al Mana confirmed the news exclusively to ET, saying, "The rumors regarding an extravagant wedding are simply not true. Last year we were married in a quiet, private, and beautiful ceremony."

"Our wedding gifts to one another were contributions to our respective favorite children's charities. We would appreciate that our privacy is respected and that we are allowed this time for celebration and joy. With love, Wissam and Janet"

Congratulations to the happy couple!

The newlyweds' official wedding photo was taken by world-renowned photographer, Marco Glaviano.

3. Joan Rivers Jokes About Adele's Weight

Despite winning an Oscar and a Golden Globe this awards season, Adele still can't escape her critics. Joan Rivers took numerous cheap shots at the 24-year-old new mom's size while on Tuesday night's Late Show with David Letterman, but it seems now Rivers is the one under fire following her not-nice remarks.

Making a joke in reference to Adele's song Rolling in the Deep, she said the singer should change the lyrics to "rolling in the deep fried chicken." Rivers, 79, added of meeting the acclaimed artist, "We got along." Letterman quickly changed the subject after the E! personality took yet another jab at Adele, causing the audience to gasp.

ET reached out to Adele's rep who had "no comment" about Rivers' jokes.

The comedian also came under fire regarding some quips she made about the holocaust in association with Heidi Klum's Oscars event dress on Monday's E!'s Fashion Police. Joking of Klum's skin-baring gown, she said, "The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens."

Rivers released a statement to ET on Thursday in defense of that comment, saying, "My husband lost the majority of his family at Auschwitz and I can assure you that I have always made it a point to remind people of the holocaust through humor."

4. Jennifer Lawrence Blames Oscar Stumble on Dress

First the SAG Awards and now the Oscars!? Jennifer Lawrence isn't having the best of luck with her gowns this awards season.

After suffering an unfortunate fall at Sunday night's ceremony while accepting her Best Actress statuette for Silver Linings Playbook, a mortified Lawrence explained to the Academy Awards press room that she had (once again) fallen victim to her elaborate dress.

"I tried to walk up stairs in this dress, that's what happened," the humiliated 22-year-old star said of her stumble moments before, laying the blame on her Dior gown's lengthy train. "I think I just stepped on the fabric and they waxed the stairs."

So what was Lawrence thinking when the embarrassing moment played out live to millions around the world?

"[I thought about] a bad word that I can't say [on TV]," she laughed, elaborating that it 'starts with an 'F.'"

5. Derek Hough Talks Maksim's 'DWTS' Exit

ET caught up with the brand-new cast of Dancing with the Stars season 16 after their big Good Morning America announcement Tuesday morning, where one looming question couldn't be ignored -- can the show survive without popular pro dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy?

"It's the nature of the show, you know. People aren't asked back certain seasons and come back later," pro dancer Derek Hough says. "It'll be a different dynamic but that's what it's about I suppose. I'm excited for the new pros."

However, he did share that the producers of the ABC hit are trying to bring back a more "positive" vibe to the show -- and it's no secret that Maksim was a controversial figure in seasons past.

"We had a meeting with the producers, and like, we really want to bring the innocence back to the show and the positivity and the fun and not -- [yes] be competitive -- but we don't want to make it a negative competitiveness," Derek shares.

Derek, already a three-time winner of the coveted mirror ball trophy, is paired up with country star Kellie Pickler this season, who just happens to be the first crossover contestant from American Idol!

"It's exciting to kind of get the whole 'pick Pickler' thing going again and I don't know, it's great to step outside your comfort zone and try something new and I think it's when you do things like that you grow," an excited Kellie tells ET.

Check out the video to hear thoughts from brand-new DWTS contestants like Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, D.L. Hughley, Andy Dick, NFL wide receiver Jacoby Jones, Wynonna Judd and Real Housewives' Lisa Vanderpump.

Dancing with the Stars premieres March 26 on ABC.

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.

In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.

Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.

Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

___

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

__

Online:

WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb

Read More..

Strong data lifts Wall Street, trumps sequester fears

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged higher on Friday as strong economic figures more than offset growth concerns out of China and Europe and as investors shrugged off expected across-the-board U.S. goverment spending cuts.

Stocks opened sharply lower as Asian factories slowed and European output fell, but most of the losses disappeared after a report showed U.S. manufacturing activity expanded last month at its fastest clip in 20 months.

U.S. consumer confidence also rose in February as Americans turned more optimistic about the job market.

With government budget cuts set to begin on Friday, President Barack Obama blamed Republicans for failure to reach a compromise to avert the cuts, known as sequester. Investors, who have had plenty of time to prepare, appeared not too worried about the immediate impact.

"Despite the headlines, the drama and the finger pointing, the U.S. economy can still expand and as long as you see expansion, (equity) markets can go higher," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

Krosby said the market was also looking ahead to next week's government payrolls report. A stronger jobs market points to stronger consumer spending, an important component for economic growth. Separately, a government report on Friday said consumer spending rose in January as Americans spent more on services.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 38.09 points or 0.27 percent, to 14,092.58, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 3.4 points or 0.22 percent, to 1,518.08 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 7.68 points or 0.24 percent, to 3,167.87.

For the week so far, the Dow is up 0.7 percent while the Nasdaq and S&P are up 0.2 percent.

Equities continue to attract investors in an environment of low interest rates due to an accommodative monetary policy. The Dow is less than 1 percent away from its all-time intraday high of 14,198.10. Declines have been shallow and short-lived, with investors jumping in to buy on dips.

Intuitive Surgical jumped 8.3 percent to $552.18 after Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Jeremy Feffer upgraded the stock, saying the more than 11 percent slide in the stock on Thursday was a gross overreaction to a news report.

Groupon Inc surged 9 percent to $4.94 a day after the online coupon company fired its chief executive officer in the wake of weak quarterly results.

Gap Inc rose 2.7 percent to $33.81 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations and boosting its dividend by 20 percent, while Salesforce.com Inc posted sales that beat forecasts, sending shares up 7.2 percent to $181.41.

Chesapeake Energy Corp fell 1.7 percent to $19.81 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission escalated its investigation into the company and its Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon for a controversial perk that granted him a share in each of the natural gas producer's wells.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Turkish PM's Zionism comments "objectionable:" Kerry

ANKARA (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday the United States found a comment by Turkey's prime minister, likening Zionism to crimes against humanity, "objectionable", overshadowing their talks on the crisis in neighboring Syria.

Kerry, on his first trip to a Muslim nation since taking office, met Turkish leaders for talks meant to focus on Syria's civil war and bilateral interests from energy security to counter-terrorism.

But the comment by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan at a U.N. meeting in Vienna this week, condemned by his Israeli counterpart, the White House and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has clouded his trip.

"We not only disagree with it, we found it objectionable," Kerry told a news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, saying he raised the issue directly with Davutoglu and would do so with Erdogan.

Kerry said Turkey and Israel were both key U.S. allies and urged them to restore closer ties.

"Given the many challenges that the neighborhood faces, it is essential that both Turkey and Israel find a way to take steps in order to bring about or to rekindle their historic cooperation," Kerry said.

"I think that's possible but obviously we have to get beyond the kind of rhetoric that we've just seen recently."

Washington needs all the allies it can get as it navigates the political currents of the Middle East, and sees Turkey as the key player in supporting Syria's opposition and planning for the era after President Bashar al-Assad.

But the collapse of Ankara's ties with Israel have undermined U.S. hopes that Turkey could play a role as a broker in the broader region.

Erdogan told the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations meeting in Vienna on Wednesday: "Just as with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it has become necessary to view Islamophobia as a crime against humanity."

Erdogan's caustic rhetoric on Israel has in the past won applause from conservative supporters at home but raised increasing concern among Western allies.

Ties between Israel and mostly Muslim Turkey have been frosty since 2010, when Israeli marines killed nine Turks in fighting aboard a Palestinian aid ship that tried to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"If we must talk about hostile acts, then Israel's attitude and its brutal killing of nine of our civilian citizens in international waters may be called hostile," Davutoglu said, adding Turkey had always stood against anti-Semitism.

"No single statement carries a price higher than the blood of a person ... If Israel wants to hear positive statements from Turkey it needs to reconsider its attitude both towards us and towards the West Bank," he told the news conference.

Turkey has demanded a formal apology for the 2010 incident, compensation for victims and their families and for the Gaza blockade to be lifted. Israel has voiced "regret" and has offered to pay into what it called a "humanitarian fund" through which casualties and relatives could be compensated.

SUPPORT FOR SYRIAN OPPOSITION

Turkey's relations with the United States have always been prickly, driven more by a mutual need for intelligence than any deep cultural affinity. And Erdogan's populist rhetoric, sometimes at apparent odds with U.S. interests, is aimed partly at a domestic audience wary of Washington's influence.

But the two have strong common interests. Officials said Syria would top the agenda in Kerry's meetings with Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, building on the discussions in Rome between 11 mostly European and Arab nations within the "Friends of Syria" group.

After the Rome meeting, Kerry said on Thursday the United States would for the first time give non-lethal aid to the rebels and more than double support to the civilian opposition, although Western powers stopped short of pledging arms.

"We need to continue the discussion which took place in Rome ... in terms of the main goals there is no daylight between us and the Americans," a senior Turkish official said.

"A broad agreement was reached on supporting the opposition. Now our sides need to sit down and really flesh out what we can do to support them in order to change the balance on the ground," he said.

Turkey has been one of Assad's fiercest critics, hosting a NATO Patriot missile defense system, including two U.S. batteries, to protect against a spillover of violence and leading calls for international intervention.

It has spent more than $600 million sheltering refugees from the conflict that began almost two years ago, housing some 180,000 in camps near the border and tens of thousands more who are staying with relatives or in private accommodation.

Washington has given $385 million in humanitarian aid for Syria but U.S. President Barack Obama has so far refused to give arms, arguing it is difficult to prevent them from falling into the hands of militants who could use them on Western targets.

Turkey, too, has been reluctant to provide weapons, fearing direct intervention could cause the conflict to spill across its borders.

(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Beyonce Isabel Marant Exotic Skins Sneakers

Well here's one organization not feeling all the post-Super Bowl Beyonce love -- PETA, who's calling out the superstar for her new Isabel Marant wedge sneakers. ET can confirm that the exclusive sneakers are made out of crocodile and anaconda skins along with stingray, ostrich and calf hair.

"These custom-made kicks come with a high price -- and it's paid by the various animals who were beaten and skinned alive or cruelly farmed and killed. Although most people aren't as familiar with the types of animals (snakes, stingrays, crocodiles, and ostriches) killed for this single pair of sneakers as they are with the cats and dogs we share our homes with, these animals are highly sensitive living beings who try hard to avoid capture and suffer enormously when trapped, netted, speared, and skinned alive," PETA says in a statement. "We hope that Beyoncé will choose to wear more clothes from her own clothing line -- which features faux fur -- and that one day, she'll go completely cruelty-free. She can always choose the cruelty-free and 'green' fashion favored by compassionate, chic celebrities such as Natalie Portman and Anne Hathaway and designers such as award-winning fashion queen Stella McCartney."

Pics: PETA Names Its Sexiest Vegetarians

The shoes in question are custom designed by PMK, which explains the conception behind the design of the "King Bey" sneakers on its website.

"Summoned by King Bee and given the task to create a custom design worthy of her approval, PMK takes the Isabel Marant sneaker wedge back to the beginning of time and gives it what they call the Eden treatment. A hybrid of land and sea skins are used to create this handcrafted creation. Stingray, Ostrich, calfs fur, Crocodile, and Anaconda give the already impeccable design attitude and the tones of white mixed with gold stitched details produces a feeling of elegance, mimicking the southern belle’s sweet and fierce persona."

Pics: Beyonce's Gets Candid & Personal

The original Isabel Marant wedge sneakers -- sans the exotic skins -- have been a celeb favorite, worn by the likes of Anne Hathaway, Kate Bosworth and Gisele Bundchen. Beyonce herself wore an all-black suede version in the music video for her hit single Love on Top. Isabel Marant wedge sneakers retail for approximately $660 a pair.

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.

In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.

Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.

Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

___

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

__

Online:

WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb

Read More..

Behind the Scenes Jennifer Lawrence Dior Campaign

Nobody doubts Hollywood golden girl Jennifer Lawrence's award-winning acting chops, but in case you forgot, she's quite the fashionista too -- Jennifer's first ads for Miss Dior were related earlier this week to universal critical acclaim, and now this behind-the-scenes video gives us a look at how the beautiful photos came about.

Pics: Sexy & Sultry -- Jennifer Lawrence is Miss Dior

"Dior represents beauty and strength and women -- and that's how I feel when I'm wearing his clothes," Jennifer says as she artfully poses for photographer Willy Vanderperre. "It just makes you feel so confident."

....No doubt she was thinking that during her surprisingly graceful fall on Oscar night.

Video: In Depth -- Jennifer Lawrence's Road to Oscar

Click the video for a glimpse at J. Law's modeling skills, and how she feels about being part of such an iconic brand, which has been represented by the likes of Charlize Theron, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.

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Woman who smoked through hole in throat dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who smoked a cigarette through a hole in her throat to illustrate her struggle with nicotine addiction in a California public service advertisement has died of cancer, health officials and her family said Wednesday.

Debi Austin died Feb. 22 at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, according to family friend and spokesman Jim Walker. She was 62.

Austin first appeared on television in 1996, telling viewers she began smoking at age 13 and could never quit. In a quiet, halting rasp, Austin told the camera, "They say nicotine isn't addictive," before inhaling from a lit cigarette held to a hole in her throat.

"How can they say that?" Austin asked viewers, as cigarette smoke wafted from the hole.

Called a stoma, the hole in her throat allowed her to breathe after her larynx was removed at age 42.

The TV spot was "the most-recognized and talked about California tobacco control ad," according to the state health department.

"Debi was a pioneer in the fight against tobacco and showed tremendous courage by sharing her story to educate Californians on the dangers of smoking," said Dr. Ron Chapman, who heads the health department. "She was an inspiration for Californians to quit smoking and also influenced countless others not to start."

Four months after the ad, Austin quit smoking — halting a two- to three-pack-a-day habit. She fought various forms of cancer for the rest of her life. She starred in other ads and spent the rest of her life advocating against the use of tobacco.

"True to Debi's spirit, she was a fighter to the end and leaves a big hole in our hearts and lives. Debi will be remembered fondly by those who love her to be caring, courageous, very funny and always there to offer advice or lend a hand," the family's statement said.

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Wall Street climbs on Bernanke, economic data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose 1 percent on Wednesday as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke remained steadfast in his support of the Fed's stimulus policy and data pointed to economic improvement.

In his second day before a congressional committee, Bernanke repeated testimony in which he defended the Fed's policy of buying bonds to keep interest rates low in order to promote growth and bring down the unemployment rate.

Adding to the positive tone was economic data which showed a gauge of planned U.S. business spending in January recorded its largest increase in just over a year and contracts to buy new homes neared a three-year high last month.

Bernanke's remarks supporting the Fed's stance before a Senate panel on Tuesday helped the market rebound from its worst decline since November. The S&P 500 <.spx> is now back above 1,500, a closely watched level that has been technical support until recently.

"By and large you can track the turn in the market yesterday and today with Bernanke. He is just adamant," said Keith Bliss, senior vice-president at Cuttone & Co in New York.

"It doesn't matter what the Fed minutes tell you, he is going to keep refilling the punch bowl until we get unemployment down below 6 percent."

The S&P 500 had climbed 6 percent for the year and came within reach of all-time highs before the minutes from the Fed's January meeting were released last Wednesday and raised questions about whether the Fed may slow or halt its economy-stimulating measures soon.

An Italian bond auction that drew solid demand reassured investors after this week's inconclusive elections in Italy, which rekindled fears of a new euro zone debt crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 140.15 points, or 1.01 percent, to 14,040.28. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> climbed 16.80 points, or 1.12 percent, to 1,513.74. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 38.18 points, or 1.22 percent, to 3,167.82.

In earnings news, discount retailer Target Corp appeared poised for a solid showing in the first quarter and forecast a higher profit for the full year after a weak performance in the key holiday season. The stock dipped 1 percent to $63.44.

But Dollar Tree Inc jumped 12.5 percent to $46.21 after reporting a higher quarterly profit as shoppers spent more and the chain controlled costs.

TJX Cos Inc advanced 1.7 percent to $44.40 after the owner of the low-price T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains posted higher fourth-quarter results and said it plans to expand its chains abroad and domestically this year and introduce e-commerce.

The S&P retail index <.spxrt> climbed 1.6 percent.

With 93 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69.5 percent beat profit expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6.2 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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