Sure, the Golden Globes fashion was predictably glam, but some of the best gowns that weekend never made it to your TV screen. Check out the looks you may have missed
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Updated: Thursday Jan 17, 2013 | 01:00 PM EST
By: Alex Apatoff
The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.
The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.
New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.
Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.
The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.
So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.
"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.
About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.
If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.
Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.
To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.
"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.
This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.
About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.
Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.
"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.
Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.
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Online:
Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov
CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
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AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.
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Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Friday as a weak outlook from tech heavyweight Intel offset a better-than-expected quarterly profit at Morgan Stanley.
Still, the S&P 500 was on track for a third week in a row of gains and remained near a five-year high.
Shares of Intel Corp
On a positive note, Morgan Stanley
"Intel earnings weren't that bad, although their revenue was weak. It sparks fears about not only the company but about the whole PC sector, and that's pressuring the market today," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.
Heading into a three-day weekend, investors were cautious about the chances for settling of major differences in Congress about government debt and spending. U.S. markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday
"Governmental policy, or lack thereof, is again pushing forth this wait-and-see attitude on the part of investors. So the market is flat and with low volume and low volatility because investors are waiting to see what happens with the debt ceiling and spending cuts," said Bryant Evans, investment adviser and portfolio manager at Cozad Asset Management, in Champaign, Illinois.
There were signs that the question of raising the U.S. debt limit would be put off for a while. House Republican leaders said they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority next week to buy time for the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget that shrinks deficits.
Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose an estimated 2.5 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 8.69 points, or 0.06 percent, at 13,604.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.17 points, or 0.01 percent, at 1,481.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 8.61 points, or 0.27 percent, at 3,127.39.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose to its highest since late 2007, and that could prompt investors to lock in recent gains, analysts said.
Reflecting the complacency, the CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, fell 7.4 percent. The VIX usually moves inversely to the S&P 500 as it is used as a hedge tool against further market decline.
Economic data from China provided some support to the market, though the focus remained on U.S. corporate earnings. The country's economy grew at a modestly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the latest sign the world's second-biggest economy was pulling out of a post-global financial crisis slowdown which saw it grow in 2012 at its weakest pace since 1999.
General Electric
Despite the gains by Morgan Stanley, financial stocks sagged as Capital One Financial
(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
LONDON — Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed smuggler-jihadist said to be behind the seizure of foreign hostages at a gas plant in Algeria, has been a notorious kingpin of the Sahara for more than a decade.
As a successful kidnapper, cigarette smuggler — he is nicknamed “Mr. Marlboro” — and go-between for Al Qaeda, Mr. Belmokhtar has been a wanted man in his native Algeria after returning from training with jihadists in Afghanistan in 1993.
He returned at the height of a bloody decade-long civil war between the Algerian government and Islamist insurgents, acting as a channel between Al Qaeda leaders and local jihadist groups.
Raising money through kidnappings and smuggling, he has been a main supplier of weapons and equipment to insurgent groups and “has become increasingly integrated into the fabric of the Sahara and Sahel,” according to a 2009 Jamestown Foundation study that was based in part on Mr. Belmokhtar’s own account.
His activities led to him being included in a United Nations blacklist of wanted Qaeda associates.
Security agencies in Algeria and beyond might know who “Mr. Marlboro” is. But what is his motive in the operation to seize Western hostages?
In the past, he has staged kidnappings for money, negotiating the freedom of his captives in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom.
This time, the group he leads has linked the operation to events in Mali, where the French military has intervened to prevent an advance by Islamist forces that control the north of the country.
Mr. Belmokhtar, 40, is thought to be based in Mali in the rebel-held town of Gao, which has been attacked by French warplanes. Some believe he is masterminding the hostage operation from there.
The hostage-takers have demanded an end to the intervention and a reversal of Algeria’s decision to allow the French military to fly over its territory on the way to Mali.
Mr. Belmokhtar might also be seeking to reassert his role as a central player in the factionalized Islamist politics of the region after a recent move by the local Qaeda affiliate to push him aside.
He was removed from a military leadership role in Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in October, according to French broadcaster RFI, after falling out with the movement’s leaders.
He then announced the creation of his own brigade as part of a rapprochement with Mujao, a jihadist group that has broken with Al Qaeda.
He is also thought to be close to leaders of Mali’s Tuareg tribesmen, possibly through one of his many marriages. The Tuareg’s seizure of northern Mali last year was rapidly taken over by jihadists.
It is as yet unclear whether the Algerian hostage-taking was a rapid response to the French intervention in Mali or whether it was preplanned for other motives.
Mr. Belmokhtar, condemned in his absence to life imprisonment by Algerian courts, was already scheduled to be tried in absentia by the Algiers criminal tribunal next Monday on charges that include supplying weapons for attacks on Algerian soil.
Planned targets were said to include pipelines and oil company installations in southern Mali.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Acting as a tax collector may have hurt Amazon.com, Inc’s holiday sales analysts and industry executives said, but they expect to know more when the internet retailer reports its fourth-quarter results on January 29.
Best Buy Co., an archrival of Amazon in consumer electronics, saw holiday online sales increase in three states where Amazon started collecting sales tax ahead of the period.
“There was a little softness in states where Amazon is now collecting sales tax,” said R.J. Hottovy, an equity analyst at Morningstar. “That isn’t surprising to me. It levels the playing field for brick-and-mortar retailers.”
Critics of Amazon argued it had an unfair advantage because most retailers have had to collect state sales tax on online sales for years because they have stores and other physical operations in these locations.
But many states, hungry for extra tax revenue in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, introduced new laws requiring that Internet-only retailers also collect sales tax. Brick-and-mortar retailers hope the requirement will reduce Amazon’s price advantage and help them recoup lost sales.
CHANNELADVISOR DATA
Amazon, the world’s biggest Internet retailer, began collecting sales tax of 7.25 percent to 9.75 percent in California on Sept 15, about two weeks before the start of the fourth-quarter. Third-party sellers on Amazon.com saw a drop in sales during the quarter, compared to other states, according to an analysis by e-commerce firm ChannelAdvisor.
It also started collecting sales tax in Pennsylvania in September and in Texas in July.
Amazon’s fourth-quarter results should provide clues on whether consumers changed their shopping habits when faced with higher taxes on their purchases from the company’s website.
ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell more online, analyzed its clients’ sales on Amazon.com in California, and compared them to other states before and after the sales tax kicked in.
Before Amazon began collecting the tax in California, ChannelAdvisor client sales were 5 percent to 10 percent above other states. The week before the September 15 start of the tax, sales spiked as high as 70 percent compared to other states.
“The surge before the tax went into effect was much larger than I thought it would be,” said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor. “Californians definitely bought a lot in the three or four days before the tax went into effect.”
After Amazon began collecting tax, its California sales leveled with other states. Then, in early November, they slipped as much as 10 percent below other states, ChannelAdvisor data showed.
During one of the busiest holiday periods, in late November and early December, sales dipped further in California vs other states. Toward the end of the holiday period, client sales in California recovered, the data showed.
“There was a sales impact of about 10 percent at the worst point of the dip,” Wingo said. EBay, another Amazon rival, is an investor in ChannelAdvisor. Wingo also owned Amazon shares, but sold them in the fourth quarter for personal tax-related reasons.
Amazon’s tax collection in California had the most impact on fourth-quarter sales of more expensive items priced at $ 200 to $ 250, Wingo said.
PRICES, PROFIT
Amazon probably lowered prices by 8 percent to 9 percent on items most affected by this, although it is tricky to separate such reductions from the usual holiday season promotions that were also happening, Wingo said.
The extra price competition may dent Amazon’s profitability in the fourth quarter, Morningstar’s Hottovy said.
Amazon is expected to make 52 cents a share in the fourth quarter, on revenue of $ 22.3 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. In late October, the company forecast operating results ranging from a profit of $ 310 million to a loss of $ 490 million.
Hottovy expects $ 22.4 billion in revenue and an operating loss of $ 210 million, or a $ 135 million loss after excluding stock-based compensation and other operating expenses.
BEST BUY
In California, Texas and Pennsylvania, Best Buy said it saw a 4 percent to 6 percent increase in online sales during the holiday versus the rest of its chain.
The retailer also saw an increase of 6 percent to 9 percent in online orders that are picked up in its stores in those three states compared with the rest of its chain.
Overall, Best Buy reported better-than-expected holiday sales last week, sending its shares up more than 10 percent.
“This makes Amazon equal to everyone else. They no longer have that sales tax advantage,” said Anne Zybowski, vice president of retail insights at Kantar Retail. “If this had happened to Amazon when they were just a bookseller years ago, they may not be as big as they are now.
Despite the tax changes, Amazon’s consumer electronics prices were still at least 5 percent below Best Buy’s during the holiday season, Zybowski said. But Best Buy may have benefited from even a small change in this area.
“Particularly in consumer electronics, any narrowing of Amazon’s price advantage at the margin is important because Best Buy brings service and other shopper benefits to the category,” she said.
Best Buy will take away people’s old TVs when they buy a new one and the company’s Geek Squad service will install devices in shoppers’ homes, services Amazon does not provide, she noted.
An Amazon spokesman declined to comment when asked if the company saw an impact on fourth-quarter sales from the collection of sales taxes in the three states.
In the past, Amazon executives have said there was little or no impact from such changes in other regions.
Several analysts have argued that shoppers use Amazon for its vast product selection and convenient, fast shipping and returns, and not just its low prices.
“While not great for Amazon, it’s just one of many consumer benefits its service offers,” said Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore Partners. “And while there may be early effects from this change, I still see usage trends remaining in Amazon’s favor.”
(Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
01/17/2013 at 11:00 AM ET
What’s in a name? Apparently every last one on Uma Thurman‘s list of favorites!
After the actress and her boyfriend Arpad Busson revealed they had decided on Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence for their baby girl born in July, it was Thurman’s 14-year-old daughter Maya who found reason in their multitude of monikers.
“[Maya] came up with the best excuse, [which] was that I probably wouldn’t get to have any more children, so I just put every name that I liked into [Luna's],” the Playing for Keeps star, 42, said during a Monday appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Joking that there is a bit of logic behind their “crazy” choice — “The last part makes sense, right?” she says of Luna’s surname – Thurman admits she and Busson couldn’t compromise.
“We couldn’t quite agree on the name,” she shares. “We call her Luna, so she’s lucky that way.”
Lloyd Bishop/NBC
And, in the long run Thurman and Fallon agree that the “full Catholic” 6-month-old will have no problems brainstorming baby names for her future family.
“The rest she can just name her own children all these interesting names,” quips the proud mama. “Proper Catholic, observant!”
– Anya Leon
NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.
From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.
The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.
The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday, with the S&P 500 advancing to a five-year intraday high on signs of strength in the housing and job markets and on better-than-expected results from online marketplace eBay
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week and housing starts jumped last month to the highest since June 2008.
Strength in the housing and labor markets is key to sustained growth and higher corporate profits. Job market improvement helps stimulate consumer spending while a recovery in housing means more purchases of appliances, furniture and other household goods as well as a source of employment.
The S&P is on track for its third consecutive advance, which pushed the index above an intraday peak set in September to its highest since December 2007. The PHLX semiconductor index <.sox>, up 1.7 percent, reached its highest level in eight months.
"Having consolidated really for the last two weeks, the fact that we broke out, I think that that's sucking in quite a bit of money," said James Dailey, portfolio manager of TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
In the housing sector, PulteGroup Inc
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 110.01 points, or 0.81 percent, at 13,621.24. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 10.96 points, or 0.74 percent, at 1,483.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 22.52 points, or 0.72 percent, at 3,140.07.
EBay's shares rose 2.7 percent to $54.33 a day after it reported holiday quarter results that just beat Wall Street expectations. It gave a 2013 forecast that was within analysts' estimates.
Gains were tempered somewhat by weakness in the financial sector, with Bank of America
Bank of America's fourth-quarter profit fell as it took more charges to clean up mortgage-related problems. Citigroup posted $2.32 billion of charges for layoffs and lawsuits.
The S&P financial sector index <.spsy> slipped 0.14 percent as the only one of the 10 major S&P sectors to decline.
S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, Thomson Reuters data showed. Expectations for the quarter have fallen considerably since October when a 9.9 percent gain was estimated.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
BEIJING — The authorities in northwest China have detained seven people they claim organized the fatal self-immolation of a Tibetan villager in October, photographed his burning body and then sent the images abroad.
The arrests, announced Tuesday by Xinhua, the official news agency, suggest that the Chinese government is increasing the use of its newest strategy against the politically motivated suicides in Tibetan areas of China: punishing friends and relatives of those who self-immolate.
The Xinhua report blamed a Tibetan advocacy group in India for convincing the villager, Sangye Gyatso, a 27-year-old father of two, that self-immolation was a “heroic deed” and that it would improve his family’s standing.
A spokesman for the group, the Tibetan Youth Congress, rejected the accusations, calling them “ridiculous.”
With the accumulated toll of self-immolations approaching 100, Beijing has been scrambling to find effective deterrents to such acts, which began in 2009 as a desperate attempt to publicize what many Tibetans consider heavy-handed Chinese policies. In the early months of the crisis, officials sought to demonize self-immolators as terrorists or mentally deranged people. The authorities also locked down the most restive towns and monasteries, preventing monks from leaving or foreign journalists from entering.
Such measures appear to have done little to quell the protests, prompting officials to try new tactics. In Tongren County, in Qinghai Province, the authorities recently issued new regulations that permanently revoke public benefits for the families of self-immolators and cancel government-financed projects in their hometowns. If a monk or nun visits the home of a self-immolator, their monastery is to be shut down as punishment, according to the rules.
In recent weeks, more than a dozen people across the region have been charged with inciting self-immolations or accused of spreading information about the incidents via text message or e-mail. Last month, eight people were detained on accusations of trying to publicize a self-immolation near a government office in Luchu County in Gansu Province. Among those arrested, exile groups say, was a relative of the deceased.
In October, four young Tibetans in Sichuan Province were given sentences ranging from 7 to 11 years; two were convicted of encouraging their friend to self-immolate, and the other two for leaking news of the incident to “outside contacts.”
In the most recent case in Gansu Province, Xinhua said one of the seven detained men, a Buddhist monk named Khyi Gyatso, had joined the Tibetan Youth Congress in Dharamsala, India, after escaping in 2000. But the monk, Xinhua said, stayed in touch with his boyhood friend, Sangye Gyatso, and persuaded him through phone calls and e-mails to “contribute to the cause of Tibetans” by setting himself on fire.
Xinhua said Sangye Gyatso — whom it described as a convicted thief, perennially unemployed and a chronic womanizer — fell under the monk’s sway. He later told three friends about the time and place of his self-immolation so they could take photographs and share them with overseas groups, including representatives of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader regarded by China as a subversive. “Shortly thereafter,” Xinhua said, “the Dalai clique launched a high-profile ‘propaganda’ campaign on the well-orchestrated incident, claiming there was a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in China and calling for the international community to interfere.”
Tenzin Norsang, joint secretary of Tibetan of Youth Congress in Dharamsala, said the group had no connection to Sangye Gyatso’s death, adding that the intense government restrictions and monitoring limited communication between Tibetans in China and abroad.
“Those who are self-immolating have been living under Chinese rule for more than 50 years — they don’t need anyone to tell them what to do,” he said. “Instead of blaming outsiders, the Chinese government could end the self-immolations by re-examining and changing their own repressive policies.”
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s new search tool has strong potential to generate revenue for the social networking company, though it is unlikely to challenge Google Inc as the world’s dominant search engine, Wall Street analysts said on Wednesday.
Facebook’s “graph search” tool, rolled out on Tuesday, lets its more than 1 billion users trawl their network of friends to find everything from restaurants to movie recommendations and is the company’s biggest foray into online search.
Graph search contains some category suggestions that can be easily monetized, BofA Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note.
“It should be easy to incorporate commercial search results via Facebook’s partnership with Bing,” they added.
Facebook currently has a partnership with Microsoft Corp, whose Bing search engine provides search results for external websites. Microsoft also integrates certain Facebook results into its Bing search results.
BofA Merrill Lynch analysts estimated Facebook could add $ 500 million in annual revenue if it can generate just one paid click per user per year, and raised its price target on the stock by $ 4 to $ 35.
Facebook’s shares were flat at $ 30.10 in early trading on Wednesday. They have jumped about 50 percent since November to Tuesday’s close after months of weakness following its bungled Nasdaq listing in May.
However, analysts at J.P. Morgan Securities said the lack of a timeline for the possible launch of graph search on mobile devices may weigh on the tool’s prospects.
The success of the graph search, which will rely heavily on local information, depends on Facebook launching a mobile product, the analysts said. Half of all searches on mobile devices seek local information, according to Google.
Graph search also lacks the depth of review content of Yelp Inc, the analysts added.
Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said monetization potential would be largely determined by Facebook’s ability to generate a significant portion of search query share volumes and he expects that quantity to be relatively low.
“Consumers are likely to continue prioritizing other sources, i.e. Google. Advertisers would consequently only use search if they can, or are perceived to, satisfy their goals efficiently with Facebook,” Wieser said.
NO GOOGLE KILLER
Analysts mostly agreed that Facebook’s search tool was unlikely to challenge Google’s dominance in web search at least in the near term.
“As of now, we do not see Graph Search as a threat to Google Web search. Looking forward, Facebook Graph searches could be competitive with certain categories of Google searches, such as Places and Maps,” BofA Merrill said.
Internet search, social networking tools and e-commerce are among the biggest weapons that companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.com Inc have in their battle for supremacy. A successful combination of the three could win the day for them.
Google has been trying to combine social networking and search for more than a year by integrating Google+ into its search engine.
“Overall, Graph Search offers users a unique view to information not available on Google, but does not replace Google. We view the relationship between Facebook Graph Search and Google as both competitive and complementary,” Piper Jaffray & Co analysts said.
The brokerage said users looking to buy a cellphone, for example, could search for friends’ reviews on Facebook and expert reviews on Google.
(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
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