Housing, job-market data push S&P to five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stronger-than-expected data on housing starts and jobless claims lit a fire under stocks on Thursday, pushing the S&P 500 to a five-year high and its third day of gains.


A pair of economic reports lifted investors' sentiment. 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, helping to bring out buyers even on a day when earnings reports were mixed.


Gains were tempered by weakness in the financial sector, with Bank of America down 4.2 percent to $11.28 and Citigroup off 2.9 percent to $41.24 after their results.


In other negative earnings news, shares of chipmaker Intel fell 5.2 percent to $21.49 in extended-hours trading after the company forecast quarterly revenue that fell short of analysts' expectations. Intel had ended the regular session up 2.6 percent at $22.68.


The S&P 500 ended at its highest since December 2007 and now sits just 5.6 percent from its all-time closing high of 1,565.15.


"Having consolidated really for the last two weeks, the fact that we broke out, I think that that is sucking in quite a bit of money," said James Dailey, portfolio manager of TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 84.79 points, or 0.63 percent, at 13,596.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.31 points, or 0.56 percent, at 1,480.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 18.46 points, or 0.59 percent, at 3,136.00.


Better-than-expected earnings and revenue reported by online marketplace eBay late Wednesday helped the stock gain 2.7 percent to $54.33.


In the housing sector, PulteGroup Inc shares gained 4.9 percent to $20.29 and Toll Brothers Inc advanced 3.1 percent to $35.99. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> climbed 2.4 percent, reaching its highest close since August 2007.


Semiconductor shares <.sox> rose 2 percent to the highest close in eight months.


Financials were the only S&P 500 sector to register a slight decline for the day.


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.


Energy shares led gains on the Dow as U.S. crude oil prices jumped more than 1 percent. Shares of Exxon Mobil were up 0.8 percent at $90.20 while shares of Chevron were up 0.7 percent at $114.75.


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.


Volume was roughly 6.5 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by about 22 to 7 and on the Nasdaq by about 2 to 1.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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Thirty hostages reported killed in Algeria assault


ALGIERS (Reuters) - Thirty hostages and at least 11 Islamist militants were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces stormed a desert gas plant in a bid to free many dozens of Western and local captives, an Algerian security source said.


Details remained scant - including for Western governments, some of which did little to disguise irritation at being kept in the dark by Algeria before the raid and its bloody outcome.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear.


Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured.


Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational, al Qaeda-linked insurgency across the Sahara - a conflict that prompted France to send troops to neighboring Mali last week - the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including their leader.


After an operation that appeared to go on for some eight hours, after Algeria refused the kidnappers' demand to leave the country with their hostages, the bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman were found.


So too was that of Taher Ben Cheneb, an Algerian whom the security official described as a prominent jihadist commander in the Sahara.


The gunmen who seized the important gas facility deep in the desert before dawn on Wednesday had been demanding France halt its week-old offensive against Islamist rebels in Mali.


French President Francois Hollande said the hostage drama, which has raised fears of further militant attacks, showed that he was right to send more than 1,000 French troops to Mali to back up a West African force in support of Mali's government.


A Algerian government spokesman, who confirmed only that an unspecified number of hostages had died, said the tough response to a "diehard" attitude by the militants showed that, as during its bloody civil war against Islamists in the 1990s, Algiers would not negotiate or stand for "blackmail" from "terrorists".


SECURITY IN QUESTION


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions, however, over the reliability of what was thought to be strong security.


Foreign companies said they were pulling non-essential staff out of the country, which has only in recent years begun to seem stable after a decade of blood-letting.


"The embarrassment for the government is great," said Azzedine Layachi, an Algerian political scientist at New York's St John's University. "The heart of Algeria's economy is in the south. where the oil and gas fields are. For this group to have attacked there, in spite of tremendous security, is remarkable."


Algiers, whose leaders have long had frosty relations with the former colonial power France and other Western countries, may also have some explaining to do over its tactics in putting an end to a hostage crisis whose scale was comparable to few in recent decades bar those involving Chechen militants in Russia.


Communication Minister Mohamed Said sounded unapologetic, however. "When the terrorist group insisted on leaving the facility, taking the foreign hostages with them to neighboring states, the order was issued to special units to attack the position where the terrorists were entrenched," he told state news agency APS, which said some 600 local workers were freed.


A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages had been killed along with eight of their captors when troops fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen at the Tigantourine plant.


The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the facility early on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners.


In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's raid, a local man who had escaped from the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.


"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "'We will kill them,' they said."


Mauritanian agency ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera said earlier that 34 captives and 15 militants had been killed when government forces fired at a vehicle from helicopters.


BAD NEWS EXPECTED


British Prime Minister David Cameron said people should prepare for bad news about the hostages. He earlier called his Algerian counterpart to express his concern at what he called a "very grave and serious" situation, his spokesman said.


"The Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance," the spokesman added.


Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had been told by his Algerian counterpart that the action had started at around noon. He said they had tried to find a solution through the night, but that it had not worked.


"The Algerian prime minister said they felt they had no choice but to go in now," he said.


The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against Islamist rebels after air strikes began last week.


"What is happening in Algeria justifies all the more the decision I made in the name of France to intervene in Mali in line with the U.N. charter," Hollande said, adding that things seemed to have taken a "dramatic" turn.


He said earlier that an unspecified number of French nationals were among the hostages. A French national was also among the hostage takers, a local source told Reuters. A large number of people from the former French colony live in France.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were loyal to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought in Afghanistan and set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.


A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.


Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.


The militants had said seven Americans were among their hostages. The White House said it believed Americans were among those held but U.S. officials could not confirm the number.


"This is an ongoing situation and we are seeking clarity," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.


FOREIGN FIRMS


Norway's Statoil, which runs the plant with BP of Britain and Algeria's state energy company, said it had no word on nine of its Norwegian staff who had been held, but that three Algerian employees were now free.


BP said some of its staff were being held but would not say how many or their nationalities.


Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. The Irish government said one Irish hostage was freed.


Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year.


However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.


The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said on Wednesday they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.


They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.


The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground there, and combat was under way against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.


The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread public international support. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.


Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.


A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a commando raid in Somalia on Saturday, which failed to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed the hostage, Denis Allex. France said it believed he had died in the raid.


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Writing by Peter Graff, Giles Elgood, Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Intel’s revenue forecast short of expectations






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Intel Corp forecast current-quarter revenue that was slightly below expectations as the personal computer industry grapples with falling sales and a shift toward tablets and smartphones.


PC makers are struggling to stop a decline in sales as consumers hold off on buying new laptops in favor of spending on more nimble mobile gadgets.






Microsoft Corp‘s long-awaited launch of Windows 8 in October brought touchscreen features to laptops but failed to spark a resurgence in sales that Intel and many PC manufacturers had hoped for.


Intel said its capital spending in 2013 would be $ 13 billion, plus or minus $ 500 million, exceeding what many analysts had expected.


In the fourth quarter, Intel’s revenue was $ 13.5 billion, compared with $ 13.9 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected $ 13.53 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


Intel estimated first-quarter revenue of $ 12.7 billion, plus or minus $ 500 million. Analysts expected $ 12.91 billion for the current quarter.


Net earnings in the December quarter were $ 2.5 billion, or 48 cents a share, compared with $ 3.4 billion, or 64 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.


(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Richard Chang)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Britney Spears & Jason Trawick Split: Will She Be Okay?















01/17/2013 at 05:00 PM EST







Britney Spears and Jason Trawick


Michael Kovac/Getty


The new year has already been full of change for Britney Spears.

She's left her gig as judge on The X Factor, her new puppy Hannah is gravely ill, and on Jan. 11 she announced she and fiancé Jason Trawick, 41, have called it quits after more than three years together.

While Spears, 31, told PEOPLE in an exclusive statement, "I'll always adore him, and we will remain great friends," a family source says the signer is "definitely upset about the split."

What tore the couple apart? Spears, who has two sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline, had hoped to start a family soon with Trawick, but he wasn't ready. Says the close source: "There were so many issues he wanted worked out before that" – including her neediness. "It was difficult for Jason to have his own life."

Adds an insider: "Britney is very insecure and has had a lot of trouble with jealousy." These insecurities may be heightened now. "[She] is very worried about being alone," says the family source. "She is upset, but for a long time she has treated him like a friend, not a romantic partner." The family source adds that some close to the singer, who had a breakdown in 2008, "are concerned about her future."

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy


NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.


The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.


The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.


But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.


"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.


The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.


The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.


Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.


The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.


U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.


Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


"The vaccine is safe," she said.


___


Online:


Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org


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S&P 500 ends flat as bank profits temper growth concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended nearly flat on Wednesday as solid earnings from two major banks and a bounceback in Apple shares offset concerns about a lower forecast for global growth in 2013.


Shares of Goldman Sachs hit their highest since May 2011 as earnings nearly tripled on increased revenue from dealmaking and lower compensation expenses. JPMorgan Chase said fourth-quarter net income jumped 53 percent and earnings for 2012 set a record.


JPMorgan shares rose 1 percent to $46.82, while Goldman climbed 4.1 percent to $141.09.


They were among the first big banks to report results and helped to lift estimates for S&P 500 corporate earnings slightly, to a 2.2 percent gain, Thomson Reuters data showed.


"Pretty solid numbers from both JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are putting a lot of momentum behind the financials, with a lot more names to report this week. But I think that's helping to put a better bid to the market overall," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.


Apple rebounded after three days of losses, helping the Nasdaq outperform the S&P 500 and Dow. Apple rose 4.2 percent to $506.09. It closed below $500 on Tuesday for the first time since February.


"There could not have been more negativity around Apple going into today. So was it due for an oversold bounce on a trading basis? Absolutely," James said.


A slow economic recovery in developed nations is holding back the global economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday, as it sharply scaled back its forecast for world growth in 2013 to 2.4 percent from an earlier forecast of 3.0 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 23.66 points, or 0.17 percent, at 13,511.23. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.29 points, or 0.02 percent, at 1,472.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 6.77 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,117.54.


The biggest drag on the Dow was Boeing , whose shares fell 3.4 percent to $74.34 on concerns about its new Dreamliner passenger jets. Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of 787s after an emergency landing, adding to safety concerns triggered by a series of recent incidents.


After the bell, shares of eBay were trading up 0.7 at $53.28, reversing an initial decline following the release of its results. Also after the close, shares of CBS rose 8.3 percent to $41.10 after it said it will convert its Outdoor Americas division into a real estate investment trust. [ID:nL4N0AL98X]


Earlier in the day, U.S. economic data showed consumer prices were flat in December, pointing to muted inflation pressures that should give the Federal Reserve room to prop up the economy by staying on its ultra-easy monetary policy path.


Other data showed U.S. homebuilder confidence in the market for single family homes held steady near seven year highs in January, suggesting the outlook for the housing market remained upbeat.


Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Decliners outpaced advancers on the NYSE by nearly 8 to 7 and on the Nasdaq by almost 7 to 5.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)



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Sahara Islamists take hostages, spreading Mali war


ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist fighters seized dozens of Western and Algerian hostages in a dawn raid on a natural gas facility deep in the Sahara on Wednesday and demanded France halt a new offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.


Three people, among them one British and one French, were reported killed, but details were sketchy and numbers of those held at Tigantourine ranged from 41 foreigners - including perhaps seven Americans as well as Japanese and Europeans - to over 100 local staff, held separately and less closely watched.


What is clear is that with a dramatic counterpunch to this week's French build-up in Mali, the region's loosely allied, al Qaeda-inspired radicals have set Paris a daunting dilemma and spread fallout from Mali's hitherto obscure civil war far beyond northwest Africa, challenging Washington as well as Europeans and shutting down a major gas field that pumps energy to Europe.


The attack, which Algeria said was led by a veteran, Afghan-trained holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence, came just as French ground troops in Mali launched their first assault after six days of air strikes.


The United States, which like European powers endorsed France's decision to intervene last week against Islamists who have seized vast tracts of northern Mali, confirmed Americans were among the hostages and said it would work to "secure" them.


Western and African governments have been alarmed by a flow of weapons and fighters across the unmarked Sahara borders following the end of Libya's civil war in 2011 and fear that Mali, where Islamists drive the national army from the north nine months ago, could become an Afghan-style al Qaeda haven.


The militants, who said they had dozens of fighters in the gas field, issued no explicit threat but made clear to media in neighboring Mauritania the hostages' lives were at risk.


"We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement from the group, which called itself the "Battalion of Blood".


In other comments carried by the Mauritanian news agency ANI, the group said its fighters had rigged explosives around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". The unusually large numbers of gunmen and hostages involved pose serious problems for any rescue operation.


After dark, ANI quoted a militant source saying fighters had repelled a raid by Algerian troops. He added that the hostage-takers' weaponry included mortars and anti-aircraft missiles.


AMERICANS


The militants said seven Americans were among the 41 foreign hostages - a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.


Norwegian energy company Statoil, which operates the gas field in a joint venture with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach, said nine of its Norwegian employees and three of its Algerian staff were being held.


Also reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese working for the engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman and a number of Britons.


The Algerian government, which fought a bloody civil war against Islamists in the 1990s, said it would not negotiate.


French media said the militants were also demanding that Algeria release dozens of Islamist prisoners from its jails.


Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: "I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation."


He said he lacked firm information on whether there were links to the situation in Mali. Analysts pointed to shifting alliances and rivalries among Islamists in the region to suggest the hostage-takers may have a range of motives.


In their own statements, they condemned Algeria's secularist government for "betraying" its predecessors in the bloody anti-colonial war against French rule half a century ago by letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of shutting its border to Malian refugees.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia told the state news agency APS there were about 20 hostage-takers led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and set up his own group in the Sahara recently after falling out with other al Qaeda leaders.


Some of those held at the facility, near the small town of In Amenas, close to the Libyan border and about 1,300 km (800 miles) inland, had sporadic contact with the outside world.


The head of a French catering company said he had information from a manager who supervised some 150 Algerian employees at the site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told France's BFM television the local staff were being prevented from leaving but were otherwise free to move around inside and keep on working.


"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed. Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.


"Direct action seems very difficult ... Algerian officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the situation under control and do not need their assistance."


MALI OFFENSIVE


Just days after a bold deployment of French troops to Mali, another former colony, that had largely silenced critics questioning his leadership after eight months in office, French President Francois Hollande faced a possible further escalation of the conflict, with Western targets at risk across Africa.


He has called for international support against insurgents who France says pose a threat to Africa and the West, and admits it faces a long struggle against well-equipped fighters who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali and have imposed Islamic law, including public amputation and beheading.


Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.


French army chief Edouard Guillaud said ground forces were stepping up their operation to engage directly "within hours" the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and Mali's home grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA.


Residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles has set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital Bamako.


A Malian military source said French special forces units were taking part in the operation. Guillaud said France's strikes, involving Rafale and Mirage jet fighters, were being hampered because militants were sheltering among civilians.


Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks though some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.


Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian acknowledged that France faced a hard slog, particularly in western Mali where AQIM's mostly foreign fighters have camps: "It's tough. We were aware from the beginning it would be a very difficult operation."


Hollande said on Tuesday that French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation. Hollande said France hoped, however, to hand over to African forces in its former colony, "in the coming days or weeks".


West African military chiefs met for a second day in Bamako to hammer out details of a U.N.-mandated deployment that had been expected to start only in September but was suddenly kick-started by French intervention. They said their aim was to send in the first units of a 2,000-man emergency force on Thursday.


Hollande's intervention in Mali brings risks for eight French hostages held by AQIM in the Sahara as well as the 30,000 French citizens living across West Africa. A French helicopter pilot was killed on Friday, France's only combat death so far.


The conflict in Mali, a landlocked state of 15 million twice the size of France, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people and raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region.


"There is a great hope," one man said from Timbuktu, where he said Islamist fighters were trying to blend into civilian neighborhoods. "We hope that the city will be freed soon."


(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Andrew Callus in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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RIM says users line up to try new BlackBerry 10 platform






TORONTO (Reuters) – BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is helping customers prepare to switch to its soon-to-be-launched BlackBerry 10 smartphones that it hopes will help it reclaim market share from rivals such as Apple Inc.


RIM is betting that the new range of touch-screen and keyboard devices, set for a January 30 launch, will revive its fortunes.






The company was “very enthused by the engagement and response of our customer base” to a program aimed at persuading them to adopt the BlackBerry 10 devices, Bryan Lee, senior enterprise accounts director, told Reuters on Wednesday.


Indeed, whether it will be successful in clawing back market share will depend on the response from RIM’s top clients, like companies and government agencies, who have long valued the strong security features that BlackBerry devices offer.


Lee said more than 1,600 customers in North America had registered for its recently launched BlackBerry 10 Ready Program and more than a thousand were actively using the program, which offers customers access to services, information and tools to ease their transition to the BlackBerry 10 and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10.


RIM also said its BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10, which runs the new devices on corporate networks, was in beta testing with more than 130 major government agencies and corporations in North America.


SHARES RISE


Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, a one-time pioneer in the now ultra-competitive smartphone industry, has bled market share to Apple’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s market-leading Android operating system, even among enterprise clients who once used BlackBerry devices exclusively.


Early adoption of the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 devices by government and corporate clients will help breathe new life into the struggling company, whose shares are down 90 percent from an all-time high of more than $ 148 in 2008.


Still, shares of RIM, which fell as low as $ 6.22 in September, have more than doubled in value over the last four months as the BlackBerry 10 launch approaches.


Lee said clients that were beta testing the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10 included more than 60 Fortune 500 companies and top North American government agencies.


RIM promises that its new line of devices will be faster and smoother than existing BlackBerry phones and will boast a large catalog of apps, crucial to the success of any new line of smartphones.


Shares of RIM were up 3.8 percent at $ 15.03 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, after Visa approved the smartphone company’s method of handling secure mobile payments; the technology will potentially allow users to tap their smartphones on credit card readers and pay for purchases.


RIM’s Toronto-listed shares were up 3.9 percent at C$ 14.83.


(Editing by Janet Guttsman and Bernadette Baum)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Jason Trawick Will Still 'Be Involved' in the Lives of Britney Spears's Sons: Source















01/16/2013 at 05:30 PM EST







Britney Spears and Jason Trawick


Michael Kovac/Getty


Britney Spears and Jason Trawick have ended their relationship, but the pop star's ex is still planning to be a part of her life.

"Jason adores [Britney's] kids; he loves them," a source tells PEOPLE. "He was like their 'other dad,' so he's not just going to walk away from their lives. He'll be involved as much as makes sense."

As for Spears's two boys, Preston, 7, and Jayden, 6, the source says they "are doing great and [their father] Kevin [Federline] is actually a huge help and is a wonderful person in their lives."

Despite reports that the former X Factor judge's desire to have more kids was a reason for the split, the insider says, "Jason is genuinely open to kids of his own."

But the source adds, "There were so many issues in their relationship that Jason really wanted those worked out before they could ever move forward with a wedding or more kids together."

In the end, Spears, 31, and Trawick, 41, do "love each other," says the source. However, "there were some major challenges and hurdles and constant work that needed to be done. ... It just wasn't working and things weren't going to change, so it was time to let go."

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Risk to all ages: 100 kids die of flu each year


NEW YORK (AP) — How bad is this flu season, exactly? Look to the children.


Twenty flu-related deaths have been reported in kids so far this winter, one of the worst tolls this early in the year since the government started keeping track in 2004.


But while such a tally is tragic, that does not mean this year will turn out to be unusually bad. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, and it's not yet clear the nation will reach that total.


The deaths this year have included a 6-year-old girl in Maine, a 15-year Michigan student who loved robotics, and 6-foot-4 Texas high school senior Max Schwolert, who grew sick in Wisconsin while visiting his grandparents for the holidays.


"He was kind of a gentle giant" whose death has had a huge impact on his hometown of Flower Mound, said Phil Schwolert, the Texas boy's uncle.


Health officials only started tracking pediatric flu deaths nine years ago, after media reports called attention to children's deaths. That was in 2003-04 when the primary flu germ was the same dangerous flu bug as the one dominating this year. It also was an earlier than normal flu season.


The government ultimately received reports of 153 flu-related deaths in children, from 40 states, and most of them had occurred by the beginning of January. But the reporting was scattershot. So in October 2004, the government started requiring all states to report flu-related deaths in kids.


Other things changed, most notably a broad expansion of who should get flu shots. During the terrible 2003-04 season, flu shots were only advised for children ages 6 months to 2 years.


That didn't help 4-year-old Amanda Kanowitz, who one day in late February 2004 came home from preschool with a cough and died less than three days later. Amanda was found dead in her bed that terrible Monday morning, by her mother.


"The worst day of our lives," said her father, Richard Kanowitz, a Manhattan attorney who went on to found a vaccine-promoting group called Families Fighting Flu.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gradually expanded its flu shot guidance, and by 2008 all kids 6 months and older were urged to get the vaccine. As a result, the vaccination rate for kids grew from under 10 percent back then to around 40 percent today.


Flu vaccine is also much more plentiful. Roughly 130 million doses have been distributed this season, compared to 83 million back then. Public education seems to be better, too, Kanowitz observed.


The last unusually bad flu season for children, was 2009-10 — the year of the new swine flu, which hit young people especially hard. As of early January 2010, 236 flu-related deaths of kids had been reported since the previous August.


It's been difficult to compare the current flu season to those of other winters because this one started about a month earlier than usual.


Look at it this way: The nation is currently about five weeks into flu season, as measured by the first time flu case reports cross above a certain threshold. Two years ago, the nation wasn't five weeks into its flu season until early February, and at that point there were 30 pediatric flu deaths — or 10 more than have been reported at about the same point this year. That suggests that when the dust settles, this season may not be as bad as the one only two years ago.


But for some families, it will be remembered as the worst ever.


In Maine, 6-year-old Avery Lane — a first-grader in Benton who had recently received student-of-the-week honors — died in December following a case of the flu, according to press reports. She was Maine's first pediatric flu death in about two years, a Maine health official said.


In Michigan, 15-year-old Joshua Polehna died two weeks ago after suffering flu-like symptoms. The Lake Fenton High School student was the state's fourth pediatric flu death this year, according to published reports.


And in Texas, the town of Flower Mound mourned Schwolert, a healthy, lanky 17-year-old who loved to golf and taught Sunday school at the church where his father was a youth pastor.


Late last month, he and his family drove 16 hours to spend the holidays with his grandparents in Amery, Wis., a small town near the Minnesota state line. Max felt fluish on Christmas Eve, seemed better the next morning but grew worse that night. The family decided to postpone the drive home and took him to a local hospital. He was transferred to a medical center in St. Paul, Minn., where he died on Dec. 29.


He'd been accepted to Oklahoma State University before the Christmas trip. And an acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota arrived in Texas while Max was sick in Minnesota, his uncle said.


Nearly 1,400 people attended a memorial service for Max two weeks ago in Texas.


"He exuded care and love for other people," Phil Schwolert said.


"The bottom line is take care of your kids, be close to your kids," he said.


On average, an estimated 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who are elderly and with certain chronic health conditions are generally at greatest risk from flu and its complications.


The current vaccine is about 60 percent effective, and is considered the best protection available. Max Schwolert had not been vaccinated, nor had the majority of the other pediatric deaths.


Even if kids are vaccinated, parents should be watchful for unusually severe symptoms, said Lyn Finelli of the CDC.


"If they have influenza-like illness and are lethargic, or not eating, or look punky — or if a parent's intuition is the kid doesn't look right and they're alarmed — they need to call the doctor and take them to the doctor," she advised.


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CDC advice on kids: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/children.htm


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