Israel Steps Up Aerial Strikes in Gaza


Tyler Hicks/The New York Times


A man injured by bombing in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Saturday that also killed one person. More Photos »







GAZA CITY — Israel broadened its assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday from mostly military targets to centers of government infrastructure, obliterating the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister with a barrage of five bombs.




The attack came a day after the prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, hosted his Egyptian counterpart in that very building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world. That stature was underscored Saturday by a visit to Gaza from the Tunisian foreign minister and the rapid convergence in Cairo of two Hamas allies, the prime minister of Turkey and the crown prince of Qatar, for talks with the Egyptian president and the chairman of Hamas on a possible cease-fire.


But the violent conflict showed no sign of abating as it finished its fourth day. Gaza militants again fired long-range missiles at the population center of Tel Aviv, among nearly 60 that soared into Israel on Saturday, injuring five civilians in an apartment building in Ashdod, in southern Israel, and four soldiers in an unidentified location.


Israel said it hit more than 200 targets overnight and continued with afternoon strikes on a Hamas commander’s home in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun and on a motorcycle-riding militant in the southern border town of Rafah. Israel has also made preparations for a possible ground invasion.


Hamas health officials said 45 Palestinians had been killed and 385 wounded since Wednesday’s escalation in the cross-border battle; 3 Israelis have died and 63 civilians have been injured.


“Everybody is afraid of what’s next,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Al Azhar University in Cairo, predicting that the rockets fired at Tel Aviv and, on Friday, at Jerusalem, would provoke a rerun of Israel’s ground invasion four years ago.


Mr. Abusada and Efraim Halevy, a former head of Israel’s intelligence service, both said there is no clear endgame to the conflict, since Israel neither wants to re-engage in Gaza nor to eliminate Hamas and leave the territory to the chaos of more militant factions. “Ultimately,” Mr. Halevy said, “both sides want Hamas to remain in control, strange as it sounds.”


But Mr. Abusada cautioned that “there is no military solution to the Gaza problem,” saying: “There has to be a political settlement at the end of this. Without that, this conflict is just going to go on and on.”


In Cairo, a senior official of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group allied with President Mohamed Morsi, said he was working furiously on Saturday to secure a cease-fire. Mr. Morsi met with the Turkish premiere, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while Egypt’s foreign minister huddled with the Qatari prince and its intelligence chief sat with Khaled Meshaal, the chief of Hamas’s political wing, Egyptian media reported.


Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, wants to turn its Rafah crossing with Egypt into an open, free-trade zone, and for Israel to withdraw from the 1,000-foot buffer it patrols on Gaza’s northern and eastern borders. The Brotherhood official said that the Israeli side of the talks remained “the sticking point,” though he would not be specific about the issues.


Ben Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Asia that the president had spoken daily with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel since the crisis began, as well as to Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Morsi.


“They have the ability to play a constructive role in engaging Hamas and encouraging a process of de-escalation,” Mr. Rhodes said of the Turkish and Egyptian leaders. Describing rocket fire coming from Gaza as “the precipitating factor for the conflict,” he added, “We believe Israel has a right to defend itself and they’ll make their own decisions about the tactics that they use in that regard.”


But the Tunisian foreign minister, standing outside Al Shifa Hospital here, told reporters that Israel “has to respect the international law to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people.”


Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, spoke Saturday with the leaders of Germany, Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic, according to a statement from his office.


Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from the Gaza Strip, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.



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President Obama Perfects the McKayla Maroney Scowl















11/17/2012 at 01:45 PM EST








Pete Souza/The White House/Getty


Heads up, America: the President is not impressed.

During the U.S. women's gymnastics team's visit to the White House on Thursday, president Barack Obama posed with McKayla Maroney, pulling the apathetic expression that made Maroney an Internet sensation during the Summer Games in London.

Afterwards, the gold medalist, 16 – who's been mimicked by everyone from Maria Menounos to, perhaps inadvertently, Prince William – seemed uncharacteristically, well, impressed.

She Tweeted: "Did I just do the Not Impressed face with the President?"

For those who don't recall, the scowl that sparked a thousand memes originated after Maroney's faulty landing during the individual women's gymnastics vault event in London.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Going off "cliff" with a bungee cord

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The 1987 crash. The Y2K bug. The debt ceiling debacle of 2011.


All these events, in the end, turned out to be buying opportunities for stocks. So will the "fiscal cliff," some investors say as they watch favorite stocks tumble during the political give-and-take happening in Washington.


The first round of talks aimed at avoiding the "fiscal cliff" caused a temporary rise in equities on Friday, signaling Wall Street's recent declines could be a buying opportunity. The gains were small and sentiment remains weak, but it suggests hope for market bulls.


Though shares ended moderately higher on Friday, it was not enough to offset losses for the week. The S&P was down 1.5 percent, while both the Dow and the Nasdaq fell 1.8 percent.


The S&P 500 is down more than 5 percent in the seven sessions that followed President Barack Obama's re-election. Uncertainty arose as attention turned to Washington's task of dealing with mandated tax hikes and spending cuts that could take the U.S. economy back into recession.


Some see the market's move as an overreaction to hyperbolic headlines about policy gridlock in Washington, believing stocks may start to rebound in what should be a quiet few days ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday next Thursday.


"It just doesn't seem to make any sense that you suddenly wake up the day after the election and realize we've got a fiscal cliff," said Krishna Kumar, partner at New York hedge fund Goose Hollow Alpha Advisors.


Not long ago the S&P was on target for its second-best year in the last 10, riding a 17 percent advance in 2012. That's been halved to about 8 percent, which isn't bad but disappointing compared with just a month ago.


Investors have been selling the year's winners. Apple is down 25 percent from its peak above $700. General Electric is down 14 percent; Google has lost 16 percent. Overall, the stocks that make up the top 10 percent of performers in the month prior to Election Day have been the worst performers since, according to Bespoke Investment Group of Harrison, New York.


"I think it's a good opportunity to be long stocks at these levels," said Kumar.


Hikes on capital gains and dividend taxes are on the line, and Obama has dug in his heels on what he sees as a mandate to make the tax code more progressive.


He seems to have the upper hand in dealings with Congress because Republican lawmakers don't want to see tax rates increase, which is what will happen if no solution is found by the beginning of 2013. Republicans don't want to take the blame for driving the economy over the cliff.


The current crisis is similar to last year's fight to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, which led to the downgrade of the United States' top credit rating in early August 2011.


During the dealings, the S&P 500 lost 18.8 percent between its peak in July 2011 and its bottom in August. As the market slid, the political standoff badly hurt investors' confidence in Washington, setting off a spike in volatility.


In the end a deal was announced that raised the ceiling and put off longer-term fiscal decisions until January 1, 2013, setting the stage for today's "fiscal cliff" crisis.


After staying flat through September 2011, the S&P 500 jumped 31 percent between its October low and the end of March.


BUY THE DIP?


Gridlock in Washington and all that could possibly go wrong with the economy if a deal is not reached have grabbed the headlines, but the negotiations leave room for stock market gains. Congressional leaders said Friday they will work through the Thanksgiving holiday recess to find a solution.


"The debate over how to solve (the fiscal cliff) may be more productive than is commonly recognized," said Brad Lipsig, senior portfolio manager at UBS Financial Services in New York.


"The U.S. is facing a major debt overhang, and serious steps toward addressing it might ultimately be viewed as a positive for future growth," he said. "The market may recognize this and, after a time of hand wringing, recover from the concerns with a renewed sense of optimism."


The recent selling took the S&P 500's relative strength index - a technical measure of internal strength - below 30 this week, indicating the benchmark is oversold and due for a rebound.


The RSI in four of the 10 S&P sectors - utilities, telecoms, consumer staples and technology - is below 30 and the highest RSI reading, for the consumer discretionary sector, is below 40, suggesting a bounce is in store.


"What I want to do is what we did during the decline following the budget negotiations in the summer of 2011: The lower the stock market goes, the more I want to own stock," said Brian Reynolds, chief market strategist at New York-based Rosenblatt Securities.


"If we go off the cliff it will be with a bungee cord attached," he said.


KEEP CALM AND HEDGE


Volatility is expected to rise through the end of November and to spike in late December if no agreement on the fiscal cliff is reached in Congress. Alongside comes opportunity for those with high risk tolerance.


"Recently, volatility has increased in the market overall. You can't really pick it up in the VIX yet, but I think as we get through November, I think you're likely to see the VIX be at a relatively higher level," said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.


In 2011, the VIX averaged 19.2 in July and 35 in August. So far this month the average is 17.8 and it is expected to spike if negotiations on the cliff drag into late next month.


"Looking at the range of possibilities, I would say any of them would be better than sitting here waiting. I would even put going off the fiscal cliff in that category," said Jill Cuniff, president of Seattle-based Edge Asset Management Inc, which manages about $20 billion.


"But we don't believe Congress will let that happen; there's going to be some middle ground here."


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Jonathan Spincer, additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)


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Tensions Escalate in Gaza Conflict



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Samsung goes after HTC deal to undercut Apple-filing
















SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When Apple Inc and HTC Corp last week ended their worldwide legal battles with a 10-year patent licensing agreement, they declined to answer a critical question: whether all of Apple‘s patents were covered by the deal.


It’s an enormously important issue for the broader smartphone patent wars. If all the Apple patents are included -including the “user experience” patents that the company has previously insisted it would not license – it could undermine the iPhone makers efforts to permanently ban the sale of products that copy its technology.













Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which could face such a sales ban following a crushing jury verdict against it in August, now plans to ask a U.S. judge to force Apple to turn over a copy of the HTC agreement, according to a court filing on Friday.


Representatives for Apple and Samsung could not immediately be reached for comment.


Judges are reluctant to block the sale of products if the dispute can be resolved via a licensing agreement. To secure an injunction against Samsung, Apple must show the copying of its technology caused irreparable harm and that money, by itself, is an inadequate remedy.


Ron Laurie, managing director of Inflexion Point Strategy and a veteran IP lawyer, said he found it very unlikely that HTC would agree to a settlement that did not include all the patents.


If the deal did in fact include everything, Laurie and other legal experts said that would represent a very clear signal that Apple under CEO Tim Cook was taking a much different approach to patent issues than his predecessor, Steve Jobs.


Apple first sued HTC in March 2010, and has been litigating for more than two years against handset manufacturers who use Google’s Android operating system.


Apple co-founder Jobs promised to go “thermonuclear” on Android, and that threat has manifested in Apple’s repeated bids for court-imposed bans on the sale of its rivals’ phones.


Cook, on the other hand, has said he prefers to settle rather than litigate, if the terms are reasonable. But prior to this month, Apple showed little willingness to license its patents to an Android maker.


HOLY PATENTS


In August, a Northern California jury handed Apple a $ 1.05 billion verdict, finding that Samsung’s phones violated a series of Apple’s software and design patents.


Apple quickly asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to impose a permanent sales ban on those Samsung phones, and a hearing is scheduled for next month in San Jose, California.


In a surprise announcement on Saturday, however, Apple and HTC announced a license agreement covering “current and future patents” at both companies. Specific terms are unknown, though analysts have speculated that HTC will pay Apple somewhere between $ 5 and $ 10 per phone.


During the Samsung trial, Apple IP chief Boris Teksler said the company is generally willing to license many of its patents – except for those that cover what he called Apple’s “unique user experience” like touchscreen functionality and design.


However, Teksler acknowledged that Apple has, on a few occasions, licensed those holy patents – most notably to Microsoft, which signed an anti-cloning agreement as part of the deal.


In opposing Apple’s injunction request last month, Samsung said Apple’s willingness to license at all shows money should be sufficient compensation, court documents show.


Apple has already licensed at least one of the prized patents in the Samsung case to both Nokia and IBM. That fact was confidential until late last year, when the court mistakenly released a ruling with details that should have been hidden from public view.


In a court filing last week, Apple argued that its Nokia, IBM and Microsoft deals shouldn’t stand in the way of an injunction. Microsoft’s license only covers Apple patents filed before 2002, and IBM signed several years before the iPhone launched, according to Apple.


“IBM’s agreement is a cross license with a party that does not market smartphones,” Apple wrote.


Apple’s seeming shift away from Jobs-style war, and toward licensing, may also reflect a realization that injunctions have become harder to obtain for a variety of reasons.


Colleen Chien, a professor at Santa Clara Law in Silicon Valley, said an appellate ruling last month that tossed Apple’s pretrial injunction against the Samsung Nexus phone raised the legal standard for everyone.


“The ability of technology companies to get injunctions on big products based on small inventions, unless the inventions drive consumer’s demand, has been whittled away significantly,” Chien said.


The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.


(Reporting By Dan Levine and Poornima Gupta; Editing by Bernard Orr)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Justin Bieber & Selena Gomez Reunite in L.A.















11/16/2012 at 04:00 PM EST







Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber in April 2012


Noel Vasquez/Getty


Oh, young love.

Less than a week after PEOPLE confirmed that Justin Bieber, 18, and Selena Gomez, 20, called it quits, the pair reunited in Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, Bieber met Gomez at LAX airport where a source says he picked her up and drove her home.

According to TMZ, which has photos of the pair separately entering the Four Seasons hotel the following morning, Bieber stayed the night at Gomez's house.

Meanwhile, a source close to Gomez tells PEOPLE "of course" Bieber is trying to win his ex back.

Of the initial split, the insider says Gomez "was heartbroken. It wasn't easy." But, the pal says the former Disney star – who was all smiles at the Glamour Women of the Year event in New York earlier this week – is "being a trouper."

A rep for Bieber would not comment on his personal life.

With reporting by PERNILLA CEDENHEIM

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Washington's upbeat tone cheers Wall Street for a day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hope that politicians would find common ground to steer clear of the "fiscal cliff" boosted stocks on Friday, though the gains were not enough to offset the week's losses.


Stocks recovered from early declines after leaders of the Senate and House emerged from a meeting at the White House and indicated they would be flexible in efforts to settle fiscal policy differences.


Democrats said they recognized the need to curb spending and Republicans said they had agreed to put "revenue on the table" following a meeting with President Barack Obama.


For the week, the S&P was down 1.5 percent, its second week in a row of losses. The Dow lost 1.8 percent, down for the fourth straight week, while the Nasdaq was lower for the sixth week, also losing 1.8 percent.


"These are very small steps in the right direction," said Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones in St Louis.


"The more evidence there is that Congress will make a decision sooner, the more likely we are to see stocks rebound."


About $600 billion of automatic budget cuts and tax increases will start to take effect in the new year unless Washington reaches a deal. With memories of 2011's debt ceiling impasse fresh in investors' minds, many are worried this year's discussions could be drawn out or yield no agreement.


If all the changes go into effect, economists say it could tip the economy into recession. Investors have pulled out of stocks over the past two weeks, taking nearly 4 percent off the S&P 500.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> added 45.93 points, or 0.37 percent, to 12,588.31. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 6.55 points, or 0.48 percent, to 1,359.88. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 16.19 points, or 0.57 percent, to 2,853.13.


Shares of Penn National Gaming Inc surged 28.2 percent to $48.23 on its busiest day of trading in more than four years, after the owner of gaming and pari-mutuel properties said late Thursday it will split its business into a gaming-focused real estate investment trust and a gaming operator.


More than 10 million shares changed hands, compared with average daily volume of 629,000 shares over the past 50 days.


Dell Inc helped limit the Nasdaq's gains after lower PC sales hurt the company's profit. Dell slumped 7.3 percent to $8.86.


More violence in the Middle East also kept investors wary after Palestinian militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day.


Sears Holdings Corp late Thursday reported a quarterly loss that was narrower than expected, but same-store sales fell on weak demand for electronics, sending shares down 18.8 percent to $47.49.


Volume is expected to be light next week with some investors away for the Thanksgiving holiday, and the market closed on Thursday and open for only a half-day on Friday.


The decreased liquidity could spell more intra-day volatility for the market, though fewer market participants could also mute action.


(Editing by Kenneth Barry)


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Palestinian Rockets Kill Three Israelis and Trigger Air Sirens in Tel Aviv





KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — Israel and Hamas widened their deadly conflict over Gaza on Thursday, as militants fired dozens of rockets — including one that killed three civilians in an apartment block in this small southern Israeli town — and two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv, causing no harm but triggering the first air raid warning there set off by incoming fire from Gaza. The death toll in Gaza from Israeli airstrikes rose to at least 16, including four children and a pregnant teenager.




The three Israeli deaths were the first since Israel’s military launched ferocious aerial assaults on Wednesday to stop the chronic rocket fire from Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave controlled by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group.


The Israel Defense Forces said in a cryptic statement that one of the two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv landed but did not hit the ground — meaning that it must have crashed into the Mediterranean Sea — and that the other appeared to have landed far outside the city. Exact locations were not specified.


But the Tel Aviv air raid warnings — which residents of Israel’s largest metropolis had not heard except for drills or malfunctions since Saddam Hussein’s Scuds threatened them in the first Persian Gulf War, more than two decades ago — were an unnerving reminder of their vulnerability to an attack from Gaza, less than 40 miles away. They also underscored Israel’s stated reason for seeking to destroy the missile-launching sites in Gaza.


Ehud Barak, the minister of defense, said the targeting of Tel Aviv and the scope of the Palestinian rocket fire “represents an escalation, and there will be a price for that escalation that the other side will have to pay.”


Mr. Barak also dropped a further hint that planning for a ground invasion of Gaza had begun, saying he had instructed the army to broaden its draft of reservists to “be prepared for any kind of development if and when it will be required.” Israeli officials said 30,000 reservists could be called, and heavy machinery and tanks rumbled south along Israeli roads leading to Gaza on Thursday in preparation for a possible invasion.


Hamas claimed to have hit one of the Israeli aircraft that have been conducting raids for the past two days on suspected missile storage sites and other targets. Israeli officials denied the claim.


Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said its aerial assaults had hit more than 200 sites in Gaza by late Thursday, and “we’ll continue tonight and tomorrow.” He also said militants in Gaza had fired about 300 rockets into southern Israel and at least 100 more had been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system.


The Israeli aerial assault on Gaza that began on Wednesday was the most intense military operation by Israel in Gaza since an invasion four years ago and raised the risks of a new Middle East war.


The regional perils of the situation sharpened as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday.


“The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, the Egyptian government and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and the bloodshed of Palestinians,” Mr. Morsi said in nationally televised remarks before a crisis meeting of senior ministers. He also instructed his prime minister to lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday and said he had contacted President Obama to discuss strategies to “stop these acts and doings and the bloodshed and aggression.”


In language that reflected the upheaval in the political dynamics of the Middle East since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year, Mr. Morsi said, “Israelis must realize that we don’t accept this aggression, and it could only lead to instability in the region and has a major negative impact on stability and security in the region.”


The thrust of Mr. Morsi’s words seemed confined to diplomatic maneuvers, including calls to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon; the head of the Arab League; and President Obama.


Isabel Kershner reported from Kiryat Malachi, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from Paris.



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GameStop profit beats forecast; cautiously eyes holiday
















SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – GameStop Corp, the world’s largest retailer of videogame products, reported a stronger-than-expected profit on Thursday but lowered its sales forecast for this year due to uncertainty around the holiday shopping season as the video game market struggles.


Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop forecast same-store sales in 2012 would drop 6 percent to 9 percent, compared with a 2 to 10 percent decline projected previously.













“We’ve continued to find new ways to drive revenues and margins in our stores and that’s enabled us to hold on to some earnings in these difficult times,” Chief Financial Officer Rob Lloyd said in an interview.


“We’re still a little bit cautious in that it’s a difficult environment in which to forecast because the industry has been down,” Lloyd said. “And we’ve got uncertainty surrounding what the supply of the (Nintendo)Wii U is going to be.”


Nintendo Co Ltd is gearing up to launch its Wii U video game console on November 18. It is the first new home console device to be sold by a major gaming company in more than six years.


GameStop hopes the start of a new console cycle with the Wii U launch and just-released high quality games like Microsoft Corp’s “Halo 4″ and Activision Blizzard’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” will boost hardware and software sales this holiday season.


GameStop’s shares rose 4.25 percent to $ 24.48 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.


Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said investors seem more comfortable now with the company’s recent efforts to drive profitability.


In the last two years, the company has been tackling decelerating video game sales in a tough market by diversifying its revenue sources, selling electronics like tablets, digital video games and used games.


The games retailer said it had repurchased stock worth $ 76.8 million in the third quarter and announced that its board had approved a new $ 500 million share buy-back plan to replace its existing $ 242 million repurchase plan. It also announced a quarterly dividend of 25 cents, same as last quarter.


The company reported adjusted net earnings per share of 38 cents in the third quarter, beating analysts’ expectations of 32 cents.


“Earnings per share was quite impressive, driven by gross margins being strong and cost control,” Sterne Agee’s Bhatia said.


GameStop said it expects comparable store sales to range between down 7 percent and up 1 percent in the fourth quarter. It forecast earnings per share between $ 2.07 to $ 2.27 for the period.


Sales of traditional videogame products such as consoles have been pressured globally by lower-priced online offerings and gamers spending more time on tablet computers and cell phones.


Total U.S. sales of videogame software in October dropped 25 percent from a year ago, following a similar trend throughout the third quarter, according to a report by market research firm NPD.


GameStop said sales fell 8.9 percent to $ 1.77 billion. Analysts were expecting sales of $ 1.79 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


Adjusted earnings were $ 47.2 million, compared with $ 53.9 million a year ago. The company maintained its previously announced full-year earnings outlook of between $ 3.10 per share to $ 3.30 per share.


(Reporting by Malathi Nayak; editing by John Wallace, Maureen Bavdek, David Gregorio and Dan Grebler)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Jon Bon Jovi's Daughter: Drug Charges Dropped















11/15/2012 at 04:40 PM EST







Jon Bon Jovi and daughter Stephanie


Dave M. Benett/Getty


Jon Bon Jovi's daughter, Stephanie Rose Bongiovi, no longer faces drug charges because of New York's law applying to overdose cases in which there was a call for help, authorities said Friday.

Bongiovi, 19, and Ian S. Grant, 21, both students at Hamilton College in Upstate New York, were arrested this week on drug possession charges after officers found heroin, marijuana and drug paraphernalia in her dorm room, according to police.

On Friday, the misdemeanor charges against both were dropped because of a 2011 amendment to the New York penal code exempting people from possession charges if they had sought help for somebody experiencing a "drug or alcohol overdose or other life-threatening medical emergency."

The so-called "Good Samaritan" section of the law applies to the Bongiovi case because Grant had called for help for the rocker's daughter as she suffered a possible overdose, authorities said.

"By law, they have immunity. I can’t prosecute them even if I wanted to,” said Oneida County District Attorney Scott D. McNamara, according to the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y."To proceed would be highly inappropriate and highly unethical, and would jeopardize my opportunity to practice in the future."

Bongiovi, one of the singer's four children with wife Dorothea Hurley, was hospitalized early Wednesday. Her condition was unknown. Reps for Bon Jovi have not commented.

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Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's diabetes problem is getting worse, and the biggest jump over 15 years was in Oklahoma, according to a new federal report issued Thursday.

The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled, and Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama also saw dramatic increases since 1995, the study showed.

The South's growing weight problem is the main explanation, said Linda Geiss, lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

"The rise in diabetes has really gone hand in hand with the rise in obesity," she said.

Bolstering the numbers is the fact that more people with diabetes are living longer because better treatments are available.

The disease exploded in the United States in the last 50 years, with the vast majority from obesity-related Type 2 diabetes. In 1958, fewer than 1 in 100 Americans had been diagnosed with diabetes. In 2010, it was about 1 in 14.

Most of the increase has happened since 1990.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body has trouble processing sugar; it's the nation's seventh leading cause of death. Complications include poor circulation, heart and kidney problems and nerve damage.

The new study is the CDC's first in more than a decade to look at how the nationwide boom has played out in different states.

It's based on telephone surveys of at least 1,000 adults in each state in 1995 and 2010. Participants were asked if a doctor had ever told them they have diabetes.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi — the state with the largest proportion of residents who are obese — has the highest diabetes rate. Nearly 12 percent of Mississippians say they have diabetes, compared to the national average of 7 percent.

But the most dramatic increases in diabetes occurred largely elsewhere in the South and in the Southwest, where rates tripled or more than doubled. Oklahoma's rate rose to about 10 percent, Kentucky went to more than 9 percent, Georgia to 10 percent and Alabama surpassed 11 percent.

An official with Oklahoma State Department of Health said the solution is healthier eating, more exercise and no smoking.

"And that's it in a nutshell," said Rita Reeves, diabetes prevention coordinator.

Several Northern states saw rates more than double, too, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Maine.

The study was published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://tinyurl.com/cdcdiabetesreport

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Wall Street ends flat as wary investors stay defensive

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Thursday as the prospect of a drawn-out battle over impending tax and spending changes made investors wary of getting into the water, while retailer Wal-Mart tumbled after disappointing sales.


The S&P 500 is down nearly 2 percent for the week, adding to last week's selloff and eroding more of the market's gains for the year.


What had looked like a stellar 2012 for stocks has turned into merely an average year, and as 2012 draws to a close, investors are becoming more inclined to protect the gains they have.


The worry is the economy could contract again if no deal is reached in Washington to avoid the "fiscal cliff" - large, automatic budget cuts and tax hikes that begin to take effect in the new year.


Combined with the euro zone debt crisis, the uncertain outlook for corporations makes it hard to know how much a stock is worth, said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates in Toledo, Ohio.


"Valuation is going to be uncertain because you don't know what the growth will be," said Lancz. "That is definitely not a good scenario for someone to step up to the plate and do a lot of buying."


The euro zone relapsed into its second recession since 2009 in the third quarter as the region was hurt by its debt problems.


Wal-Mart fell 3.6 percent to $68.72 and was the biggest drag on the Dow as frugal consumers hurt the company's quarterly sales.


Investors will be watching Friday's meeting at the White House between President Barack Obama and Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress over deficit reduction for any sign the two sides are moving closer.


The memory of last year's political impasse over raising the debt ceiling has also made analysts nervous.


"(There is) uncertainty of whether we're going to have a functioning government going forward. That is a weight that sits on markets right now," said Troy Logan, managing director and senior economist at Warren Financial Service in Exton, Pennsylvania.


Even if the economy avoids an outright recession, there are fears a lengthy political dispute could sap business investment and consumer spending.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 28.49 points, or 0.23 percent, to 12,542.46. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 2.16 points, or 0.16 percent, to 1,353.33. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was off 9.87 points, or 0.35 percent, to 2,836.94.


The S&P 500 sunk to a 3 1/2-month closing low and was well below its 200-day moving average, which it pierced last week.


Data on Thursday showed new claims for unemployment benefits surged last week, while factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly shrank in November as the economy felt the effects of superstorm Sandy.


A flare-up in violence in the Middle East added to market unease as Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza city for a second day, while two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip targeted Tel Aviv.


Apple Inc shares dragged the Nasdaq lower, falling 2.1 percent to $525.62 and down about 25 percent since September's high.


Also in the tech sector, shares of Dell Inc fell in after-hours trading after it reported revenue that was shy of Wall Street's expectations. Dell was down 2.2 percent at $9.35.


Target Corp bucked the trend, rising 1.7 percent to $62.44 after it reported a profit that beat expectations.


Volume was roughly 7.26 billion shares on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, topping the year-to-date average daily closing volume of around 6.5 billion.


Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 2,069 to 975 on the New York Stock Exchange. Decliners also had the upper hand on the Nasdaq, outpacing advancers 1,506 to 948.


(Editing by Kenneth Barry)


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Israelis Launch Major Assault on Gaza, Killing Hamas Commander





GAZA — Israel on Wednesday launched one of the most ferocious assaults on Gaza since its invasion four years ago, hitting at least 20 targets in aerial attacks that killed the top military commander of Hamas, drew strong condemnation from Egypt and escalated the risks of a new war in the Middle East.




The Israelis coupled the intensity of the airstrikes with the threat of another ground invasion and warnings to all Hamas leaders in Gaza to stay out of sight or risk the same fate as the Hamas military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, who was killed in a pinpoint airstrike as he was traveling by car down a Gaza street. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a Twitter message.


The ferocity of the airstrikes, which Israel called Operation “Pillar of Defense” in response to repeated rocket attacks by Gaza-based Palestinian militants, provoked rage in Gaza, where Hamas said the airstrikes amounted to war and promised a harsh response. Civil-defense authorities in Israel raised alert levels and told residents to take precautions for rocket retaliation from Gaza.


Health officials in Gaza quoted by news agencies said the Israeli attacks had killed at least nine people and wounded at least 40.


The abrupt escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the militant organization regarded by Israel as a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction, came amid rising tensions between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors. Israel has faced growing lawlessness on its border with the Sinai, including cross-border attacks. It recently fired twice into Syria, which is caught in a civil war, after munitions fell in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and it has absorbed rocket fire from Gaza, which has damaged homes and frightened the population.


Israeli officials had promised a robust response to the rocket fire, but for the moment, at least, opted against a ground invasion and instead chose airstrikes and targeted killings.


The Israeli attacks especially threatened to further complicate Israel’s fragile relations with Egypt, where the Islamist-led government of President Mohamed Morsi, reversing a policy of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak, had established closer ties with Hamas and had been acting as a mediator to restore calm between Israel and Gaza-based militant groups.


In the first crisis in Israeli-Egyptian relations since Mr. Morsi came to power, he called the Israeli actions “wanton aggression on the Gaza Strip.” He ordered Egypt’s ambassador to Israel to return home, summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest, and called for emergency meetings of both the United Nations Security Council and the Arab League over the Gaza attacks. Egyptian state media said Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr had “warned Israel against the consequences of escalation and the negative reflections it may have on the security and stability of the region.”


Mr. Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a statement saying: “The wanton aggression against Gaza proves that Israel has yet to realize that Egypt has changed and that the Egyptian people who revolted against oppression will not accept assaulting Gaza.”


A spokesman for Hamas, Fawzi Barhoum, said the Israelis had “committed a dangerous crime and broke all redlines,” and that “the Israeli occupation will regret and pay a high price.”


Military officials in Israel, which announced responsibility for the death of Mr. Jabari, later said in a statement that their forces had carried out additional airstrikes in Gaza targeting what they described as “a significant number of long-range rocket sites” owned by Hamas that had stored rockets capable of reaching 25 miles into Israel. The statement said the airstrikes had dealt a “significant blow to the terror organization’s underground rocket-launching capabilities.”


Yisrael Katz, a minister from Israel’s governing Likud Party, issued a statement saying that the operation had sent a message to the Hamas political leaders in Gaza “that the head of the snake must be smashed. Israel will continue to kill and target anyone who is involved in the rocket attacks.”Hamas and medical officials in Gaza said both Mr. Jabari and a companion were killed by the airstrike on his car in Gaza City. Israeli news media said the companion was Mr. Jabari’s son, but there was no immediate confirmation.


The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that Mr. Jabari had been targeted because he “served in the upper echelon of the Hamas command and was directly responsible for executing terror attacks against the state of Israel in the past number of years,” including the 2006 abduction and five-year incarceration of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, on the Israel-Gaza border.


The statement said the purpose of the attack was to “severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership as well as its terrorist infrastructure.”


Fares Akram reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York, and Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo.



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Peek-a-Boo! Kristen Stewart Stuns in a See-Through Bodysuit







Style News Now





11/14/2012 at 03:30 PM ET











Kristen Stewart
Jon Furniss/Invision/AP


Damn, Kristen!


For Wednesday’s London premiere of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, Stewart somehow topped her jaw-dropping Los Angeles premiere dress, selecting a sparkly see-through bodysuit by designer Zuhair Murad.


The couture piece — from Murad’s fall/winter 2012 collection — features an open back and an intricate pattern of hand-sewn beadwork. (It’s not dissimilar from the silhouette seen on Twilight costar Ashley Greene and actress Dakota Johnson on Tuesday night, either.)


Stewart selected a Murad creation for Monday night’s Los Angeles premiere, too, choosing a peek-a-boo nude gown for that occasion. The designer — who created Jennifer Lopez’s glimmering tour costumes this year — is known for his feminine gowns and sexy dresses, which have graced the likes of Miley Cyrus and Sofia Vergara, as well.


This racy look is something different for Stewart, who often sticks to geometric minis and the occasional gown. However, she’s been taking some risks lately — leather dresses, cutout tops, smoky eye makeup — and so far, we think we’re liking this new side of K. Stew. Tell us: What do you think of Stewart’s sparkly bodysuit? 


PHOTOS: PLAY FASHION EDITOR NOW IN ‘LAST NIGHT’S LOOK’




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Ireland probes death of ill abortion-seeker

DUBLIN (AP) — The debate over legalizing abortion in Ireland flared Wednesday after the government confirmed that a woman in the midst of a miscarriage was refused an abortion and died in an Irish hospital after suffering from blood poisoning.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he was awaiting findings from three investigations into the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Her case highlighted the legal limbo in which pregnant women facing severe health problems can find themselves in predominantly Catholic Ireland.

Ireland's constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling found the procedure should be legalized for situations when the woman's life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.

The vast bulk of Irish women wanting abortions, an estimated 4,000 per year, simply travel next door to England, where abortion has been legal on demand since 1967. But that option is difficult, if not impossible, for women in failing health.

Halappanavar's husband, Praveen, said doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland determined she was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization for severe pain on Sunday, Oct. 21. He said over the next three days, doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her surging pain and fading health.

The hospital declined to say whether doctors believed Halappanavar's blood poisoning could have been reversed had she received an abortion rather than waiting for the fetus to die on its own. In a statement, it described its own investigation into the death, and a parallel probe by the government's Health Service Executive, as "standard practice" whenever a pregnant woman dies in a hospital. The Galway coroner also planned a public inquest.

"Savita was really in agony. She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby," he told The Irish Times in a telephone interview from Belgaum, southwest India. "When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning, Savita asked if they could not save the baby, could they induce to end the pregnancy? The consultant said: 'As long as there is a fetal heartbeat, we can't do anything.'

"Again on Tuesday morning ... the consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita said: 'I am neither Irish nor Catholic' but they said there was nothing they could do," Praveen Halappanavar said.

He said his wife vomited repeatedly and collapsed in a restroom that night, but doctors wouldn't terminate the fetus because its heart was still beating.

The fetus died the following day and its remains were surgically removed. Within hours, Savita was placed under sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning and he was never able to speak with her again, her husband said. By Saturday, her heart, kidneys and liver had stopped working. She was pronounced dead early Sunday, Oct. 28.

The couple had settled in 2008 in Galway, where Praveen Halappanavar works as an engineer at the medical devices manufacturer Boston Scientific. His wife was qualified as a dentist but had taken time off for her pregnancy. Her parents in India had just visited them in Galway and left the day before her hospitalization.

Praveen Halappanavar said he took his wife's remains back to India for a Hindu funeral and cremation Nov. 3. News of the circumstances that led to her death emerged Tuesday in Galway after the Indian community canceled the city's annual Diwali festival. Savita Halappanavar had been one of the festival's main organizers.

Opposition politicians appealed Wednesday for Kenny's government to introduce legislation immediately to make the 1992 Supreme Court judgment part of statutory law. Barring any such bill, the only legislation defining the illegality of abortion in Ireland dates to 1861, when the entire island was part of the United Kingdom. That British law, still valid here due to Irish inaction on the matter, states it is a crime punishable by life imprisonment to "procure a miscarriage."

In the 1992 case, a 14-year-old girl identified in court only as "X'' successfully sued the government for the right to have an abortion in England. She had been raped by a neighbor. When her parents reported the crime to police, the attorney general ordered her not to travel abroad for an abortion, arguing this would violate Ireland's constitution.

The Supreme Court ruled she should be permitted an abortion in Ireland, never mind England, because she was making credible threats to commit suicide if refused one. During the case, the girl reportedly suffered a miscarriage.

Since then, Irish governments twice have sought public approval to legalize abortion in life-threatening circumstances — but excluding a suicide threat as acceptable grounds. Both times voters rejected the proposed amendments.

Legal and political analysts broadly agree that no Irish government since 1992 has needed public approval to pass a law that backs the Supreme Court ruling. They say governments have been reluctant to be seen legalizing even limited access to abortion in a country that is more than 80 percent Catholic.

An abortions right group, Choice Ireland, said Halappanavar might not have died had any previous government legislated in line with the X judgment. Earlier this year, the government rejected an opposition bill to do this.

"Today, some 20 years after the X case, we find ourselves asking the same question: If a woman is pregnant, her life in jeopardy, can she even establish whether she has a right to a termination here in Ireland?" said Choice Ireland spokeswoman Stephanie Lord.

Coincidentally, the government said it received a long-awaited expert report Tuesday proposing possible changes to Irish abortion law shortly before news of Savita Halappanavar's death broke. The government commissioned the report two years ago after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ireland's inadequate access to abortions for life-threatening pregnancies violated European Union law.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, identifies Ireland as an unusually safe place to be pregnant. Its most recent report on global maternal death rates found that only three out of every 100,000 women die in childbirth in Ireland, compared with an average of 14 in Europe and North America, 190 in Asia and 590 in Africa.

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S&P 500 ends near four-month low on budget, Middle East

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 slid to its lowest level since late July on Wednesday, driven by uncertainty over budget negotiations and an escalation of violence in the Middle East.


President Barack Obama, in his first press conference since re-election, held to his position that marginal tax rates will have to rise to tackle the nation's deficits. With talks over solving the U.S. "fiscal cliff" in early stages, investors are reacting to the uncertainty by shedding positions.


"I think we will have a last-minute cliffhanger solution," said Michael Cheah, portfolio manager at SunAmerica Asset Management in Jersey City, New Jersey, about a deal to avoid the so-called cliff.


"In the meantime, the market is going to get punched every day."


Without a deal, a series of mandated tax hikes and spending cuts will start to take effect early next year that could push the U.S. economy into a recession.


Taxes on capital gains and dividends could rise as part of the negotiations, pushing investors to sell this year and pay lower taxes on their gains.


Buying interest has been weak in the stock market of late, as brief early market rallies have succumbed to selling pressure.


Adding to the selling pressure, Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing the military commander of Hamas in an air strike and threatening an invasion of the enclave. Egypt said it recalled its ambassador from Israel in response.


"We know Europe's in trouble, China's slowing down ... and now you've got the Middle East flaring up again. It's all hitting at once, and obviously, the market is taking a 'sell first, ask questions later' approach," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati.


Industrial shares led the decline, dragged lower in part by a 1 percent spike in crude prices after the Israeli offensive on Gaza. The S&P industrial sector index <.gspi> fell 2.5 percent.


Wall Street had opened higher after Dow component Cisco Systems Inc reported first-quarter earnings and revenue late Tuesday that beat expectations, driving its stock up 4.8 percent to $17.66. But the positive momentum was short-lived.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 185.23 points, or 1.45 percent, to 12,570.95 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 19.04 points, or 1.39 percent, to 1,355.49. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> lost 37.08 points, or 1.29 percent, to 2,846.81.


Both the Dow industrials and the Nasdaq ended at their lowest levels since late June.


The S&P 500 closed below its 200-day moving average for a fifth day in a row, a technical indicator that suggests recent declines are gaining momentum. It was the benchmark S&P 500's lowest close since July 25.


The Russell 2000 <.rut> tumbled 2 percent and the Dow Jones Transportation average <.djt> slid 2.6 percent. FedEx Corp shares dropped 3.7 percent to $87.12. Bank of America shares lost 3.6 percent to $8.99.


In contrast, Facebook shares jumped 12.6 percent to $22.36 as investors were relieved that expiring trading restrictions on a huge block of shares did not trigger an immediate wave of insider selling.


Teen clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co jumped 34.4 percent to $41.92 after the company reported unexpectedly improved third-quarter results and a full-year outlook that exceeded Wall Street's forecasts.


About 7.4 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, more than the daily average so far this year of about 6.51 billion shares.


On the NYSE, decliners outnumbered advancers by a ratio of almost 9 to 1. On the Nasdaq, about four stocks fell for every one that rose.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Steven C. Johnson and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Jan Paschal)


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White House Supports Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan





President Obama has faith in Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, the White House spokesman said on Tuesday, after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with the woman whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the scandal involving David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair.




“The president thinks very highly of General Allen,” the spokesman, Jay Carney, said at a White House news briefing. “He has faith in General Allen,” and believes that he has done “an excellent job” as commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Carney added. General Allen’s recent nomination to become the supreme allied commander in Europe, Mr. Carney said, is delayed at the request of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta pending the investigation’s outcome.


Mr. Panetta and other officials disclosed overnight the investigation into General Allen’s e-mails with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s lover, as a rival for his attentions.


Mr. Petraeus’s affair led to his resignation as head of the C.I.A. on Friday, and the F.B.I.’s investigations into e-mails in the matter apparently led in turn to General Allen’s correspondence.


In a statement released to reporters on his plane en route to Australia early Tuesday, Mr. Panetta said the F.B.I. on Sunday had referred “a matter involving” General Allen to the Pentagon.


Mr. Panetta turned the matter over to the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct an investigation into what a defense official said were thousands of pages of documents, many of them e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley.


A senior law enforcement official in Washington said on Tuesday that F.B.I. investigators, looking into Ms. Kelley’s complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received, examined all of her e-mails as a routine step.


“When you get involved in a cybercase like this, you have to look at everything,” the official said, suggesting that Ms. Kelley may not have considered that possibility when she filed the complaint. “The real question is why someone decided to open this can of worms.”


The official would not describe the content of the e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley or say specifically why F.B.I. officials had decided to pass them on to the Defense Department. “Generally, the nature of the e-mails warranted providing them to D.O.D.,” he said.


Under military law, adultery can be a crime.


The defense official on Mr. Panetta’s plane said that General Allen, who is also married, told Pentagon officials that he had done nothing wrong. Neither he nor Ms. Kelley, who is also married with children, could be reached for comment early Tuesday. Mr. Panetta’s statement praised General Allen for his leadership in Afghanistan and said, “He is entitled to due process in this matter.”


A senior Defense Department official said General Allen had denied having an extramarital affair with Ms. Kelley. But the official said the content of some of the e-mails “was of a flirtatious nature.”


“Some were of an affectionate nature,” the official said, adding that it was unclear whether the flirtatiousness expressed was from General Allen to Ms. Kelley, from Ms. Kelley to General Allen, or mutual.


“That is what makes the e-mails potentially inappropriate,” he said.


The official said that he had not read the e-mails, but had been briefed on the content, and that they did not contain anything inappropriate regarding operations or security.


But there were conflicting assessments of the content of the e-mails. Associates of General Allen said that the e-mails were of an innocuous nature. Some of the e-mails, these associates said, used terms of endearment, but not in a flirtatious way.


Pentagon officials cautioned against making too much of the number of documents, since some might be from e-mail chains, or brief messages printed out on a whole page.


The Pentagon inspector general’s investigation opens up what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Mr. Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military and became director of the C.I.A., only to resign on Friday because of the affair, and General Allen, who also served in Iraq and now commands 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.


Although General Allen will remain the commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Panetta said that he had asked President Obama to delay the general’s nomination to be the commander of American forces in Europe and the supreme allied commander of NATO, two positions he was to move into after what was expected to be easy confirmation by the Senate. Mr. Panetta said in his statement that Mr. Obama agreed with his request.


Scott Shane and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.



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Zynga CFO leaves for Facebook
















SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Zynga Inc‘s chief financial officer, David Wehner, will leave the company for an executive position at Facebook Inc, the gaming company announced Tuesday as it reshuffled its upper ranks.


David Ko, chief mobile officer, has been elevated to become Zynga‘s new chief operations officer.













Mark Vranesh, Zynga’s top accounting executive, will replace Wehner as CFO, Zynga said.


(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Psy to Be This Year's New Media Honoree at the American Music Awards















11/13/2012 at 04:00 PM EST







Psy


Dave Hogan/MTV 2012/Getty


All the YouTube clicks have paid off for "Gangnam Style" rapper, Psy.

He became an overnight sensation in the United States, and now the Korea-bred artist, also known as Park Jae-Sang, is being honored at the American Music Awards on Sunday.

Psy will follow in the footsteps of DeStorm, Christina Grimmie and Karmin, to become this year's new media honoree for his cyber success.

He will receive a trophy for his hit single – which has racked up more than 28 million video clicks – during the Coca-Cola Red Carpet LIVE! at the 2012 AMAs pre-show. Psy will also perform his catchy tune during the show itself.

The pre-show will stream live on YouTube and other partner sites starting at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. The 40th annual American Music Awards airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection reports and internal memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several years of problems, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because since the outbreak came to light in late September, public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital who came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests and assurances to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less stringent consent decree with the state.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and Massachusetts Department of Public Health interim commissioner Lauren Smith are scheduled to testify at Wednesday's hearing.

According to the congressional report, lawmakers plan to ask the witnesses whether the FDA and state pharmacy board acted appropriately. Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

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Microsoft's slide hits tech shares, but retailers gain

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