Justice Department antitrust chief Wayland to step down next week

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The acting head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, Joseph Wayland, will step down as of November 16, a department spokeswoman said on Thursday.

No one has been named to be the acting assistant attorney general for antitrust, said the spokeswoman, Gina Talamona.

The position has been without a confirmed chief since Christine Varney left in mid-2011. Since then, the nomination of William Baer to succeed her has stalled in the Senate.

Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican Senator, has opposed Baer’s nomination but has not publicly said why.

Baer, a prominent attorney with the law firm Arnold & Porter LLP, was nominated in early February.

Wayland, whose family lives in New York, will return there, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported he was leaving. Before coming to the Justice Department, he specialized in complex business litigation, including antitrust and securities cases.

The Justice Department recruited Wayland in September 2010 to lead litigation efforts at the division, a hire that appears to have paid off.

President Barack Obama‘s Justice Department successfully opposed AT&T Inc’s planned $ 39 billion deal to acquire wireless rival T-Mobile USA and stopped NASDAQ OMX Group and IntercontinentalExchange Inc from buying NYSE Euronext.

But the department reached compromises on other deals, such as Ticketmaster’s purchase of Live Nation in 2010, Google Inc’s acquisitions of ticketing software company ITA and smartphone handset maker Motorola Mobility, and Verizon Wireless’ controversial plan to buy airwaves from cable operators.

The division is looking at price-fixing in industries as disparate as auto parts, optical disk drives and the derivatives market, as well as interest-rate manipulation and whether cable companies are trying to prevent the rise of Internet video as an alternative to television.

It has also sued Apple and two publishers – Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH’s Macmillan and Pearson Plc’s Penguin Group – accusing them of fixing prices of electronic books.

(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Mick Jagger’s love letters to singer Marsha Hunt up for auction

(Reuters) – Love letters written by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to American singer Marsha Hunt, discussing poetry and his personal turmoil, will hit the auction block next month.

Hunt, with whom Jagger had his first child, Karis, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper she was selling the letters, written in July and August 1969, because she had been unable to pay her bills.

“I’m broke,” Hunt, who lives in France, told the newspaper.

The Guardian said on Friday the 10 letters would be sold by Sotheby’s on December 12.

The auction house values the letters from between 70,000 and 100,000 pounds ($ 111,000-$ 160,000).

Jagger wrote them to Hunt while filming the Tony Richardson movie “Ned Kelly” in Australia.

They are described as showing a sensitive side of the then-young singer, who wrote about the poetry of Emily Dickinson, meeting author Christopher Isherwood and an unrealized multimedia project.

Jagger’s relationship with Hunt, who is African-American, was kept under wraps until 1972.

“The sale is important,” Hunt told The Guardian. “Someone, I hope, will buy those letters as our generation is dying and with us will go the reality of who we were and what life was.”

Hunt has said she was the inspiration for the Rolling Stones‘ song “Brown Sugar,” which Jagger wrote while in Australia.

The rock star also cites in the letters the disintegration of his relationship with singer Marianne Faithful, whom he was also dating at the time, and the death of Rolling Stones’ guitarist Brian Jones.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

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States given more time to work on health exchanges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration gave states extra time to work toward setting up new health insurance exchanges on Friday, days after President Barack Obama‘s re-election ensured the survival of his healthcare reform law.

The move is seen as a concession to dozens of states that delayed compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act until after the November 6 election. Opponents of the plan had hoped a victory for Republican Mitt Romney would ultimately result in the law’s repeal.

But with Obama now heading into a second term, and a November 16 federal deadline to declare their plans looming, many states needed more time to prepare for exchanges, complex marketplaces meant to offer working families private insurance at federally subsidized rates beginning in 2014.

Since Tuesday’s election, seven states including Texas, Kansas, Virginia and Florida have said they will not pursue state-operated exchanges and conservative political donors are mounting a publicity campaign to encourage more defections.

But there are also signs that opposition could be waning in some states.

In cases where states decide not to participate, the federal government says it will go in and build an exchange on its own.

“The administration would like to do whatever it can to bring states in,” said Larry Levitt, a healthcare policy expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks health issues.

“It’s always been expected that if the president got reelected, a lot of states sitting on the sidelines would realize they don’t want the federal government building a state health insurance system. That’s what we’re seeing happening.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a November 9 letter to governors that the administration still expects states to declare whether they intend to operate their own exchanges by next Friday.

But they now have until December 14 to file blueprints showing how they would operate the marketplaces. So far, about 13 states are well on their way to setting up their own exchanges.

States can also choose to develop their exchange in partnership with the federal government. As many as 30 could go that route.

Sebelius said states that prefer a partnership now have until February 15, 2013, to declare their intentions and prepare the appropriate paperwork. She said states can still apply to run exchanges in subsequent years but emphasized that the start date for coverage has not changed.

“Consumers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will have access to insurance through these new marketplaces on January 1, 2014, as scheduled, with no delays,” she said in the letter, which described the deadline extension as a response to state requests for more time.

Analysts characterized the extension as a substantial offer from the federal government.

“It’s about as far as they reasonably could extend, knowing that the systems have to be ready by Oct 1, 2013,” said Patrick Howard, who advises states on healthcare issues for Deloitte.

The Affordable Care Act, the most sweeping health legislation since the 1960s, would extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. About half would receive coverage through a planned expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor, and the other half through the exchanges.

The list of states that say they will not participate in the healthcare exchanges grew this week when Virginia and Kansas added their names.

Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Alaska and Florida confirmed to Reuters on Friday that they will not participate in exchanges. Louisiana had also opposed the plan before the election, but officials there did not respond to inquiries about their plans under Obama’s second term.

But Maine, which advised the administration last April that it did not intend to pursue a state-based exchange, said on Friday that further guidance from Sebelius’ department could make a difference.

“It’s too soon to tell,” said Adrienne Bennett, spokeswoman for Republican Governor Paul LePage.

“We’re willing to look at the information and move forward. But we can’t move forward if we don’t have information from the Obama administration. So we’re in a holding pattern,” she said.

Several Republican advocacy groups are expected to push against the implementation of Obama’s healthcare law. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative non-profit in part funded by billionaire Koch brothers, on Friday urged U.S. governors to reject the state-based exchange options, calling them “flawed” and “bloated bureaucracies” that put states’ budgets at risk.

(Writing by David Morgan; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Eric Walsh, Claudia Parsons and David Gregorio)

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Chevron appeals against freeze

9 November 2012 Last updated at 19:55 ET

Two Argentine subsidiaries of the oil company Chevron have appealed against a court order freezing up to $ 19bn (£11.9bn) of their assets.

A judge issued the order as part of an environmental damages claim in Ecuador.

Chevron has been ordered to pay $ 19bn for polluting land in the Amazon region but because it has few assets in Ecuador the plaintiffs are trying to get the ruling enforced abroad.

Chevron said the subsidiaries had nothing to do with the judgement.

Legal quagmire

“Chevron Corp, the sole judgement debtor, has no assets in Argentina,” Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson said.

“All operations in Argentina are conducted by subsidiaries that have nothing to do with the fraudulent judgement in Ecuador,” according to Mr Robertson.

Wednesday’s court order freezing Chevron’s assets in Argentina is the latest move in a decades-long legal wrangle between Chevron and the people of the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador.

The Ecuadorean court judgement originally ordered Chevron to pay $ 8.6bn in environmental damages, but that was more than doubled because the oil company did not apologise publicly.

The Ecuadorean plaintiffs say that Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, dumped toxic materials in the Ecuadorean Amazon between 1964 and 1992.

Chevron says Texaco spent $ 40m cleaning up the area during the 1990s, and signed an agreement with Ecuador in 1998 absolving it of any further responsibility.

Chevron has in the past said the original ruling against the company was a product of “bribery and fraud”.

The company has also dismissed the plaintiffs’ moves to get the ruling enforced abroad, saying that “if the plaintiffs’ lawyers believed they had a legitimate judgement, they would seek to enforce it in the United States”.

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Twin explosions strike southern Syrian city

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria‘s state-run news agency says two large explosions have struck the southern city of Daraa, causing multiple casualties and heavy material damage.

SANA did not immediately give further information or say what the target of Saturday’s explosions was.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the blasts went off near a branch of the country’s Military Intelligence in Daraa.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, says the explosions were followed by clashes between regime forces and rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

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Icahn says has mulled Netflix takeover, no decision made

(Reuters) – Activist investor Carl Icahn, who holds an almost 10 percent stake in Netflix, said on Thursday he has considered a hostile takeover bid for Netflix, but it was uncertain he stood a chance of acquiring the Internet streaming service.

Asked by TV network CNBC whether he would “go hostile” on Netflix, Icahn said, “The thought had certainly entered my mind. I have to admit I think about it, but we haven’t made that decision.”

While Icahn said a hostile takeover was “certainly an alternative,” he downplayed the possibility several times. He added that he would not be able to pay as much for Netflix as a “synergistic buyer” looking to acquire an Internet movie and TV subscription service.

Netflix has been the subject of periodic acquisition speculation, with potential names tossed around from Microsoft Corp to Amazon.com Inc.

Icahn last month disclosed he had amassed control of 9.98 percent of Netflix shares. Most of his purchases were in the form of call options that expire in September 2014. The billionaire, who is known for shaking up corporate management, has said Netflix was undervalued and an attractive acquisition target for a number of companies.

Netflix has since adopted a poison pill defense to prevent a hostile takeover, a move that Icahn on Thursday called “reprehensible.”

A Netflix spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Icahn’s remarks.

(Reporting By Liana B. Baker in New York; Additional reporting by Katya Wachtel and Sam Forgione in New York and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Achilles Had Only 2 Heels

Recently, I came across the headline “Scientists Find Achilles’ Heel of Cancer Cells”, describing the discovery of a histone deactylase (HDAC11) as a novel target for cancer therapies. I was irritated by the metaphor of Achilles’ heel, because it implied that this was the lone vulnerability of cancer. I was also embarrassed by the fact that I used the same metaphor for the press release describing our work earlier this year showing that mitochondrial network structure can be targeted in cancer. I decided to google the expressions “Achilles’ heel” and “cancer”. It turns out that every year, numerous press releases and news articles claim that researchers have finally identified the “Achilles’ heel” of cancer. In Greek mythology, Achilles only had two feet and thus two heels; only one of the two heels was vulnerable. So how can it be that hundreds of researchers have found the Achilles’ heel of cancer? Apparently, I am not the only one who has used this metaphor inappropriately and it begs the question, whether we should even be using it at all. When I was a child, Gustav Schwab‘s “Sagen des klassischen Altertums” was one of my favorite books. His gripping narrative of the ancient Greek myths has also been translated from German into English and is available as “Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece”. It was in this book that I first encountered the legend of Achilles and the story of the Trojan War, originally relayed by the Greek poet Homer in his great epic “The Illiad“. Achilles was the son of the sea-goddess (nymph) Thetis and King Peleus and was known for his great strength and skills in battle, but I could find nothing heroic in this demigod Achilles. Even though I loved Schwab’s narration, I despised Achilles. He vacillated between fits of rage and episodes of prolonged sulking. He was rude, arrogant and violent – Anakin Skywalker on steroids. I was especially horrified by how Achilles tied the body of his enemy Hector to his chariot and dragged it around, in order to humiliate the deceased and inflicting great psychological pain on Hector’s family. Basically, Achilles was a jerk; but according to the diagnostic classification of the American Psychiatric Association, Achilles may just have had IED (intermittent explosive disorder). When Achilles was a baby, his mother Thetis stuck him in a special flame to make him invulnerable. She was interrupted by Achilles’ father, who was shocked by what he perceived as poor parenting skills shown by Thetis. The interruption prevented Thetis from making her son completely invulnerable, which is why one of Achilles’ heels remained vulnerable. Later on in the legend, this vulnerable heel is where the Greek god Apollo directs his arrow and this injury ultimately results in Achilles’ demise. I remember the relief I experienced when I first read about Achilles’ death. It was karma – he deserved to die, considering all the pain and suffering that he had caused. I also remember that I was confused by the whole invulnerability aspect of the story. In a different part of the legend, his mother Thetis helps him obtain a special armor to protect his body. If nearly all of his body was already invulnerable, why would he need such a special armor? Wouldn’t he just need a special kind of Band-Aid to cover his one vulnerable heel? But then again, these were Greek gods and goddesses and they may have had different ways of approaching problems. Perhaps the special armor was extra insurance, just like people whose personal auto insurance covers rental cars but they still get suckered into buying additional rental car insurance at the airport. Later on, I found out the Schwab had combined multiple Achilles legends. The story of Achilles being invulnerable everywhere except for his heel and Achilles’ death are not part of Homer’s Illiad. It was long after Homer that the heel story became an integral part of the Achilles legend. In one version, Thetis did not place Achilles in a flame but instead dipped him in the magical River Styx. She held him by the heel of his foot, which is why he remained vulnerable in that one area. I am not sure that I would have held my son by the heel of all places, while dipping him into a magical river. Then again, I am not a Greek god. It also begs the question why Thetis did not dip him in a second time to make sure that the previously dry heal now also became invulnerable. In one narration, it was not Apollo who shot the arrow, but the Trojan prince Paris and Apollo merely directed the arrow into Achilles’ heel, possibly because Paris was not a very good shot. Even though the heel story and Achilles’ death or not part of the Illiad, it is difficult to envision the Achilles legend without it. The idea that even strong, arrogant entities remain vulnerable is very comforting. This may explain why this aspect of the legend is so popular and why it has given rise to the commonly used metaphor of the “Achilles’ heel” to describe lone vulnerable spots. Especially when describing cancer, the metaphor seems very apt. One can easily envision a growing tumor as an Achilles – aggressive and apparently invincible. When one identifies a gene or protein that can prevent tumor growth and or even kills the tumor, it is easy to succumb to using the “Achilles’ heel” metaphor. The problem with using this metaphor is that Achilles only had one single vulnerable heel. If a researcher claims to have found an Achilles’ heel, it not only implies that it is “one” area of vulnerability of the cancer, but that it is the “only” area of vulnerability. Most researchers who work with cancer cells know that there are many different mechanisms by which cancer growth can be slowed down. There is no single vulnerable pathway that can stop all cancer progression. Therefore, when researchers use this expression, they probably just like to convey the image of the powerful Achilles being brought to his knees by a single arrow. They do not want to claim that they have found the ultimate weapon to fight cancer. However, this metaphor inadvertently does imply that the described method is the only way to arrest the tumor. This is not only a gross over-simplification, but plain wrong. Someone who is not familiar with the complexities of cancer biology and reads a press release containing this metaphor may take this to mean that the sole vulnerability of cancer has been identified. Mythology and literature can be very inspiring for scientists and it is tempting to use powerful literary or mythological metaphors when communicating science, but one also needs to think about what these metaphors truly represent. Especially metaphors that oversimplify scientific findings or convey a false sense of certainty should be used avoided. When I think about research, two other Greek legends come to mind: The legend of Sisyphus and the Odyssey. Every day, Sisyphus rolled a rock up a mountain and then had to watch how it would roll back down again. This was his punishment decreed by the Greek gods. It reminds me of a lot of experiments that we scientists perform. When we feel that we are getting close solving a scientific problem we sometimes realize that we have to start all over again. Similarly, Odysseus’ long and exhausting journey is also a metaphor that appropriately characterizes a lot of real-life scientific research. Odysseus did not know if and when he would ever reach his destination, and this is how many of us conduct our research. I googled “Odyssey” and “cancer” to see if I could find news articles that allude to the scientific Odyssey of cancer research. To my surprise, I did find a number of articles, but these were not descriptions of scientific “Odysseys”. They were reports of cancer patients who described how they had undergone numerous different cancer treatments, often with little improvement. I realize that it is easier to market scientific ideas with a simplistic Achilles metaphor than to point out that science is long-winded and at times disorienting journey, similar to the Odyssey. But if we do want to use metaphors, we should probably use ones that appropriately convey the complexity and beauty of science.  

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

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HSBC investigates alleged loss of client data in Jersey

LONDON (Reuters) – HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, said on Friday it was investigating the alleged loss of data for clients in Jersey but had not been notified of any investigation by tax authorities.

The Daily Telegraph has reported that British tax authorities were examining details of more than 4,000 UK clients of HSBC in Jersey after a whistle-blower handed them a list of names, addresses and account balances.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said in a statement: “We can confirm we have received the data and we are studying it. We receive information from a very wide range of sources which we use to ensure the tax rules are being respected.”

HSBC said it was investigating the alleged loss of client data “as a matter of urgency.”

“We have not been notified of any investigation in relation to this matter by HMRC or any other authority but, should we receive notification, we will cooperate fully with the authorities,” the bank said in a statement.

This could mark another potential blow for HSBC which has been slammed by U.S. regulators for lax anti-money laundering controls in Mexico and elsewhere, and last year saw thousands of its Swiss clients probed by the UK taxman.

The bank’s London-listed shares dipped 0.2 percent by 4 a.m EDT, in line with a weak European banking index.

The Daily Telegraph report said Britain’s revenue service was combing through the list it had been given of HSBC’s Jersey clients to establish whether some used the offshore bank accounts to avoid paying UK taxes.

The list identifies 4,388 British-based people holding 699 million pounds ($ 1.1 billion) in current accounts and includes celebrities, bankers, doctors, mining and oil executives and oil workers, it the Telegraph wrote. The list also includes about 4,000 account holders with addresses outside Britain.

HSBC said earlier this week that a U.S. probe into anti-money laundering failures could result in a fine well over $ 1.5 billion and lead to criminal charges as well.

Tax authorities around the world are stepping up their efforts to uncover the identities of those who avoid taxes by hiding money in offshore accounts.

HSBC said on Friday it was “fully committed to adoption of the highest global standards including the procedures for the acceptance of clients.”

(Reporting by Natalie Huet and Steve Slater; Editing by Will Waterman and Jane Merriman)

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Assad says will live and die in Syria

DOHA (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad said he would “live and die” in Syria and warned that any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

Assad’s defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria’s fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella body uniting rebel groups inside and outside Syria, amid growing international pressure to put their house in order and prepare for a post-Assad transition.

The Syrian leader, battling a 19-month old uprising against his rule, appeared to reject an idea floated by British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday that a safe exit and foreign exile for the London-educated Assad could end the civil war.

“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he told Russia Today television in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. “I am Syrian; I was made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”

Russia Today’s web site, which published a transcript of the interview conducted in English, showed footage of Assad speaking to journalists and walking down stairs outside a white villa. It was not clear when he had made his comments.

The United States and its allies want the Syrian leader out, but have held back from arming his opponents or enforcing a no-fly zone, let alone invading. Russia has stood by Assad.

The president said he doubted the West would risk the global cost of intervening in Syria, whose conflict has already added to instability in the Middle East and killed some 38,000 people.

“I think that the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be bigger than the whole world can afford … It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” the 47-year-old president said.

“I do not think the West is going in this direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next.”

QATAR, TURKEY CHIDE OPPOSITION

Backed by Washington, the Doha talks underline Qatar’s central role in the effort to end Assad‘s rule as the Gulf state, which funded the Libyan revolt to oust Muammar Gaddafi, tries to position itself as a player in a post-Assad Syria.

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani urged the Syrian opposition to set its personal disputes aside and unite, according to a source inside the closed-door session.

“Come on, get a move on in order to win recognition from the international community,” the source quoted him as saying.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu delivered a similar message, saying, according to the source: “We want one spokesman not many. We need efficient counterparts, it is time to unite.”

An official text of a speech by Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Mohamed al-Attiyah showed he told the gathering: “The Syrian people awaits unity from you, not divisions … Your agreement today will prove to the international community that there is a unity … and this will reflect positively in the international community’s stance towards your fair cause.”

Across Syria, more than 90 people were killed in fighting on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In Turkey’s Hatay border province, two civilians, a woman and a young man, were wounded by stray bullets fired from Syria, according to a Turkish official. Turkish forces increased their presence along the frontier, where officials have said they might seek NATO deployment of ground to air missiles.

Syria poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term.

International rivalries have complicated mediation efforts. Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have put Assad under pressure.

Syria’s conflict, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against forces dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, whose origins lie in Shi’ite Islam, has fuelled sectarian tensions across the Middle East. Sunni Arab countries and Turkey favor the rebels, while Shi’ite Iran backs Assad, its main Arab ally.

“VICIOUS CIRCLE”

The main opposition body, the Syrian National Council (SNC), has been heavily criticized by Western and Arab backers of the revolt as ineffective, run by exiles out of touch with events in Syria, and under the sway of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

British Foreign Minister William Hague said London would now talk to rebel groups inside Syria, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week criticized the SNC and called for a new opposition body to include those “fighting and dying”.

But the plan for a body that could eventually be considered a government-in-waiting capable of winning foreign recognition and therefore more military backing ran into trouble almost as soon as it was proposed by SNC member Riyad Seif.

The meeting has so far been bogged down by arguments over the SNC representation and the number of seats the rival groups – which include Islamists, leftists and secularists – will have in a proposed assembly. Seif said he hoped for agreement on that on Thursday night, although the talks may continue into Friday.

Senior SNC member Burhan Ghalioun said the participants were moving towards consensus: “The atmosphere was positive. We all agree that we don’t want to walk away from this meeting in failure,” he told reporters.

Seif’s proposal is the first concerted attempt to merge opposition forces to help end the devastating conflict.

The initiative would also create a Supreme Military Council, a Judicial Committee and a transitional government-in-waiting of technocrats – along the lines of Libya’s Transitional National Council, which managed to galvanize international support for its successful battle to topple Gaddafi.

Michael Doran of the Brookings Institute in Washington told a forum in Doha it would not work for Syria. “It’s not a ridiculous idea, but it’s not going to succeed,” he said.

A diplomat on the sidelines of the talks said international divisions in the U.N. Security council did not help.

“It’s a vicious circle. They are asking the opposition to unite when they admit they are not themselves united,” he said.

(Writing by Tom Perry and Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Alistair Lyon, Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher)

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DoubleLine’s Gundlach says Apple may drop to $425/share: CNBC

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple shares could come under further selling pressure and drop to $ 425 a share over the next year on lack of innovation, said Jeffrey Gundlach, chief investment officer and chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital LP.

Gundlach, who recommended betting against Apple in mid-May at the Ira Sohn Investment Conference in New York, told CNBC the company’s stock is “overbelieved” and that its recent debut of the iPad mini is not an innovation.

“The product innovator, as I’ve said over and over again, isn’t there anymore,” Gundlach said in reference to Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs.

Shares of Apple, whose latest quarterly results failed to meet Wall Street’s lofty expectations, has fallen more than 20 percent from a record high of $ 705.07 in September. Shares slid as much as 4.6 percent on Wednesday to a low of $ 555.75 before ending the day down 3.8 percent at $ 558.0019.

Wednesday, Apple shares were under pressure as investors grew more uncertain about its ability to fend off unprecedented competition and untangle a snarled iPhone 5 supply chain.

Gundlach, whose firm oversees more than $ 45 billion in assets, said that the stock could fall to around $ 425 a share.

With regard to the benchmark S&P 500′s 2 percent decline on Wednesday, Gundlach said that investors may be anticipating the impact of higher taxes on capital gains that U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to implement.

“If you’re going to think about higher tax rates, maybe you want to sell the stocks before the tax rates go up, and I think that may be pressuring stocks in general,” Gundlach said.

Gundlach said that the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and spending cuts set to begin at the start of next year could be “punted down the road,” but that it could also prove a “monumental” shock to markets if investors doubt its potential impact.

Gundlach also said that his DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund has roughly 15 percent of its assets in cash and that he expects markets to become more volatile.

“I really am looking for higher volatility in the market as a general theme,” he said.

(Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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Ex-oil man to be next Anglican leader: UK media

LONDON (Reuters) – A former oil executive who went to the same exclusive school as Prime Minister David Cameron will shortly be named Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans, British newspapers said on Thursday.

Justin Welby, 56, the Bishop of Durham, who has had a meteoric rise up the Church of England hierarchy since quitting the world of commerce in 1992, will be announced as the next archbishop as early as Friday, the reports said.

The nomination follows weeks of speculation that the Church body assigned to elect the future archbishop was split over choosing a reformer or a safe pair of hands to maintain the status quo.

Cameron’s spokesman said an announcement would come “soon”.

Welby, who went to the same exclusive school, Eton College, as Cameron, London mayor Boris Johnson and Princes William and Harry, has already accepted the position, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Bookmaker William Hill stopped taking bets on the future archbishop after a run of bets on Welby on Tuesday.

“In the space of less than an hour we had to cut the odds three times, so took the decision to close the book as we know a decision is already overdue and it seems word may have leaked out,” the bookmaker said in a statement

Welby will replace left-leaning incumbent Rowan Williams, who has said his successor as head of the global Anglican Communion will need “the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros”.

Welby is widely reported to be against gay marriage but broadly in favor of the ordination of women bishops, two of the most divisive issues in the communion.

The new archbishop will earn about 74,000 pounds ($ 120,000) a year. He will have lodgings in the Old Palace in Canterbury, southeast England, and the historic riverside Lambeth Palace in London. His tenure will last until retirement at 70 or until he decides to move on.

(Reporting By Alessandra Prentice; editing by Steve Addison/Maria Golovnina)

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Novartis says may have 14 new blockbuster drugs by 2017

ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis could produce 14 or more new big-selling ‘blockbuster’ drugs within five years as it bets on cancer, heart and respiratory treatments to fill the gaps left by expiries on current patents, the Swiss firm said on Thursday.

Like many of its rivals, Novartis is facing headwinds as some of its top earners lose patent protection, particularly blood pressure drug Diovan. It is counting on its newest products, such as breast cancer drug Afinitor, to pump up sales.

But some analysts caution that recently launched drugs like multiple sclerosis pill Gilenya and eye medicine Lucentis will face growing competition next year as Biogen Idec and Regeneron bring rival products to market.

Novartis currently has 139 projects in clinical development including more than 73 new molecular entities spread across a wide area of diseases, it said in a statement published ahead of an investor event in Boston on Thursday.

Among its most promising products are serelaxin and LCZ686 to treat patients with heart failure as well as drugs for psoriasis and multiple sclerosis. It plans to file serelaxin for regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe in early 2013.

However, the results of a late-stage study for serelaxin published on Tuesday were mixed and some analysts think Novartis may need further trials to guarantee its commercial success.

Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez did not rule out further trials but said in a conference call with reporters it would press ahead with filings using the current data.

Novartis’s shares were 1.3 percent higher at 57.30 francs by 1315 GMT, when the Stoxx 600 Europe healthcare sector index was up 0.2 percent.

“Novartis does have a very productive research engine. However we will include significant value once we see convincing data,” said Andrew Weiss, an analyst at Vontobel.

ONCOLOGY KEY

Novartis said its pharmaceuticals division aimed to file nine products for approval over the next 12 months. It expects the unit – which is responsible for more than half of sales – to return to growth from the second half of next year.

Novartis was also confident about its oncology pipeline, which it expects to contribute more than $ 1 billion in sales by 2017, while it said recently launched Afinitor could have sales of $ 2 billion in advanced breast cancer by 2017.

It is also hoping to convince doctors that they should switch patients onto Tasigna when one of its best-selling drugs Glivec loses patent exclusivity in 2015.

Novartis plans to initiate further trials in 2013 to prove that patients with chronic myeloid leukemia who have taken Tasigna may be able to stop treatment once their cancer is under control.

The company also said it planned to manage more projects but keep a lid on costs by cutting recruitment time and spending on trials. Measures include giving handheld devices to doctors to record trial data and to get pharmacy chains to undertake some of the simpler trial work.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Stock futures rise after selloff, data on tap

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stock index futures rose on Thursday ahead of job market data a day after major equity indexes posted their largest drops in months.

Equities slumped more than 2 percent Wednesday as investor focus returned to Europe’s economic troubles and as the electoral victory by President Barack Obama turned markets’ focus to the looming “fiscal cliff.”

Investors worry that if no deal is agreed in Congress over some $ 600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases due to kick in early next year, it could derail the U.S. economic recovery.

“To the extent we start to see some clarification of what (Congress) is thinking about, whatever it may be, it will provide some confidence,” said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

He said the open-ended nature of what the fix may be for taxes has flooded markets with uncertainty.

Futures added to early gains as the euro slightly cut losses versus the U.S. dollar after the European Central Bank held its main interest rate at 0.75 percent, despite dovish comments Wednesday from ECB president Mario Draghi that stirred market rumors of a rate cut.

A rise in the U.S. dollar also weighed on equities Wednesday.

S&P 500 futures rose 4.8 points and were up in terms of fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 22 points and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 9 point.

Wednesday’s retreat marked the biggest daily drop for the S&P 500 since June 1; the index closed below the key 1,400 level for the first time since August 30. Despite Wednesday’s selloff, the benchmark S&P 500 is still up more than 10 percent so far this year.

The latest reading on the labor market will come with the release of weekly jobless claims, due at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT).

Qualcomm Inc late Wednesday reported quarterly revenue that beat expectations, sending shares up more than 7 percent in premarket trading.

Whole Foods Market Inc reported earnings that met expectations but its shares fell 3 percent before the market opened.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ghana building collapse traps dozens, kills 1

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A five-story shopping center built earlier this year in a bustling suburb of Ghana‘s capital collapsed Wednesday, killing at least one person and leaving several dozen people trapped in the rubble, authorities and eyewitnesses said.

Rescue crews used cranes to try and remove debris from the top of the building amid fears that machinery sifting through the wreckage could injure trapped survivors. Crowds of bystanders gathered as rescuers sifted through cement and glass.

The fatality at the Melcom Shopping Center at Achimota, a suburb of Accra, was confirmed by Public Affairs Officer of the Ghana Fire Service Billy Anaglate. “We are still working to find out the fate of others who may be trapped under,” he said.

Other officials told The Associated Press that the death toll was likely to rise.

An AP reporter at the scene saw at least one man pulled from the debris, covered in dust and who was then whisked into an ambulance.

A Greater Accra Regional Public Affairs officer, deputy superintendent Freeman Tettey, confirmed that one person died and told the AP that 51 have been rescued and sent to hospitals around the capital.

“I was on my way to the shop when l saw it crumpling down,” Kojo Boadi, an eyewitness, said.

President John Mahama declared the scene a disaster zone and cut short his election campaign in the north of the country to be able to visit the site. The presidential election is scheduled for December.

The five-story store opened in February is part of the Melcom chain owned by Indian immigrant magnate, Bhagwan Khubchandani. His late father arrived in Ghana in 1929 as a 14-year-old to work as a store boy in the-then Gold Coast.

The store sells a variety of cheap, imported household goods and appliances that are popular with working-class Ghanaians.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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VICTORY TWEET

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CBS’s ‘Elementary’ gets prized post-Super Bowl slot

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – CBS’s freshman Sherlock Holmes drama “Elementary” will get a big boost in February, when it airs following Super Bowl XLVII, the network said Monday.

The series, which stars Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, delivers a modern-day take on the Sherlock Holmes saga, with both the detective and his sidekick Watson living in contemporary New York.

The special episode will air Sunday, February 3 at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT, following the network’s post-game coverage.

The series, which also stars Aidan Quinn, has already proven to be a hit for the network, regularly winning its Thursday at 10 p.m. timeslot. “Elementary,” which premiered September 27, has averaged a 3.5 rating/10 share in the advertiser-cherished 18-49 demographic, and 14.2 million total viewers.

Even so, the exposure that a post-Super Bowl slot provides certainly can’t hurt. The second-season premiere of NBC‘s “The Voice” after the Super Bowl, meanwhile, scored the highest ratings of any entertainment telecast since 2006.

“The Voice” scored a 16.3 rating in the key demo and 37.6 million total viewers overall. It was the best rating since a 16.5 for “Grey’s Anatomy” after the Super Bowl on ABC in 2006, and provided a welcome boost for fourth-place network NBC. The show was up 47 percent in the demo and 40 percent in total viewers over the episode of “Glee” that aired after the Super Bowl on Fox last year. (“Glee” scored an 11.1 and 26.8 million total viewers.)

The ratings victory gave “The Voice” a huge start to its second season. It spent much of 2011-12 neck-in-neck with the Wednesday night edition of “American Idol” to be the highest-rated show on television after “Sunday Night Football.” “Idol” ultimately beat “The Voice” on Wednesdays, but just barely.

The Super Bowl is typically the most-watched program of the year, and this year’s game set a record as the most-watched television program in U.S. history, with 111.3 million total viewers.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Pfizer returns EU selling rights on Auxilium hand-disorder drug

(Reuters) – Auxilium Inc ended a marketing deal for its hand-disorder drug with Pfizer Inc, regaining the rights to sell the drug in Europe, and pushed up its 2012 revenue forecast to reflect deferred revenue from the termination of the deal.

Pfizer, which had the right to negotiate marketing other Xiaflex indications in the European Union, will return the rights to the Dupuytren’s contracture treatment by April 24, 2013.

Auxilium, which is also testing Xiaflex to treat penile curvature, will record $ 94 million in deferred revenue. The drugmaker said it now expects between $ 153 million and $ 163 million in Xiaflex sales for 2012.

The company earlier expected Xiaflex sales of between $ 65 million and $ 77 million for the year. Sales of Xiaflex, called Xiapex in Europe, accounted for 22 percent of the company’s total sales in its third quarter.

Auxilium, which filed a marketing application with U.S. health regulators to sell Xiaflex to treat penile curvature on Wednesday, said it still expects 2012 to be its first profitable year.

(Reporting by Vidya P L Nathan; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Markets brush off Obama win amid gridlock concerns

LONDON (AP) — The re-election of President Barack Obama gave markets a short-lived boost Wednesday, before concerns over his ability to get a budget agreement from a divided Congress and more grim economic news out of Europe turned sentiment around.

Obama easily clinched a majority in the electoral college, holding on to a raft of key swing states in Tuesday’s vote — despite only just winning the popular vote over his rival Mitt Romney.

Though America has been spared a re-run of the protracted election of 2000, its arms of government remain divided, with the Democrats holding onto their majority in the Senate and the Republicans in control of the House of Representatives. That could still lead to a logjam in policymaking, not least over the parlous state of the country’s public finances, and that’s unsettled investors.

In Europe, stocks gave up their morning gains. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.2 percent at 5,872 while Germany‘s DAX fell 0.4 percent to 7,358. The CAC-40 in France was 0.4 percent lower at 3,465.

Wall Street was poised for a retreat too in contrast to earlier predictions, with both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures down 0.7 percent.

The most pressing matter facing the U.S. government is the so-called “fiscal cliff” — a combination of higher taxes and government spending cuts that automatically take effect unless Congress agrees on a new budget by Jan. 1. Economists warn that a failure to reach a concrete decision will push the world’s largest economy back into recession.

“The initially favorable reaction has evaporated with the ugly task of dealing with the fiscal cliff eclipsing earlier optimism,” said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co.

Sentiment has also been hit by a downbeat set of European economic forecasts from the European Commission. The executive arm of the European Union now expects the 17-country eurozone to contract by 0.4 percent this year and to grow by only 0.1 percent next.

The turnaround in stocks markets was evident in currencies too— when risk appetite wanes, the dollar usually finds support. By early afternoon London time, the euro was 0.4 percent lower at $ 1.2754, a full cent lower than where it had been trading earlier.

Investors are also turning their gaze towards a crucial vote in the Greek Parliament later. If lawmakers don’t back a €13.5 billion ($ 17.3 billion) package of spending cuts and tax increases, the country faces the prospect of losing access to its bailout lifeline and potentially defaulting on its mountain of debt and leaving the euro.

That toxic combination could have massive negative repercussions in financial markets, regardless of whether a bipartisan budget solution is reached in the U.S. in the coming weeks.

“Strange to think that over 100 million votes cast in the U.S. may have less impact upon the markets over the next month or so than some 300 votes due to be cast in the Greek parliament this evening,” said Gary Jenkins, managing director of Swordfish Research.

Earlier in Asia, Japan‘s Nikkei 225 index closed marginally lower at 8,972.89. Hong Kong‘s Hang Seng added 0.7 percent to 22,099.85. South Korea‘s Kospi gained 0.5 percent to 1,937.55.

Mainland Chinese shares edged lower, with Shanghai Composite Index slipping marginally to 2,105.73. The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index lost 0.2 percent to 851.64

Also on investors’ radar is Thursday’s opening of China‘s Communist Party congress — the once-in-a-decade forum to name China’s top leadership. Although current Vice President Xi Jinping is almost certain to be China’s next leader, markets will be looking for hints on how the new leadership plans to tackle the nation’s economic slowdown.

In the oil markets, a price of benchmark New York crude was down $ 1.21 to $ 87.51 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Canada firms to capitalize on nuclear trade with India

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Canadian firms will be able to export uranium and nuclear reactors to India for the first time in almost four decades under an agreement between the two nations, their prime ministers said, but more work is needed to implement the deal.

Once implemented, the agreement will end a ban on nuclear cooperation Canada imposed in 1976 after India secretly exploded its first nuclear bomb in 1974, commonly called the “Smiling Buddha”, using material from a Canadian-built reactor in India.

“Being able to resolve these issues and move forward is, we believe, a really important economic opportunity for an important Canadian industry, part of the energy industry, that should pay dividends in terms of jobs and growth for Canadians down the road,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday on a visit to New Delhi.

A negotiator with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks, said that what remained was a careful legal review of the language; translation into French and Hindi; and then a signing.

This is not expected to take very long, he said. The two sides have set up a joint committee to liaise on nuclear issues, but he said it would not be negotiating.

India aims to lift its nuclear capacity to 63,000 MW in the next 20 years by adding nearly 30 reactors. The country currently operates 20 mostly small reactors at six sites with a capacity of 4,780 MW, or 2 percent of its total power capacity, according to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.

Canada’s ambassador to India, Stewart Beck, said on Monday his country wanted to be able to track all nuclear material, but that India felt it only needed to report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

It was not clear who made concessions in the talks and how effective the safeguards would be to ensure that Canadian material did not get used again for making nuclear weapons.

However, the CNSC official said India would now be required to notify Canada of any transfers to a third country and trade could only go to facilities that are safeguarded by the IAEA.

PROBABLY BEATING AUSTRALIA

Harper said the CNSC had worked to “achieve all of our objectives in terms of non-proliferation”.

Canada is in a race against Australia, its strategic ally but a commercial rival in the uranium business. Australia is also trying to nail down safeguards under which it too could sell uranium to India.

“We are effectively ahead of the Australians,” the CNSC official said, noting however that Russia and Kazakhstan were already supplying into India.

Opening up the Indian market would be a big help to Canada’s Cameco Corp, which is the world’s largest publicly traded uranium producer but which recently cut its long-term output targets due to the Fukushima disaster.

“Anytime we can reduce the roadblocks to selling our product around the world is always helpful,” Cameco chief executive Tim Gitzel told Reuters in Canada. “It opens a new market for us with the appropriate safeguards in place. So this is good news.”

Another potential beneficiary is Canadian engineering firm SNC Lavalin Group Inc, which bought the government’s commercial nuclear division, which designed the Candu reactor that is in use in numerous countries.

“As far as the sales of reactors goes, we would normally now request that Canada be accorded the same treatment as the Russians, the French and the Americans and that a site be designated in India for the implementation of at least a twin- unit Candu nuclear power station,” SNC Lavalin International President Ronald Denom, part of Harper’s delegation in India, told Reuters.

He also said it should open up the market to service the existing reactors in India.

Harper also said Canada welcomed foreign investment, after the country temporarily blocked Malaysian state oil firm Petronas’ C$ 5.17 billion ($ 5.19 billion) bid for gas producer Progress Energy Resources on October 20.

Late on Friday, Canada extended to December 10 its review of a $ 15.1 billion bid made in July by China’s CNOOC Ltd for Canadian energy producer Nexen Inc.

“Those decisions have to be taken looking at the global evolving economy in which we operate,” Harper said.

($ 1 = C$ 0.9965)

(Additional reporting by Julie Gordon in Toronto; Additional writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Michael Roddy)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Princess Leia Learns to Be a Disney Princess [VIDEO]

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American composer Elliott Carter dies at age 103

(Reuters) – Classical composer Elliott Carter, who twice won Pulitzer Prizes in a career that spanned more than 75 years, died on Monday in New York at age 103, music publisher Boosey & Hawkes said.

Carter was awarded Pulitzer Prizes in 1960 and 1973 for string quartet compositions. He composed 158 works, including several at over 100 years of age. One composition for chamber orchestra is scheduled for a world premier in February.

“The great range and diversity of his music has, and will continue to have, influence on countless composers and performers worldwide,” the publisher said. “He will be missed by us all but remembered for his brilliance, his wit and his great canon of work.”

He was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 1998 and celebrated his 100th birthday at New York‘s Carnegie Hall in 2008 with a new work performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Carter was presented the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States, in 1985. He also received national honors from Germany and France.

(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Mohammad Zargham)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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St Jude device lowers blood pressure in small study

(Reuters) – St Jude Medical Inc said on Monday its procedure that deadens nerves near the kidneys helped lower blood pressure in a small study of patients whose hypertension could not be controlled with drugs.

Patients in the study who were treated with the Enlightn renal denervation system saw an average reduction of 28 points in systolic blood pressure, which is the first number expressed in a reading, after 30 days. At six months, the 46 patients who received the treatment maintained an average systolic blood pressure reduction of 26 mmHg points.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Los Angeles.

Patients enrolled in the study had an average blood pressure of 176/96 mmHg despite being treated with multiple medications to manage the condition. No serious side effects were reported, St Jude said.

Normal blood pressure is below 120/80 mmHg. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a reading above 140/90 mmHg.

Renal denervation is a procedure in which a thin, flexible catheter is threaded through the body to the renal sympathetic nerves near the kidneys. Radiofrequency energy is delivered to disrupt the nerve activity, relieving high blood pressure.

Millions of people have hypertension that is resistant to drugs, putting them at risk of heart attacks and stroke.

The new therapy is not yet approved in the United States, but several products are already available in Europe.

Device makers that have already received approval to sell hypertension devices in Europe include Medtronic, the front-runner, St Jude, Covidien, ReCor Medical and Vessix Vascular.

St Jude shares were up 29 cents, or less than 1 percent, at $ 38.80 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting By Susan Kelly and Debra Sherman in Chicago; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Leslie Adler and Jim Marshall)

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ahead of the Bell: Express Scripts plummets

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Express Scripts slid in premarket trading Tuesday after the pharmacy benefits manager warned that persistent high joblessness and economic uncertainty would make 2013 more challenging, and expectations of Wall Street analysts were too high.

Pharmacy benefits managers, or PBMs, run prescription drug plans for employers, insurers and other customers. They process mail-order prescriptions and handle bills for prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies.

The St. Louis company handles more than a billion prescriptions each year after the $ 29.1 billion acquisition of a rival, Medco, in April.

Analysts were disappointed by the company’s outlook. Investors will now question whether Express Scripts benefits as much from recent acquisitions as the company had led them to believe, said Citi analyst George Hill, calling the company’s forecast “baffling.”

Express Scripts had lifted its 2012 earnings forecast in August after recording better-than-expected savings from its combination with Medco.

Jefferies analyst Brian Tanquilut lowered his rating on Express Scripts to “Hold” from “Buy” and cut his price target on the shares by $ 14 to $ 56.

Shares of Express Scripts Holding Co. dropped $ 8.25, or 13 percent, to $ 54.63 before the opening bell. The stock was up 41 percent so far this year through Monday’s trading.

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Sharon Osbourne has double mastectomy

LONDON (AP) — Sharon Osbourne says she had a double mastectomy after learning she carries a gene that increases the risk of developing breast cancer.

Osbourne told Hello! magazine that “I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with that shadow hanging over me.”

The 60-year-old “America’s Got Talent” judge, who had colon cancer a decade ago, said that without the surgery, “the odds are not in my favor.”

She added: “It’s not ‘pity me,’ it’s a decision I made that’s got rid of this weight that I was carrying around.”

The magazine went on sale Monday.

Osbourne, husband Ozzy and children Jack and Kelly became rock’s most famous clan thanks to reality show “The Osbournes” a decade ago.

Jack Osbourne, 26, was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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UK service sector growth ‘slows’

5 November 2012 Last updated at 05:56 ET

Activity in the UK service sector grew at its slowest pace in almost two years in October, a survey has suggested.

The PMI services index from Markit/CIPS fell to 50.6 from 52.2 in September. Any score above 50 indicates growth.

Growth in new business eased, while employment in the sector fell for the second consecutive month, Markit said.

The figure was a reminder of the tough underlying economic conditions despite last month’s better-than-expected growth figures, it added.

Official figures showed that the UK economy grew by 1% between July and September, ending a nine-month long recession.

Bank meeting

“The latest UK services PMI data provide a warning to those who saw the strong growth in the GDP in the third quarter as symbolising the start of a strong and speedy economic recovery,” said Markit economist Andrew Harker.

“The expectation among firms is for activity to improve over the coming year, but the road to full economic recovery still looks to be a long one.”

Last week, the PMI survey for manufacturing indicated that the sector shrank in October for the sixth month in a row, while the survey of the construction sector found that while output was slightly higher, new work and employment shrank.

Analysts said the weaker-than-expected services PMI reading increased the possibility that the Bank of England might increase its programme of quantitative easing (QE), which has now reached a level of £375bn, when its monetary policy committee (MPC) meets later this week.

Under QE, the Bank buys government bonds, hoping to create beneficial knock-on effects for the economy.

“It does raise the risk of further QE from the Bank. On balance, though, we think it probably won’t, given the risk of inflation,” said George Buckley at Deutsche Bank.

“What it does tell us is that while there have been some mixed messages, more positive than negative, we’re not seeing a very fast recovery at all.”

Vicky Redwood, at Capital Economics, said: “The MPC pays a lot of attention to this survey and this Thursday’s meeting now looks an even closer call than before.

“Given the stronger near-term outlook for inflation, we think that the chances of more QE this week are just below 50-50.”

Separately, a report suggested that the UK would be the fastest-growing major economy in Europe in the next two years. The eurozone debt crisis would drag the bloc into a second year of recession, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said.

While the eurozone economy would contract by 0.4% in 2013, the UK economy would grow by 0.8%, the think tank predicted. In 2014, the CEBR said the eurozone would register growth of 0.4%, compared with the UK’s 1.4%.

BBC News – Business

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Red Cross’ App Helps Sandy Victims

App Name: Hurricane by The American Red Cross

Price: Free

Available Platforms: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, (requires iOS 4.2 or later), and Android

What does this app do? Millions remained without power and the death toll in New York City topped 41 in the wake of Hurricane Sandy as of Friday morning, according to ABC News. Homes and businesses were wrecked as a result of the superstorm, with many people occupying shelters. Cleanup and recovery from Sandy will be slow and hard going for many. For those with power, or at least a charged mobile device, the Hurricane by American Red Cross app can help.

The app, although updated more than two months ago and, therefore, not exactly new, could not be more relevant than right now. Everything from its location-based alerts to its tips and checklists for planning for an emergency aims to prepare and assist those affected directly or indirectly by disaster.

The layout for this app is simple, with a string of informational buttons lining a row at the bottom. Tap on the “prepare” tab to peruse tips for planning ahead, such as what to put into an emergency kit or to learn about the evacuation plan for a particular community. The app will also alert you to warnings and storms based on locations you have selected and allow you to share those alerts with others through email. Select the “shelters” button to view and get directions to the open Red Cross shelters in your area.

On the upper-left-hand corner, the app displays a toolkit button. Select this icon to create a list of contacts as well as meeting points both within and outside of your neighborhood and share these with others in case of an emergency or evacuation.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, tap on the “more” button, and then select “donate.” You can make a contribution to the Red Cross’s efforts via e-mail, iTunes or text.

Is it easy to set up? Download this free app and go for it.

Should I try it? This is an information-rich app with a lot of useful features. The best parts of it include the ability create a plan and share this with the people you love as well as the ability to send the “I’m safe” message via Twitter, Facebook and email.

Also Read
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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AnnaLynne McCord to get “Scorned” With Billy Zane in new thriller

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – AnnaLynne McCord is about to become a woman “Scorned.”

“90210″ star McCord has signed on for the revenge thriller “Scorned,” alongside “Titanic” star Billy Zane and Viva Bianca from Starz’s “Spartacus.”

McCord and Zane will play Sadie and Kevin, a couple whose romantic weekend at a lake house takes a sideways turn when a text message from Sadie’s best friend (played by “Bianca”) to Kevin reveals a lurid love affair between the two, sending Sadie on a vengeance spree.

“Scorned” will be directed by Mark Jones, the creator and director of the beloved “Leprechaun” horror-movie series.

Jones likened the project to “sophisticated” thrillers such as “Fatal Attraction” and “Misery.”

“Having done horror with comedy, I wanted to delve into something more sophisticated along the lines of ‘Fatal Attraction’ and ‘Misery,’ and develop a multi-dimensional, twisted character in our lead villain (McCord), who I feel brings an original and incredibly unique take on her character,” Jones said.

Lightning Entertainment will handle international sales of the film, with Lightning’s Audrey Delaney and Marc Bienstock executive-producing.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Anorexic Bakes to Gain Control Over Food

Camilla Kuhns of Kirkland, Wash., makes the best cookies in the world. Ask anyone but her.

Kuhns is a 29-year-old anorexic with a penchant for baking. She has never tasted one of her own confections. Her younger brother, Seth, samples dough and final products to let her know if anything is off, and her mother, Ilene, tastes the frosting.

“Yeah, my mom’s my angel when it comes to the frosting,” Kuhns told ABC News Seattle affiliate KOMO-TV right before she entered an inpatient treatment program for her eating disorder two weeks ago. “I don’t know what it is, but it makes me very anxious.”

On her blog, Kuhns said she is 5’8″ and weighs 104 pounds with her shoes and clothes on and while holding her purse. She baked challah breads, cakes and pastries for others to enjoy while her own daily intake amounted to a head of cauliflower with hot sauce and a tablespoon of nuts. To ensure she burned off every single calorie consumed, she exercised for three to four hours a day.

Her best friend, Amber “Nic” Poppe, said that Kuhns has suffered from various eating disorders since she was 11. Both her anorexia and the baking escalated recently after a tough year that included the death of a friend and a messy divorce.

“Baking became therapeutic for her. I know it sounds strange but it seems like her way of overcoming her issues with food,” Poppe said.

Actually, it isn’t so strange. Experts have long noted the connection between eating disorders and baking, as well as cooking, watching cooking shows and collecting recipes.

In a famous 1943 study known as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, men put on a semi-starvation diet for six months developed such an intense obsession with food, they daydreamed, read and talked about it constantly. The fixation was so persistent that more than 40 percent of them mentioned cooking as part of their post-experiment plans. After they left the study and regained their weight, three of the men changed their occupations to become chefs.

“I see it a lot this in my practice,” said Jennifer Thomas, an assistant psychologist at the Klarman Eating Disorders Center at McLean Hospital in Boston. “Patients will prepare elaborate meals for friends and family while they themselves go hungry. They get a vicarious joy and a sense of superiority from watching others indulge while they don’t allow themselves to eat.”

As someone who was anorexic for five years, Victoria Casciaro said she can relate. The 20-year-old college student admitted she was also a starving baker who constantly made treats she never considered eating herself.

“I would look at what I put in the mixing bowl and it would scare me because I didn’t have the nutrition facts, so I couldn’t calculate whether or not it was a safe or dangerous food,” she recalled.

Not only would Casciaro resist her sumptuous creations, she would wash her hands frequently during the baking process to prevent herself from accidentally tasting the ingredients. She’d carefully avoid taking even the tiniest nibble for fear that she’d gain weight or set off a binge.

Haley Anderson, a 20-year-old recovering anorexic, said she’d often whip up copious amounts of baked treats for everyone else, then talk herself out of trying them.

“I’d tell myself that taste buds have memory,” she said, “and if you can avoid a certain food long enough then you could forget what it tastes like and no longer be tempted by it.”

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Comet gift vouchers are suspended

4 November 2012 Last updated at 04:33 ET

Comet customer: “It looks like a plague of locusts have been inside [the store] and cleaned the place out”

The administrators of the electrical retailer Comet have suspended the use of gift vouchers at the stores.

The shops have been open as usual over the weekend since administrators were called in on Friday.

The Comet website has returned in a slimmed down form, confirming store locations and answering questions about the administration.

There has been no sign of heavy discounting so far, but the website said a sale would be starting soon.

On the question of gift vouchers, it said: “The administrators are currently considering the position in relation to gift cards and gift vouchers and at this stage they cannot be used to pay for items.

“The administrators are reviewing this position urgently.”

Holders of gift vouchers would usually be considered as low priority creditors to a retailer going into administration, and would be unlikely to be able to use their vouchers.

The exception is when a chain is sold to new owners, who might decide to accept them as an act of goodwill to prevent the brand they have bought being tarnished.

The new website explained on its front page that administrators from Deloitte had been appointed.

Its question and answer section said that people who were waiting for items to be delivered that they had paid for would only be receiving those items if they were already in stock at a delivery centre.

“Where the item for an existing order is not currently in stock, this delivery cannot now be made,” it said.

BBC News – Business

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