H&R Block, Zynga, Akamai are big market movers

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market:

NYSE

H&R Block Inc., up 89 cents at $ 18.26

The tax preparer’s quarterly loss narrows, helped by cost cuts. It thinks earnings will grow in the upcoming U.S. tax season.

SAIC Inc., down 41 cents at $ 11.26

The defense contractor’s quarterly earnings fall short of Wall Street expectations, and it’s eliminating 700 jobs to cut costs.

Men’s Wearhouse Inc., down 84 cents at $ 30.51

The men’s clothing store chain cuts its outlook, saying traffic dropped in November and it was more cautious about the rest of the year.

Safeway Inc., up 42 cents at $ 17.88

The grocery store chain moves up payment of its quarterly dividend to December from January to avoid potentially higher taxes.

Nasdaq

Zynga Inc., up 17 cents at $ 2.49

The troubled online games maker’s filing with a Nevada regulator could pave the way for it to enter the lucrative U.S. gambling market.

Vera Bradley Inc., down $ 3.07 at $ 23.14

The handbag maker’s forecast for the current quarter comes in short of Wall Street analysts’ average estimate.

Akamai Technologies Inc., up $ 3.56 at $ 39.06

The company, whose products help deliver online content, strikes a deal to provide services to AT&T customers.

Epoch Investment Partners Inc., up $ 5.78 at $ 27.69

Canada’s TD Bank plans to buy the U.S. asset manager for $ 668 million, a 28 percent premium from Wednesday’s closing price.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Brazil government denies media reports of 2010 mad cow case

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil‘s Agriculture Ministry said on Friday that the country had registered no cases of mad cow disease, denying reports on some local media websites that said the disease had cropped up in the southern state of Parana two years ago.

In a statement on its website, the ministry said a cow that died in Parana in 2010 had tested positive for prions, the proteins believed to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy, as the disease is formally called.

But the statement went on to say that the animal did not die of BSE and did not have symptoms of the disease.

“The World Animal Health Organization (OIE) in an official communication maintains the classification of Brazil as a country with insignificant risk of BSE,” the statement said.

In 2010, the ministry had also denied reports of a case of mad cow disease after news agencies picked up on the story. The government said it would provide further details on the case later on Friday at a news conference.

A story posted on the website of financial newspaper Valor Economico early on Friday said the cow in Parana had probably died of mad cow disease.

The outbreak of mad cow disease in Europe, North America and Japan a decade ago prompted beef importers to embargo shipments and caused temporary chaos in the industry. Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter.

(Reporting by Reese Ewing and Gustavo Bonato; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Sharp fall in UK factory output

7 December 2012 Last updated at 07:42 ET

UK manufacturing output registered a surprisingly sharp fall in October, resurrecting fears of recession.

Output fell by 1.3% from September, the Office for National Statistics said, with food and drink output, notably beer, down following the Olympics.

It was the worst fall since June, when activity was depressed by extra public holidays for the Diamond Jubilee.

It also adds to evidence that the UK economy may be relapsing into recession after a short rebound over the summer.

The ONS’s latest growth estimate suggested the economy expanded 1% in the third quarter of the year, following nine months of mild contraction – in part thanks to the boost from tourist spending during the Summer Olympics.

Guns, beer, coke and drugs

Compared with a year ago, manufacturing output in October was down by 2.1%.

Production of alcoholic beverages was down 10% from September, and 16% from a year earlier.

There were also sharp falls in activity in the coke and refined petroleum, weapons and ammunitions, and pharmaceuticals sectors.

The figure for the wider measure of industrial output, which also includes energy production and mining, was down 0.8% in October, after falling 2.1% in September.

The seasonally adjusted index of production fell by 3% in October 2012 compared with a year ago, the 19th consecutive monthly fall on the same month a year ago.

The figures were worse than economists had expected.

“Very disappointing – triple dip [recession] here we come,” said Alan Clarke at Scotiabank.

“Manufacturing was diabolical. Sadly, I think there is not a lot to suggest that it is temporary. Survey data has been fairly downbeat.”

Potential

The chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, David Kern, said the industrial production figures were “bleak”, and added it was clear that “the manufacturing sector is facing major obstacles to a sustainable recovery”.

However, he said there were reasons to be confident about the sector’s prospects.

“Manufacturing is still a significant sector of our economy and is still benefitting from a competitive exchange rate, not withstanding sterling’s rise over the past year… the sector is well-managed, and has the potential to recover.”

Oil and gas extraction fell in the month at the fastest rate since records began in January 1998, although that was partly due to maintenance works, which included the temporary shutdown of the largest oil field in the North Sea.

The news comes in the same week as the government’s Autumn Statement, which said the economy would shrink this year, rather than expand, as had first been predicted.

BBC News – Business

Read More..

Ghana election, test of democratic reputation

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Voters in Ghana were selecting their next president and a 275-seat parliament in elections Friday, solidifying the West African nation‘s reputation as a beacon of democracy in the region.

Some 14 million people are expected to turn out. President John Dramani Mahama, in office for only five months, is running against seven contenders. A former vice president, Mahama became president in July after the unexpected death of former President John Atta Mills. The 54-year-old is also a former minister and parliamentarian and has written an acclaimed biography, “My First Coup d’Etat.”

His main challenger is Nana Akufo-Addo, a former foreign minister and the son of one of Ghana’s previous presidents. The contender lost the 2008 election to Mills by less than 1 percent. Both men are trying to make the case that they will use the nation’s newfound oil wealth to help the poor.

Ghana, a nation of 25 million, is one of the few established democracies in the region as well as the fastest-growing economy. But a deep divide still exists between those benefiting from the country’s oil, cocoa and mineral wealth and those left behind financially.

In an interview on the eve of the vote, Akufo-Addo told The Associated Press that the first thing he will do if elected is begin working on providing free high school education for all. “It’s a matter of great concern to me,” he said, adding that he plans to use the nation’s oil wealth to educate the population, industrialize the economy and create better jobs for Ghanaians.

Policy-oriented and intellectual, Akufo-Addo is favored by the young and urbanized voters. He was educated in England and comes from a privileged family. The ruling party has depicted him as elitist, which Akufo-Addo calls “a little PR construct.”

“The idea that merely because you are born into privilege that automatically means you are against the welfare of the ordinary people, that’s nonsense,” he said.

Ghana had one of the fastest growing economies in the world in 2011. Allegations of corruption against the ruling party are rife.

Akufo-Addo said that if elected, he would not be able to weed out corruption in the government overnight.

“It’s a long fight,” he said. “But we build the institutions that can fight it.”

He said that in 30 years in politics he has never been accused of corruption.

Many analysts believe Mahama and Akufo-Addo are neck-and-neck.

Results are expected to be announced by Sunday, but could be delayed. If no one wins an absolute majority, a second round of voting will be held on December 28.

All candidates have signed a peace pact and have promised to accept the results of Friday’s poll.

Ghana, a nation of 25 million, has previously held five transparent elections in a row. Nearby Mali, which was also considered a model democracy, was plunged into chaos this March following a military coup.

__

Associated Press writer Francis Kokutse contributed to this report from Accra, Ghana.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Samsung files redacted copy of Apple-HTC deal in U.S. court

(Reuters) – Lawyers for Samsung Electronics Co Ltd filed a redacted copy of a 10-year patent licensing agreement between Apple Inc and Taiwan’s HTC Corp in a U.S. court late on Wednesday following a judge’s order.

The Korean electronics company had earlier filed a motion to compel Apple — with which it is waging a bitter legal battle over mobile patents across several countries — to reveal details of a settlement that was made with HTC on November 10 but which have been kept under wraps.

The court last month ordered Apple to disclose to Samsung details of the legal settlement that the iPhone maker reached with HTC, including terms of the 10-year patents licensing agreement.

Legal experts say the question of which patents are covered by the Apple-HTC settlement, and licensing details, could be instrumental in Samsung’s efforts to thwart Apple’s subsequent quest for a permanent sales ban on its products.

The redacted copy excludes key specifics such as the royalty payments HTC would have to make to Apple for using some of the U.S. company’s patents. Also excluded are details of some of HTC’s covered products that were part of the licensing deal.

The court order had stated that “only the pricing and royalty terms of license agreements may be sealed.”

However, Samsung lawyers said in the filing that they had withheld a few other details of the licensing agreement as requested by Apple and HTC.

As per the Apple-HTC agreement, the licenses do not include Apple’s design patents, according to a filing made with the District Court of Northern California.

Apple and HTC also agreed to fully paid-up, royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licenses to certain of the other’s patents.

Apple has agreed not to initiate legal action over some of HTC’s covered products. The details of the products were not disclosed.

The copy of the Apple-HTC deal filed with the court “incorporates redactions HTC requested and the redactions Apple requested, which are a subset of HTC’s redactions. Samsung takes no position on whether the redactions are appropriate at this time,” Samsung’s lawyers said in a filing.

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 maker’s efforts to permanently ban the sale of products that copy its technology.

In a previous court filing, Samsung argued that it was “almost certain” that the HTC deal covered some of the patents involved in its own litigation with Apple.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, No. 11-1846.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Pullin and Ted Kerr)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Kate leaves hospital after morning sickness

LONDON (Reuters) – Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate left the King Edward VII hospital in central London on Thursday where she had spent four days being treated for acute morning sickness.

Accompanied by her husband, Kate, 30, appeared at the steps of the hospital smiling and holding a bouquet of yellow flowers. Neither she nor William spoke to waiting reporters before being driven way.

Kate, who married the second-in-line to the throne in April last year, has been suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum, an acute morning sickness which causes severe nausea and vomiting and requires supplementary hydration and nutrients.

There has been no announcement about when the baby is due, although the prince’s spokesman has said Kate is less than 12 weeks pregnant.

Kate, known formally as the Duchess of Cambridge, will now recuperate at Kensington Palace, a royal residence in west London, her husband’s office said.

“She is feeling better but now requires a period of rest,” a royal spokeswoman said. “Their royal highnesses would like to thank the staff at the hospital for the care and treatment the duchess has received,” the spokeswoman added.

The onset of the severe sickness and the need for Kate to go to hospital brought forward the announcement of her pregnancy, sparking a frenzy in the British media and even taking by surprise her grandmother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, according to reports.

Bookmakers have been quick off the mark to lay odds on a name for the unborn baby, who will be third in line to the British throne after William and his father Charles.

The government is passing legislation in time for the birth to change historic rules of succession so that males no longer have precedence over a female sibling.

There has even been speculation that Kate could be carrying twins, as the acute sickness she is suffering is slightly more common in twin pregnancies.

World leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama were swift to follow British Prime Minister David Cameron in sending their congratulations.

(Reporting by Tim Castle and Stephen Addison, editing by Paul Casciato)

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

EADS EGM scheduled for first quarter: source

BERLIN (Reuters) – EADS will call an extraordinary general meeting in the first quarter of next year to seek approval of a planned overhaul of its shareholders structure, a source at the German economy ministry said on Thursday.

Nations in EADS on Wednesday agreed on the biggest shake-up of the European aerospace group since it was founded over a decade ago, opting after years of uneasy cohabitation to put its board and most of its shares beyond public control.

(Reporting by Markus Wacket; Writing by Maria Sheahan)

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

South Africa military plane crashes in mountains

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African military aircraft on an unknown mission to an area near the village where former President Nelson Mandela lives crashed in a mountain range, officials said Thursday. It was unclear whether there were any survivors.

The Douglas DC-3 Dakota, a twin-propeller aircraft, had taken off from Pretoria’s Waterkloof Air Force Base on Wednesday night, said Brig. Gen. Xolani Mabanga, a military spokesman. On Thursday morning, soldiers found the wreckage of the airplane in the Drakensberg mountains near Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal province, some 340 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of the air base, Mabanga said.

Mabanga said soldiers had been sent to the scene to look for survivors. Mabanga said he did not know what the mission of the aircraft was, though it had planned to land in Mthatha in the country’s Eastern Cape. Siphiwe Dlamini, a Defense Ministry spokesman, declined to immediately comment Thursday morning.

Mthatha is about 30 kilometers (17 miles) north of Qunu, the village where Mandela now lives after retiring from public life. South Africa‘s military remains largely responsible for the former president’s medical care. However, military officials declined to say whether those on board had any part in caring for Mandela.

In November, another South African military flight crash landed at Mthatha, sending several people to the hospital with injuries. However, at that time, the military denied that those on board had anything to do with Mandela’s care.

Mandela, 94, was imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against apartheid before becoming the nation’s president in the country’s first fully democratic vote in 1994.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Habla el hombre que definió qué significa ser un hacker

“Soy un hacker.” La frase la pronuncia, sin titubeos, Pekka Himanen, un finlandés de 39 años que publicó, en 2001, La ética del hacker y el espíritu de la era de la información , un libro fundacional en su análisis de lo que significa la tecnología moderna en nuestra sociedad, y la influencia que tendrán los hackers en la sociedad futura.

La entrevista está por comenzar. El punto de encuentro es un hotel céntrico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, pero en lugar de recibirnos en el salón exclusivo reservado con este fin, el filósofo Himanen (recibido en la universidad de Helsinki a los 20 años) prefiere reunirse en el café del hotel, rodeado de gente y atento a su entorno.

Este hombre, que hoy es profesor en la Universidad de Arte y Diseño de Helsinki, y profesor visitante de la Universidad de Oxford y el Instituto IN3 de Barcelona, y miembro del Instituto Helsinki para la Tecnología de la Información (HIIT) es autor, también, de El Estado del bienestar y la sociedad de la información: el modelo finlandés , que realizó junto con el sociólogo español Manuel Castells.

Himanen llegó a nuestro país invitado por la Universidad Nacional de San Martín, la Universidad Diego Portales y por la Fundación OSDE, pero además de esta convocatoria también lo trajo una de sus grandes pasiones: la investigación. “Estamos estudiando, junto con Manuel Castells, qué tipo de modelo de desarrollo nuevo se necesita después de la crisis mundial. Me refiero a un modelo de desarrollo económico combinado con desarrollo humano. Creo que es fundamental combinar una economía sustentable con el bienestar sustentable”, sostiene al comenzar la entrevista. Según cuenta el filósofo, Argentina es parte de un gran estudio que está llevando a cabo en distintos países de América latina, Asia, África, Estados Unidos y Europa.

¿Usted se considera un hacker?

Sí, claro que sí. Para mí un hacker es alguien creativamente apasionado por lo que hace y quiere hacerlo con otros. No necesariamente tiene que tener que ver con las computadoras, se puede ser hacker del conocimiento o de cualquier otro campo. Es importante decir que utilizo el término hacker en el sentido original del término, que no quiere decir delincuente informático.

¿Y usted es hacker en qué área o con qué especialización?

Yo diría en la filosofía, investigación y quizás en la vida.

¿Cómo es eso?

La etica del hacker es un libro que también habla sobre la filosofía de vida, es decir, uno tiene que preguntarse a sí mismo: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa? ¿Qué es lo que le da significado a mi vida? Esas son grandes preguntas que todos deberíamos considerar.

Popularmente el término hacker tiene una mala connotación pero según usted explica, es un error. En su libro menciona otro término: cracker ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre ambos?

Hacker quiere decir que la persona es creativamente apasionada por lo que hace, y lo quiere realizar con lo que yo denomino “interacción enriquecedora”, es decir con otras personas. Cracker, en cambio, es el delincuente informático, la persona que ingresa en los sistemas informáticos y esparce virus, entre otros delitos.

¿Por qué, entonces, los hackers son considerados delincuentes?

Todo comenzó en los medios de comunicación, en los inicios del software. Por aquel entonces los medios tomaron la palabra hacker y comenzaron a utilizarla como sinónimo de delincuente informático para hacerlo más atractivo y dar impacto en sus noticias, pero la palabra hacker no tiene nada que ver con la delincuencia informática.

Según su libro los hackers informáticos ponen a disposición gratuita de los demás su creación para que la utilicen, pongan a prueba y la desarrollen. ¿Cómo un hacker se transforma en Bill Gates? En otras palabras, ¿cómo se transforma un hacker en un hombre de negocios?

La ética hacker es una ética de trabajo creativa en la era informática que reemplaza lo que Max Weber describió como “ética de trabajo industrial” pero después depende de cuán abierto es uno en el desarrollo de otras cosas. No necesita ser cerrado para ser un éxito, por ejemplo Linus Torvalds está a favor de la apertura total y también ha tenido mucho éxito. Internet corre en Linux, tres de cada cuatro smartphones en el mundo corren en Linux, porque Android está basado en Linux. Pero más allá de eso no hay contradicciones, porque uno puede tener pasión creativa como empresario. Lo importante es dar suficiente nivel de apertura.

¿Cómo ayudan a la sociedad los hackers y las redes sociales en situaciones de conflicto, injusticia social o cuando no hay libertad de expresión?

En situaciones como la guerra de Kosovo o en la Primavera Árabe -levantamientos populares de países árabes realizados entre 2010 y 2012- la difusión de lo que estaba pasando fue a través de las redes sociales. Y es muy importante tener en cuenta que las redes sociales tienen un impacto en la vida real. Si pensamos en la Primavera Árabe, por ejemplo, algunos de los peores dictadores que nosotros pensamos que nunca dejarían el poder, colapsaron. Y las redes sociales colaboraron mucho en la caída de estos dictadores porque la Primavera Árabe estuvo organizada a través de Internet. También en Europa se produjeron hechos similares. Las redes sociales tuvieron gran protagonismo en el movimiento de “Los Indignados”, que produjeron cambios políticos en España y en Grecia.

¿Le parece que lo que escribió hace más de una década sigue vigente?

Sí. El libro es más actual ahora. Si uno toma, por ejemplo, el capítulo de open source o de código abierto, su utilización ha crecido exponencialmente si tenemos en cuenta que Internet corre en software en código abierto y se diseminan en varios equipos como teléfono, grabadores digitales y televisores. Probablemente uno no se de cuenta que está utilizando código abierto, pero todos lo estamos utilizando. En cuanto al trabajo empresarial, la nueva ética de pasión creativa enriquecedora está impulsando al Silicon Valley.

¿Cómo ve a la sociedad futura?

Creo que la gran pregunta es lo que hoy estamos investigando en el proyecto que estoy realizando, donde nos damos cuenta que el viejo modelo de desarrollo ha llegado a su fin y ahora tenemos que replantear las prácticas grandes en la economía, la sustentabilidad ecológica. Creo que vamos a necesitar del potencial completo de la cultura de la creatividad y hemos de desarrollar esa nueva forma de bienestar sustentable, especialmente la sustentabilidad ecológica. Debemos tener en cuenta que el planeta no tiene problema en cuanto al cambio climático, puede continuar sin nosotros, pero nosotros no podemos continuar sin el planeta.

Por último, ¿qué trata de decirnos con su libro?

Para mí la clave es que todos debemos preguntarnos: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa, cuál es mi propósito significativo en esta vida?

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Longer tamoxifen use cuts breast cancer deaths

Breast cancer patients taking the drug tamoxifen can cut their chances of having the disease come back or kill them if they stay on the pills for 10 years instead of five years as doctors recommend now, a major study finds.

The results could change treatment, especially for younger women. The findings are a surprise because earlier research suggested that taking the hormone-blocking drug for longer than five years didn’t help and might even be harmful.

In the new study, researchers found that women who took tamoxifen for 10 years lowered their risk of a recurrence by 25 percent and of dying of breast cancer by 29 percent compared to those who took the pills for just five years.

In absolute terms, continuing on tamoxifen kept three additional women out of every 100 from dying of breast cancer within five to 14 years from when their disease was diagnosed. When added to the benefit from the first five years of use, a decade of tamoxifen can cut breast cancer mortality in half during the second decade after diagnosis, researchers estimate.

Some women balk at taking a preventive drug for so long, but for those at high risk of a recurrence, “this will be a convincer that they should continue,” said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director of the breast cancer program at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study, which was being presented Wednesday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio and published by the British medical journal Lancet.

About 50,000 of the roughly 230,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States each year occur in women before menopause. Most breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, and hormone blockers are known to cut the risk of recurrence in such cases.

Tamoxifen long was the top choice, but newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors — sold as Arimidex, Femara, Aromasin and in generic form — do the job with less risk of causing uterine cancer and other problems.

But the newer drugs don’t work well before menopause. Even some women past menopause choose tamoxifen over the newer drugs, which cost more and have different side effects such as joint pain, bone loss and sexual problems.

The new study aimed to see whether over a very long time, longer treatment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the University of Oxford in England and other researchers assigned 6,846 women who already had taken tamoxifen for five years to either stay on it or take dummy pills for another five years.

Researchers saw little difference in the groups five to nine years after diagnosis. But beyond that time, 15 percent of women who had stopped taking tamoxifen after five years had died of breast cancer versus 12 percent of those who took it for 10 years. Cancer had returned in 25 percent of women on the shorter treatment versus 21 percent of those treated longer.

Tamoxifen had some troubling side effects: Longer use nearly doubled the risk of endometrial cancer. But it rarely proved fatal, and there was no increased risk among premenopausal women in the study — the very group tamoxifen helps most.

“Overall the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially,” Dr. Trevor Powles of the Cancer Centre London wrote in an editorial published with the study.

The study was sponsored by cancer research organizations in Britain and Europe, the United States Army, and AstraZeneca PLC, which makes Nolvadex, a brand of tamoxifen, which also is sold as a generic for 10 to 50 cents a day. Brand-name versions of the newer hormone blockers, aromatase inhibitors, are $ 300 or more per month, but generics are available for much less.

The results pose a quandary for breast cancer patients past menopause and those who become menopausal because of their treatment — the vast majority of cases. Previous studies found that starting on one of the newer hormone blockers led to fewer relapses than initial treatment with tamoxifen did.

Another study found that switching to one of the new drugs after five years of tamoxifen cut the risk of breast cancer recurrence nearly in half — more than what was seen in the new study of 10 years of tamoxifen.

“For postmenopausal women, the data still remain much stronger at this point for a switch to an aromatase inhibitor,” said that study’s leader, Dr. Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a paid speaker for a company that makes one of those drugs.

Women in his study have not been followed long enough to see whether switching cuts deaths from breast cancer, as 10 years of tamoxifen did. Results are expected in about a year.

The cancer conference is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Health Science Center.

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..