No big signings

By ROB HARRIS

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 6:48 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2012

LONDON (AP) -European football's January transfer window closed Tuesday with clubs reining in the lavish spending of recent years in an apparent response to UEFA's strict new financial controls.

While 225 million pounds (then $362 million) was spent last January by English clubs alone, barely 50 million pounds was outlayed this month.

"It looks like economically the whole of Europe is becoming a bit more cautious," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said.

Last week, UEFA revealed that the total debt of 665 European clubs had hit $11 billion.

Manchester City alone has invested more than $1 billion on new players in a little more than three years, but the Abu Dhabi owners have curbed their spending and prioritized losing some big earners.

The only incoming deal by City manager Roberto Mancini on Tuesday was to sign 32-year-old David Pizarro on loan from Roma for the rest of the season to bolster his midfield options.

Defender Wayne Bridge was sent Tuesday to Sunderland on loan, although City was unable unload troublesome striker Carlos Tevez, who has not featured for the club since an act of rebellion during a Champions League match in September.

One club interested in Tevez was French leader Paris Saint-Germain, which has been embarking on its own spending spree since the last offseason under Qatari ownership.

Despite pursuing a string of leading players - including David Beckham and AC Milan striker Alexandre Pato - PSG has failed to captured the superstar it craves, although signing midfielder Thiago Motta from Inter Milan on Tuesday will help to soften the blow.

Motta's reported ?10 million signing took PSG's spending this season to more than ?100 million ($131 million), with defenders Maxwell and Alex having joined for a combined ?12 million earlier this month.

"It's normal that it's more difficult to sign someone in Ligue 1 than in Spain or in England," PSG sporting director Leonardo said. "But things can change."

PSG's plans, though, could be curtailed by the looming threat of expulsion from the Champions League for overspending clubs.

In an initial two-year monitoring period that started in July 2011, UEFA's rules allow clubs to make a total loss in the first assessment period up to ?45 million ($58 million). But persistent loss-makers can first be barred from the 2014-15 Champions League.

"Financial fair play has definitely had an impact (in the transfer window)," said Alan Switzer, director of the sports business group at Deloitte. "The 2011-12 season does now count towards the UEFA rules and that will be part of the consideration which clubs will be giving to any transfer."

Former Chelsea chief executive Trevor Birch, who is head of accountancy firm PKF's football group, highlighted uncertainty about how the new rules will be enforced.

"Until these important questions are answered, clubs with a realistic prospect of making it into Europe are going to err on the side of caution and rein in their spending," Birch said. "Many of the top teams have also finally started taking meaningful steps to get their costs under control in response to continued pressure on revenues."

In England, third-place Tottenham was the busiest leading club on Tuesday. They signed 33-year-old striker Louis Saha from Everton, sent defender Sebastien Bassong on loan to Wolverhampton Wanderers and were chasing Blackburn's Ryan Nelsen in the closing minutes of the window.

Queens Park Rangers tried to ensure it isn't relegated from the Premier League after only one season by luring former Liverpool striker Djibril Cisse back to England from Lazio and signing forward Bobby Zamora from Fulham.

Zamora was replaced at Fulham by Russia striker Pavel Pogrebnyak, who joined from Stuttgart.

Midfielder Marcus Olsson has joined his twin brother Martin at relegation-threatened Blackburn after signing from Swedish side Halmstad.

Chelsea spent 50 million pounds (then $80 million) a year ago on striker Fernando Torres, who has failed to deliver and contributed to a loss of 67.7 million pounds ($109 million) in the last financial year that was announced on Tuesday.

Chelsea's only major business on this deadline day was signing winger Kevin De Bruyne for a reported 9 million pounds ($14 million) from Racing Genk and sending him back to the Belgian club on loan for the rest of the season.

In Spain, pacesetters Real Madrid and Barcelona were also quiet, although Barca reached a deal with Alexander Hleb to release the Belarus midfielder from his contract.

In Italy, clubs, players and agents gathered at a Milan hotel and the city's two clubs were the busiest.

Inter Milan signed Porto midfielder Fredy Guarin and Sampdoria midfielder Angelo Palombo, while Sulley Muntari moved on loan to AC Milan.

Serie A leader Juventus signed midfielder Padoin from Atalanta for almost ?5 million ($6.6 million).

For some players, Tuesday was the last time to leave clubs where they aren't playing regularly ahead of the European Championship. Croatia defender Vedran Corluka joined Bayer Leverkusen after only three league appearances for Tottenham this season.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Man U wipes out City's lead

??Manchester United wiped out Manchester City's lead at the top of the Premier League on Tuesday with a 2-0 victory over Stoke as its neighbor went down 1-0 at Everton to a goal by a former United player.

No big signings

??European football's transfer window is set to close with clubs looking unlikely to outlay any late lavish sums.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46204944/ns/sports-soccer/

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Gingrich makes play for evangelicals, tea partiers (AP)

LUTZ, Fla. ? Facing the possibility of a stinging defeat, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich combined sharp attacks on Mitt Romney with unspoken appeals for support among the state's evangelicals on Sunday, two days before the pivotal Florida primary.

In an unusual commitment of campaign time, the former House speaker attended a pair of Baptist worship services, where he sat in a pew, accompanied by his wife, Callista, and made no remarks.

In between a morning stop at a megachurch in the Tampa area and an evening visit to a church in Jacksonville, Gingrich unleashed an attack on Romney as a "pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase liberal" who could not be trusted to bring conservative values to the White House.

He also drew rousing cheers from a large crowd, numbered in the thousands, at a retirement community, where a Tea Party Express bus rolled slowly behind the platform where he was speaking.

Increasingly, Gingrich has reached out to evangelicals and tea party advocates as the Florida primary approaches, touting an endorsement from campaign dropout Herman Cain as well as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's recent accusation that the establishment was trying to "crucify" him.

Standing outside the First Jacksonville Baptist church as dusk fell, Kurt Kelly, chairman of Florida Faith Leaders for Newt Gingrich, said the candidate held a midweek conference call with an estimated 1,000 evangelical pastors around the state.

He said the goal of the call was to solidify support as much as possible behind Gingrich, at the expense of rival contender Rick Santorum, who is running a poor third in the pre-primary polls in the state.

In the course of the conversation, Kelly said, Gingrich "shared his faith, shared his vision and shared his past."

Kelly did not expand on his reference to Gingrich's past, although the former speaker has been married three times.

He said one of the other pastors on the call questioned Gingrich further, and the candidate "showed a contrite heart and showed true confession and true repentance."

Gingrich was anything but repentant in his remarks about Romney during the day.

During a pair of Sunday morning television interviews, he said his chief rival had adopted a "basic policy of carpet-bombing his opponent."

One of the ads being run by Romney suggests that Gingrich is exaggerating his ties to Ronald Reagan. Gingrich chafed at that, noting that the former president's son Michael was joining him on the campaign trail Monday "to prove to everybody that I am the heir to the Reagan movement, not some liberal from Massachusetts."

Cain, a tea party favorite, will also appear with Gingrich on Monday.

At a large rally Sunday at The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in central Florida, Gingrich accused Democratic President Barack Obama of coddling foreign leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"I believe we need to be stronger than our potential enemies," Gingrich told the crowd. "The president lives in a fantasy world where there are no enemies, there are just misguided people with whom he has not yet had coffee."

He said Chavez "deliberately, cynically and insultingly gave him an anti-American book and Obama didn't have a clue that he'd been insulted."

He said the Obama administration should be focused on Ahmadinejad's "pledge to wipe out Israel and drive America out of the Middle East."

"But if I were a left-wing Harvard law graduate surrounded by really clever left-wing academics I would know that this was really a sign that (Ahmadinejad) probably had a bad childhood," Gingrich said.

He described Obama's approach to Ahmadinejad as, "If only we could unblock him we could be closer to him and we could be friends together."

Gingrich, who served in the House for two decades, also made a populist pitch as a Washington outsider. He said the GOP's "old establishment" is trying to block his path to nomination.

"It's time that someone stood up for hard-working, taxpaying Americans and said, `Enough,'" Gingrich said. "And if that makes the old order uncomfortable, my answer is, `Good.'"

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_el_pr/us_gingrich

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Gingrich bemoans Romney's Florida 'carpet-bombing'

On the defensive after a barrage of attacks from Mitt Romney and a political committee that supports him, Newt Gingrich said Romney had lied and the GOP establishment had allowed it.

Newt Gingrich slammed GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney for "carpet-bombing" his record ahead of Tuesday's presidential primary in Florida, trying to cut into the resurgent front-runner's lead in the final 48 hours before the vote.

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On the defensive after a barrage of attacks from Romney and a political committee that supports him, Gingrich said Romney had lied and the GOP establishment had allowed it.

"I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false," Gingrich said during appearances on Sunday talk shows. "I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order."

Despite Romney's effort to turn positive, the Florida contest has become decidedly bitter and personal. Romney and Gingrich have tangled over policy and character since Gingrich's stunning victory over the well-funded Romney in the South Carolina primary Jan. 21.

Showing no signs of letting up, Gingrich objected to a Romney campaign ad that includes a 1997 NBC News report on the House's decision to discipline the then-House speaker for ethics charges.

"It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all," Gingrich said.

Gingrich acknowledged the possibility that he could lose in Florida and pledged to compete with Romney all the way to the party's national convention this summer.

An NBC/Marist poll showed Romney with support from 42 percent of likely Florida primary voters and Gingrich slipping to 27 percent.

While Romney had spent the past several days sharply attacking Gingrich, he pivoted over the weekend to refocus his criticism on President Barack Obama, calling the Democratic incumbent "detached from reality." The former Massachusetts governor criticized Obama's plan to cut the size of the military and said the administration had a weak foreign policy.

Gingrich's South Carolina momentum has largely evaporated amid the pounding he has sustained from Romney's campaign and the pro-Romney group called Restore Our Future. They have spent some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week.

Gingrich planned to campaign Sunday in central Florida, while Romney scheduled rallies in the south. He was also looking ahead to the Nevada caucuses Feb. 4, airing ads in that state and citing the endorsement Sunday of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper.

Gingrich collected the weekend endorsement of Herman Cain, a tea party favorite and former presidential hopeful whose White House effort foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, planned to remain in Pennsylvania where his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, was hospitalized, and resume campaigning as soon as possible, according to his campaign.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has invested little in the Florida race and is looking ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it's less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.

Gingrich appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and ABC's "This Week." Paul was on CNN's "State of the Union."

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Tampa contributed to this report.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/skZiJOSALYY/Gingrich-bemoans-Romney-s-Florida-carpet-bombing

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Sudan rebels say holding 29 Chinese workers (Reuters)

KHARTOUM (Reuters) ? Rebels in Sudan's oil-producing border state of South Kordofan said on Sunday they were holding Chinese workers for their own safety after a battle with the Sudanese army.

The army has been fighting rebels of the SPLM-N in South Kordofan bordering newly independent South Sudan since June. Fighting spread to the northern Blue Nile state in September.

"We are holding 29 Chinese workers after a battle with the army yesterday," a spokesman for the SPLM-N said. "They are in good health. We are holding them for their own safety because the army was trying to strike again."

The army said rebels had attacked the compound of a Chinese construction company operating in the area between the towns of Abbasiya and Rashad in the north of the state and captured 70 civilians.

"Most of them are Chinese. They (the rebels) are targeting civilians," said army spokesman Sawarmi Khalid Saad.

He said there had been no battle in the area and the army was now trying to rescue the civilians.

China's foreign ministry urged Sudan to guarantee the safety of Chinese personnel during the search and rescue process, according to a statement released in Beijing.

South Kordofan is the main oil-producing state in Sudan, while Blue Nile is rich in minerals such as chrome.

The fighting in both states has forced about 417,000 people to flee their homes, more than 80,000 of them to South Sudan, according to the United Nations.

Both states contain large groups who sided with the south in a decades-long civil war, and who say they continue to face persecution inside Sudan since South Sudan seceded in July.

The SPLM is now the ruling party in the independent south and denies supporting SPLM-North rebels across the border.

Events in South Kordofan and Blue Nile are difficult to verify because aid groups and diplomats are banned from areas where fighting takes place.

SPLM-North is one of a number of rebel movements in underdeveloped border areas who say they are fighting to overthrow Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and end what they see as the dominance of the Khartoum political elite.

Sudan and South Sudan, which still have to resolve a range of issues including the sharing of oil revenues, regularly trade accusations of supporting insurgencies on each other's territory.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing and Khalid Abdelaziz; additional reporting by David Stanway in Beijing)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/wl_nm/us_sudan_china

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Twitter's new censorship plan rouses global furor (AP)

NEW YORK ? Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics ? in a barrage of tweets ? proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.

"This is very bad news," tweeted Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, who operates under the name Sandmonkey. Later, he wrote, "Is it safe to say that (hash)Twitter is selling us out?"

In China, where activists have embraced Twitter even though it's blocked inside the country, artist and activist Ai Weiwei tweeted in response to the news: "If Twitter censors, I'll stop tweeting."

One often-relayed tweet bore the headline of a Forbes magazine technology blog item: "Twitter Commits Social Suicide"

San Francisco-based Twitter, founded in 2006, depicted the new system as a step forward. Previously, when Twitter erased a tweet, it vanished throughout the world. Under the new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the website chillingeffects.org.

The critics are jumping to the wrong conclusions, said Alexander Macgilliviray, Twitter's general counsel.

"This is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency and accountability," he said. "This launch is about us keeping content up whenever we can and to be extremely transparent with the world when we don't. I would hope people realize our philosophy hasn't changed."

Some defenders of Internet free expression came to Twitter's defense.

"Twitter is being pilloried for being honest about something that all Internet platforms have to wrestle with," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "As long as this censorship happens in a secret way, we're all losers."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland credited Twitter with being upfront about the potential for censorship and said some other companies are not as forthright.

As for whether the new policy would be harmful, Nuland said that wouldn't be known until after it's implemented.

Reporters Without Borders, which advocates globally for press freedom, sent a letter to Twitter's executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, urging that the censorship policy be ditched immediately.

"By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization," the letter said. "Twitter's position that freedom of expression is interpreted differently from country to country is unacceptable."

Reporters Without Borders noted that Twitter was earning praise from free-speech advocates a year ago for enabling Egyptian dissidents to continue tweeting after the Internet was disconnected.

"We are very disappointed by this U-turn now," it said.

Twitter said it has no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal. No message will be removed until an internal review determines there is a legal problem, according to Macgilliviray.

"It's a thing of last resort," he said. "The first thing we do is we try to make sure content doesn't get withheld anywhere. But if we feel like we have to withhold it, then we are transparent and we will withhold it narrowly."

Macgilliviray said the new policy has nothing to do with a recent $300 million investment by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Mac or any other financial contribution.

In its brief existence, Twitter has established itself as one of the world's most powerful megaphones. Streams of tweets have played pivotal roles in political protests throughout the world, including the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States and the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and Syria.

Indeed, many of the tweets calling for a boycott of Twitter on Saturday ? using the hashtag (hash)TwitterBlackout ? came from the Middle East.

"This decision is really worrying," said Larbi Hilali, a pro-democracy blogger and tweeter from Morocco. "If it is applied, there will be a Twitter for democratic countries and a Twitter for the others."

In Cuba, opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez said she would protest Saturday with a one-day personal boycott of Twitter.

"Twitter will remove messages at the request of governments," she tweeted. "It is we citizens who will end up losing with these new rules ... ."

In the wake of the announcement, cyberspace was abuzz with suggestions for how any future country-specific censorship could be circumvented. Some Twitter users said this could be done by employing tips from Twitter's own help center to alter one's "Country" setting. Other Twitter users were skeptical that this would work.

While Twitter has embraced its role as a catalyst for free speech, it also wants to expand its audience from about 100 million active users now to more than 1 billion. Doing so may require it to engage with more governments and possibly to face more pressure to censor tweets; if it defies a law in a country where it has employees, those people could be arrested.

Theoretically, such arrests could occur even in democracies ? for example, if a tweet violated Britain's strict libel laws or the prohibitions in France and Germany against certain pro-Nazi expressions.

"It's a tough problem that a company faces once they branch out beyond one set of offices in California into that big bad world out there," said Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices Online, an international network of bloggers and citizen journalists. "We'll have to see how it plays out ? how it is and isn't used."

MacKinnon said some other major social networks already employ geo-filtering along the lines of Twitter's new policy ? blocking content in a specific jurisdiction for legal reasons while making it available elsewhere.

Many of the critics assailing the new policy suggested that it was devised as part of a long-term plan for Twitter to enter China, where its service is currently blocked.

China's Communist Party remains highly sensitive to any organized challenge to its rule and responded sharply to the Arab Spring, cracking down last year after calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China. Many Chinese nonetheless find ways around the so-called Great Firewall that has blocked social networking sites such as Facebook.

Google for several years agreed to censor its search results in China to gain better access to the country's vast population, but stopped that practice two years after engaging in a high-profile showdown with Chain's government. Google now routes its Chinese search results through Hong Kong, where the censorship rules are less restrictive.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt declined to comment on Twitter's action and instead limited his comments to his own company.

"I can assure you we will apply our universally tough principles against censorship on all Google products," he told reporters in Davos, Switzerland.

Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, said it was a matter of trying to adhere to different local laws.

"I think what they (Twitter officials) are wrestling with is what all of us wrestle with ? and everyone wants to focus on China, but it is actually a global issue ? which is laws in these different countries vary," Drummond said.

"Americans tend to think copyright is a real bad problem, so we have to regulate that on the Internet. In France and Germany, they care about Nazis' issues and so forth," he added. "In China, there are other issues that we call censorship. And so how you respect all the laws or follow all the laws to the extent you think they should be followed while still allowing people to get the content elsewhere?"

Craig Newman, a New York lawyer and former journalist who has advised Internet companies on censorship issues, said Twitter's new policy and the subsequent backlash are both understandable, given the difficult ethical issues at stake.

On one hand, he said, Twitter could put its employees in peril if it was deemed to be breaking local laws.

"On the other hand, Twitter has become this huge social force and people view it as some sort of digital town square, where people can say whatever they want," he said. "Twitter could have taken a stand and refused to enter any countries with the most restrictive laws against free speech."

___

Associated Press writers Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco; Michael Liedtke in San Francisco; Peter Orsi in Havana, Cuba; Cara Anna in New York and Ben Hubbard in Cairo contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_hi_te/us_twitter_censorship

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Manning, Irsay insist they are on same page (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS ? Peyton Manning and Colts owner Jim Irsay insist they are just fine after a week filled with complaints and comments suggesting a rift had developed following one of the most miserable seasons in team history.

"We would like to dispel any misperception that there might be any hard feelings between us," the two said Friday in a statement issued by the team. "Since 1998, we have enjoyed a great relationship, based upon mutual respect and trust. We have always been able to talk and address matters we've faced over the years, not just as owner and player, but as friends.

"We had a long talk today and we want to assure Colts fans everywhere that we are both committed to maintaining our close relationship and to working together through any challenges the future may bring."

That would be welcome news to Colts fans, who first watched Manning publicly complain about the down-in-the-mouth atmosphere at team headquarters and then two days later saw Irsay call out his franchise quarterback at a news conference intended to focus on the new head coach.

It's been a dizzying week.

On Tuesday, Manning told The Indianapolis Star that his only real conversation so far with the new general manager Ryan Grigson had come in passing and the flurry of firings had those around the team complex walking on "eggshells."

Irsay didn't like that Manning went public with his frustrations and he said so Thursday, calling Manning a "politician."

"I don't think it's in the best interest to paint the horseshoe in a negative light, I really don't," Irsay told reporters following Chuck Pagano's introduction as coach. "The horseshoe always comes first, and I think one thing he's always known, because he's been around it so long, is that, you know, you keep it in the family. If you've got a problem you talk to each other, it's not about campaigning or anything like that."

Apparently, Manning got the message.

Just a few hours later, Manning told the newspaper that he didn't intend to create a public spat. Instead, Manning said he was speaking from the heart after watching so many of his friends lose their jobs.

"At this point, Mr. Irsay and I owe it to each other and to the fans of the organization to handle this appropriately and professionally, and I think we will. I've already reached out to Mr. Irsay," Manning said. "I wasn't trying to paint the Colts in a bad light, but it's tough when so many people you've known for so long are suddenly leaving. I feel very close to a lot of these guys and we've done great things together. It's hard to watch an old friend clean out his office. That's all I was trying to say."

And Irsay tweeted after that: "Peyton and I love each other,that goes without saying..I humbly serve n protect the Horseshoe..it is bigger than any individual,including me."

Whether the two have mended their misunderstanding, there are still huge questions pending. Irsay must decide by March 8 whether to pay Manning a $28 million bonus. Manning missed the entire 2011 season after having his third neck surgery in September.

Irsay just this month has fired vice chairman Bill Polian, general manager Chris Polian, coach Jim Caldwell and most of the staff. Pagano, the Baltimore Ravens' defensive coordinator this past season, is just getting started, as is Grigson.

Indy's poor season has given it the No. 1 overall pick, which Irsay has said they will use for their quarterback of the future, presumably Stanford's Andrew Luck. If so, Irsay must decide if he wants to pay a No. 1 quarterback and Manning, who signed a five-year, $90 million contract in July and will be 36 in late March.

Irsay has said his choice will come down to Manning's health, not money.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_sp_fo_ne/fbn_colts_manning

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Stocks lowered by mixed economic data

?A brief morning rally pushed the Dow Jones industrial average above its highest closing price since the financial crisis, the Dow closed down 22 points at 12734.?

A brief morning rally pushed the Dow Jones industrial average above its highest closing price since the financial crisis Thursday, but stocks closed lower after mixed economic data tempered traders' optimism.

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Solid news on factory orders and strong earnings from U.S. manufacturers highlighted one of the economy's bright spots before the market opened. The Dow and broader indexes turned negative after weaker reports on home sales and future economic growth were released in the late morning.

The Dow and other indexes are still up sharply for the year, and the Dow is near its highest level since May 2008. Traders appear less afraid of spillover damage from the European debt crisis, and data on jobs and manufacturing have been consistently strong.

"With global risk off center stage and attention going back to the fundamentals, this market was ready to explode, which is exactly what it is doing," said Doug Cote, chief market strategist with ING Investment Management.

The government reported early Thursday orders to factories for long-lasting manufactured goods increased in December for the second straight month, and a key measure of business investment rose solidly.

That strong demand was apparent in quarterly earnings reports from U.S. manufacturers. 3M stock closed 1.3 percent higher after its fourth-quarter profit beat Wall Street's estimates.

Caterpillar, the world's biggest heavy equipment maker, rose 2.1 percent, the most of the 30 companies in the Dow, after beating analysts' estimates last quarter. The company expects to do the same this year as global demand remains high.

Stocks traded broadly higher until mid-morning, when the government reported an unexpected drop in new home sales in December, capping the worst year for home sales on records dating to 1963. The decline underscored the housing market's continued drag on the economy.

A private gauge of future economic activity also grew more slowly than expected.

The Dow closed down 22.33 points, or 0.2 percent, at 12,734.63. It had traded up as much as 84.99 points early Thursday. 3M and Caterpillar led the gains.

AT&T dragged the Dow lower, falling 2.5 percent after its earnings missed Wall Street's forecasts. The company remains heavily dependent on Apple's iPhone, which it pays to subsidize, but recently lost its exclusive rights to sell the phone in the U.S.

The Dow is within reach of its post-financial crisis high of 12,810.54, reached in April 2011. The last time it closed higher than that was on May 20, 2008, when it settled at 12,828.68. The Dow's post-crisis high during the trading day was 12,928.45, reached on May 2, 2011.

The Dow is up 4.2 percent so far this year. The Standard & Poor's 500 index and Nasdaq composite average have gained even more.

The Dow would need to rise another 11 percent to get to its record high close of 14,164.53, reached on Oct. 9, 2007.

The S&P 500 closed down 7.63 points, or 0.6 percent, at 1,318.43. It was dragged lower by volatile financial companies and telecommunications firms including AT&T. The Nasdaq shed 13.03 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 2,805.28.

Stocks had their highest close in eight months Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it plans to keep interest rates extremely low until late 2014 to encourage lending and investment and support the economic recovery.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.93 percent from 1.99 percent late Wednesday. The prospect of more bond-buying by the Fed helped make Treasurys more attractive. A bond's yield falls as demand for it increases.

Among the other U.S. companies making big moves after reporting quarterly earnings:

? Time Warner Cable Inc. rose 7.8 percent after the company reported earnings that were far above analysts' estimates. The national cable TV provider also raised its dividend 17 percent to 56 cents per share and announced plans to buy back more of its own stock.

? United Continental Holdings, the parent company of United and Continental airlines, surged 6.3 percent. The company's fourth-quarter loss narrowed, its adjusted earnings were more than double what analysts had expected and the cost of integrating the two companies fell.

? Netflix soared 22.1 percent, the most of any stock in the S&P 500, after the video streaming and DVD-by-mail company reported a huge gain in customers and a bigger fourth-quarter profit than analysts had expected.

? Colgate-Palmolive rose 1.9 percent after saying it will raise prices in the U.S. for the first time in years to cover higher costs for materials. The company's profit declined last quarter, but core sales in emerging markets were much stronger.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/s5rCQ3MbkWI/Stocks-lowered-by-mixed-economic-data

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Today on New Scientist: 26 January 2012

Superbugs spied off the Antarctic coast

Bacteria that resist nearly all antibiotics have been found in seawater off Antarctic research stations, probably arriving there through human sewage

DIY smear test works for cervical cancer

A do-it-yourself smear test could enable millions of women in poorer countries to head off cervical cancer

Stretching spider silk to its high-tech limits

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/492992/s/1c29e65a/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C0A10Ctoday0Eon0Enew0Escientist0E260Ejanu0E20Bhtml/story01.htm

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LED lights point shoppers in the right direction

Public release date: 26-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

Looking for an item in a large department store or mall can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that could change thanks to a hybrid location-identification system that uses radio frequency transmitters and overhead LED lights, suggested by a team of researchers from Penn State and Hallym University in South Korea.

"LED lights are becoming the norm," said Mohsen Kavehrad, W. L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research at Penn State. "The same lights that brighten a room can also provide locational information."

To locate an item in a mall, the system would not need to transfer large amounts of data. Kavehrad and his team envision large stores or malls with overhead LED light fixtures, each assigned with a location code. At the entrance, a computer that is accessible via keyboard or even telephone would contain a database of all the items available. Shortly after a query, the location or locations of the desired item would appear.

"The human eye can't see beyond 15 on and offs of a light per second," said Kavehrad. "We can get kilobytes and megabytes of information in very rapid blinking of the LEDs," he told attendees at the SPIE Photonics West 2012 conference today in San Francisco.

But LED-transmitted locational information alone will not work because light does not transmit through walls. Kavehrad, working with Zhou Zhou, graduate student in electrical engineering, Penn State, designed a hybrid LiFi system using a Zigbee multihop wireless network with the LEDs.

ZigBee is an engineering specification designed for small, low-power digital radio frequency applications requiring short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates. ZigBee applications usually require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking.

While a ceiling light can have communications with anything placed beneath its area, light cannot travel through walls, so a hybrid system using light and RF became the practical solution.

The system consists of the location-tagged LEDs and combination photodiode and Zigbee receiver merchandise tags. The request for an item goes from the computer through the many jumps of short radio frequency receivers and transmitters placed throughout the mall. The RF/photodiode tag on the merchandise sought, reads its location from the overhead LED and sends the information back through the wireless network to the computer.

Even when merchandise is moved from room to room, the accurate location remains available because a different LED overhead light with a different location code signals the tag.

While ideal for shopping applications, this hybrid model is also useful in other situations. LED-transmitted information is useful in places like hospitals, where radio frequency signals can interfere with equipment.

Modern Geographic Positioning Systems, such as those in cell phones, can easily locate people outside, but they do not work within buildings. A hybrid system in a high-rise office building, for example, could not only tell the system someone was in the building, but could identify the floor where the person was at that time. In museums or hospitals, navigation systems could guide people through large buildings by reading the final destination signal from a hand-carried photodiode device and initializing lights or other indicators to show the proper path.

Kavehrad notes that Zigbee devices are designed to be inexpensive, as are the photodiodes also required for the system. Not every identical item would need a tag and the tags are reusable.

Also working on this project were Yong Up Lee, professor of electronics, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea, currently at Penn State on sabbatical, and Sungkeun Baang and Joohyeon Park, masters degree students at Hallym University.

###

The National Research Foundation of Korea and the National Science Foundation funded this work.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 26-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

Looking for an item in a large department store or mall can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that could change thanks to a hybrid location-identification system that uses radio frequency transmitters and overhead LED lights, suggested by a team of researchers from Penn State and Hallym University in South Korea.

"LED lights are becoming the norm," said Mohsen Kavehrad, W. L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research at Penn State. "The same lights that brighten a room can also provide locational information."

To locate an item in a mall, the system would not need to transfer large amounts of data. Kavehrad and his team envision large stores or malls with overhead LED light fixtures, each assigned with a location code. At the entrance, a computer that is accessible via keyboard or even telephone would contain a database of all the items available. Shortly after a query, the location or locations of the desired item would appear.

"The human eye can't see beyond 15 on and offs of a light per second," said Kavehrad. "We can get kilobytes and megabytes of information in very rapid blinking of the LEDs," he told attendees at the SPIE Photonics West 2012 conference today in San Francisco.

But LED-transmitted locational information alone will not work because light does not transmit through walls. Kavehrad, working with Zhou Zhou, graduate student in electrical engineering, Penn State, designed a hybrid LiFi system using a Zigbee multihop wireless network with the LEDs.

ZigBee is an engineering specification designed for small, low-power digital radio frequency applications requiring short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates. ZigBee applications usually require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking.

While a ceiling light can have communications with anything placed beneath its area, light cannot travel through walls, so a hybrid system using light and RF became the practical solution.

The system consists of the location-tagged LEDs and combination photodiode and Zigbee receiver merchandise tags. The request for an item goes from the computer through the many jumps of short radio frequency receivers and transmitters placed throughout the mall. The RF/photodiode tag on the merchandise sought, reads its location from the overhead LED and sends the information back through the wireless network to the computer.

Even when merchandise is moved from room to room, the accurate location remains available because a different LED overhead light with a different location code signals the tag.

While ideal for shopping applications, this hybrid model is also useful in other situations. LED-transmitted information is useful in places like hospitals, where radio frequency signals can interfere with equipment.

Modern Geographic Positioning Systems, such as those in cell phones, can easily locate people outside, but they do not work within buildings. A hybrid system in a high-rise office building, for example, could not only tell the system someone was in the building, but could identify the floor where the person was at that time. In museums or hospitals, navigation systems could guide people through large buildings by reading the final destination signal from a hand-carried photodiode device and initializing lights or other indicators to show the proper path.

Kavehrad notes that Zigbee devices are designed to be inexpensive, as are the photodiodes also required for the system. Not every identical item would need a tag and the tags are reusable.

Also working on this project were Yong Up Lee, professor of electronics, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea, currently at Penn State on sabbatical, and Sungkeun Baang and Joohyeon Park, masters degree students at Hallym University.

###

The National Research Foundation of Korea and the National Science Foundation funded this work.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/ps-llp012312.php

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Gingrich: Romney self-deportation plan a fantasy (AP)

DORAL, Fla. ? Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Wednesday ridiculed rival Mitt Romney's call for self-deportation of illegal immigrants as an "Obama-level fantasy" that would be inhumane to long-established families living in America.

The former House speaker ripped that part of Romney's immigration policy during a forum Wednesday with the Spanish-language network Univision. The interviewer also asked sharp questions about Gingrich's marital history.

Gingrich laughed at the idea of self-deportation and said it wouldn't work.

During a debate earlier this week, Romney said he favors self-deportation over policies that would require the federal government to round up millions of illegal immigrants and send them back to their home countries. Advocates of Romney's approach argue that illegal immigration can be curbed by denying public benefits to them, forcing them to leave the United States on their own.

"You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatically $20 million income for no work to have some fantasy this far from reality," Gingrich said, alluding to details in Romney's income tax returns made public on Tuesday. "For Romney to believe that somebody's grandmother is going to be so cut off that she is going to self-deport, I mean this is an Obama-level fantasy."

But Gingrich's campaign has spoken of the self-deportation policy he ridiculed Wednesday.

Romney's campaign directed reporters to past comments by Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, who said that only a small percent of illegal immigrants would likely be allowed to stay in the U.S. under Gingrich's plan. Hammond went on to say that the vast majority of them would likely "self-deport."

At the forum, Gingrich spoke instead about border control and establishing a guest-worker program to better manage the influx of immigrants. Gingrich said he favors a path to citizenship for illegal immigrant children who serve in the military but not for simply completing college.

As to communist Cuba, not far off Florida's southern shore, Gingrich said he would be open to using everything up to covert operations to replace stalwart Fidel Castro's regime. "Hands off Cuba, that's baloney," he said. "The people of Cuba deserve freedom."

Florida is home to many Hispanics of Puerto Rican or Cuban descent and who view immigration policy as a priority. Thirteen percent of the state's registered voters are Hispanic.

While the questions were mostly about Hispanic concerns, moderator Jorge Ramos asked Gingrich whether it was hypocritical for him to criticize then-President Bill Clinton and pursue his impeachment in the 1990s when Gingrich was also being unfaithful to his second wife.

Gingrich snapped at the premise of the question and said it was Clinton's false testimony under oath that bothered him most.

"The fact is I've been through two divorces. I've been deposed both times under oath. Both times I told the truth in the deposition," Gingrich said. "I have never lied under oath. I have never committed perjury."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_el_pr/us_campaign_hispanics

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Netflix customers return in 4Q; stock soars 15 pct (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? Netflix has regained almost as many customers as it lost following an unpopular price increase, signaling that the video subscription service is healing from its self-inflected wounds.

Fourth-quarter figures released Wednesday show Netflix Inc. ended December with 24.4 million subscribers in the U.S., up from 23.8 million at the end of September. That gain of about 600,000 customers compares with the loss of 800,000 subscribers last summer after it raised its U.S. prices as much as 60 percent.

The uptick is a positive sign for Netflix after several months of upheaval battered its stock.

The fallout from the earlier customer defections contributed to a 14 percent decrease in Netflix's fourth-quarter earnings.

Netflix made $40.7 million, or 73 cents per share, in the final three months of last year. That compares with income of $47.1 million, or 87 cents per share, a year earlier.

Investors had been bracing for a bigger drop-off. The company's performance easily exceeded the average earnings estimate of 54 cents per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Fourth-quarter revenue climbed 47 percent from the previous year to $876 million ? $19 million above analyst projections.

Netflix's stock soared $14.06, or nearly 15 percent, to $109.10 in extended trading. It had ended regular trading up $2.37, or 2.6 percent, at $95.04.

The stock still has a long way to go to return to its peak of nearly $305, which was reached in July, about the same time that Netflix announced the price increase that outraged customers.

"It's still too early to know how much success Netflix is going to have this year, but seeing those gains in customers makes investors feel safer," said Frost & Sullivan analyst Dan Rayburn.

Now that the backlash over the higher prices has eased, Netflix's biggest challenge may be fending off competitive challenges to its primary business of streaming video over high-speed Internet connections.

Amazon.com Inc. is rapidly expanding a streaming service it started last year while many analysts are expecting Verizon Communications to get into video streaming later this year, possibly in a partnership with Coinstar Inc.'s Redbox, whose kiosks already compete against Netflix in DVD rentals. Google Inc.'s YouTube also is supplementing the amateur video on its site with more content from movie and TV studios.

Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, Calif., also must navigate an international expansion that will saddle the company with a loss this year.

The fourth-quarter results should help bolster confidence in Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who was skewered in Internet forums and analyst notes for miscalculating how subscribers would react to higher prices.

A contrite Hastings had promised that Netflix would work to lure back customers, and it managed to do so better than he forecast.

Netflix expects its comeback to gather momentum in the current quarter.

The company forecast that it will add 1.7 million U.S. subscribers to its Internet video streaming service. That would be in line with how many streaming subscribers signed up in last year's first quarter.

Netflix ended 2011 with 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the U.S. and another 1.9 million in Canada and Latin America. This month, Netflix introduced streaming plans in the United Kingdom and Ireland, too.

Most of the streaming gains will be offset by cancellations of DVD-by-mail rental plans, which Netflix is gradually phasing out. Hastings believes discs are becoming increasingly antiquated as technology advances. Netflix predicted its DVD subscriptions will fall from 11.2 million in December to 9.7 million in March. The company lost 2.8 million DVD subscribers in the fourth quarter.

"We expect DVD subscribers to decline every quarter forever," Hastings told analysts during a Wednesday conference call.

About 8.4 million Netflix customers subscribe to both Internet streaming and DVD rentals.

While Netflix sees its emphasis on streaming as a smart long-term strategy, the DVD attrition will hurt the company's full-year performance because Netflix's recent price increases made delivering discs through the mail more profitable ? for now.

Netflix is paying higher fees for the streaming rights to exclusive programming, as well as video already available in other outlets and formats. At the end of December, its video licensing commitments totaled $3.9 billion.

Netflix expects to produce an annual loss this year, for the first time in a decade. The company gave the first inkling of how big the setback will be with its projection for a first-quarter loss of 16 cents to 49 cents per share.

Analysts on average expect a first-quarter loss of 29 cents per share.

Netflix projected first-quarter revenue of $842 million to $877 million, compared with a forecast for $849 million from analysts.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_hi_te/us_earns_netflix

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Fungi-filled forests are critical for endangered orchids

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

When it comes to conserving the world's orchids, not all forests are equal. In a paper to be published Jan. 25 in the journal Molecular Ecology, Smithsonian ecologists revealed that an orchid's fate hinges on two factors: a forest's age and its fungi.

Roughly 10 percent of all plant species are orchids, making them the largest plant family on Earth. But habitat loss has rendered many threatened or endangered. This is partly due to their intimate relationship with the soil.

Orchids depend entirely on microscopic fungi in the early stages of their lives. Without the nutrients orchids obtain by digesting these host fungi, their seeds often will not germinate and baby orchids will not grow. While researchers have known about the orchid?fungus relationship for years, very little is known about what the fungi need to survive.

Biologists based at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center launched the first study to find out what helps the fungi flourish and what that means for orchids. Led by Melissa McCormick, the researchers looked at three orchid species, all endangered in one or more U.S. states.

After planting orchid seeds in dozens of experimental plots, they also added particular host fungi needed by each orchid to half the plots. Then they followed the fate of the orchids and fungi in six study sites: three in younger forests (50 to 70 years old) and three in older forests (120 to 150 years old).

After four years they discovered orchid seeds germinated only where the fungi they needed were abundant?not merely present.

In the case of one species, Liparis liliifolia (lily-leaved twayblade), seeds germinated only in plots where the team had added fungi. This suggests that this particular orchid could survive in many places, but the fungi they need do not exist in most areas of the forest.

Meanwhile, the fungi displayed a strong preference for older forests.

Soil samples taken from older forest plots had host fungi that were five to 12 times more abundant compared to younger forests, even where the research team had not added them. They were more diverse as well. More mature plots averaged 3.6 different Tulasnella fungi species per soil sample (a group of fungi beneficial to these orchids), while the younger ones averaged only 1.3.

Host fungi were also more abundant in plots where rotting wood was added. These host fungi, which are primarily decomposers, may grow better in places where decomposing wood or leaves are plentiful.

All this implies that to save endangered orchids, planting new forests may not be enough. If the forests are not old enough or do not have enough of the right fungi, lost orchids may take decades to return, if they return at all.

"This study, for the first time, ties orchid performance firmly to the abundance of their fungi," McCormick said. "It reveals the way to determine what conditions host fungi need, so we can support recovery of the fungi needed by threatened and endangered orchids."

###

Smithsonian: http://www.si.edu

Thanks to Smithsonian for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117035/Fungi_filled_forests_are_critical_for_endangered_orchids

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It's guys, not ladies, who splurge on lunch

Getty Images / Getty Images file

A man eats his lunch at a Burger King in London.

By Allison Linn

The next time you stop in for a morning latte or head out for a restaurant lunch, take a look around ? and don?t be surprised if you see a lot of young men standing in line.

A new survey of workers finds that men spend significantly more on coffee and lunch than women.

The survey, from staffing firm Accounting Principals, also found that younger workers spend more than older workers on lunch and coffee during the workday.

Overall, those lunches out and coffee breaks are costing workers a bundle.? American workers who buy coffee and lunch spend an average of $1,000 a year on coffee and $2,000 a year on lunch, based on the survey of 1,000 workers.

About two-thirds of workers buy lunch and half buy coffee during the week.

Men were slightly more likely than women to go out to eat, but they spent a lot more. The men who buy their lunches spend an average of $46.30 on lunch each week, compared with $26.50 for women who go out to eat.

Men who buy coffee spend an average of $25.70 vs. $15 for women.

The caffeine fix is a bigger hit on the wallets of 18- to 34-year-old workers. Younger workers who buy coffee spend an average of $24.74 a week on coffee, compared with $14.15 for workers 45 and older who buy coffee during the work week. Younger workers also spend far more on lunch than older workers: about $45 a week vs. $32.

Not surprisingly, a third of those surveyed said one of their goals for 2012 was to bring their own lunch more often.

Accounting Principals, a unit of Adecco, commissioned the survey in December.

Tip of the hat to Consumerist, which first reported on the study.

Related:

Frugal food: Brown bag options that won't break the bank

Starbucks raising prices in Northeast, Sunbelt

{"contentId":"10201172","totalVotes":"5030"}

Do you bring your lunch or buy it?

?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10201172-its-guys-not-ladies-who-splurge-on-lunch

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In the wake of Megaupload crackdown, fear forces similar sites to shutter sharing services?

The Feds put the smackdown on Megaupload and its whole executive team last week, charging them with criminal charges for copyright infringement and racketeering in addition to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and money laundering. As a result, it appears that several other cloud locker companies have curbed their sharing ways to avoid similar DOJ entanglements. FileSonic and Fileserve have eliminated file sharing from their service menus, and Uploaded.to is no longer available to those of us in the US. Naturally, none of these companies have said that Megaupload's legal problems are the reason for the changes, but the timing suggests it's more than mere coincidence. Disagree? Feel free to speculate about the possibilities in the comments below, and let us know if any other online storage services have made similar moves while you're at it.

In the wake of Megaupload crackdown, fear forces similar sites to shutter sharing services? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/23/in-the-wake-of-megaupload-crackdown-fear-forces-similar-sites-t/

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Tracy Morgan Collapses At Sundance

Actor remains hospitalized following collapse.
By Gil Kaufman

Tracy Morgan at Sundance Film Festival
Photo: Getty Images

"30 Rock" star Tracy Morgan was rushed to a Utah hospital on Sunday after falling unconscious at an awards ceremony during the Sundance Film Festival.

Morgan was honored with an award at the Creative Coalition Spotlight Awards in Park City, Utah, when he seemed disoriented during his speech and was escorted out of the building a short time later, where he fell unconscious, according to TMZ.

The comedian was rushed by ambulance to the Park City Medical Center and a spokesperson for the hospital said that no drugs or alcohol were found in his system. A rep for the actor released a statement explaining, "from a combination of exhaustion and altitude, Tracy is seeking medical attention ... He is with his fiancée and grateful to the Park City Medical Center for their care. Any reports of Tracy consuming alcohol are 100 percent false."

The The Hollywood Reporter quoted unnamed sources saying that Morgan seemed out of control before accepting the Initiative Award, yelling and falling to the ground. Morgan received a kidney transplant two year ago and was at Sundance for a screening of the film "Predisposed," in which he stars alongside Jesse Eisenberg and Melissa Leo. His publicist denied that Morgan — a recovering alcoholic who was arrested twice for driving under the influence in 2005 and 2006 — appeared intoxicated at the festival.

Related Videos

• Sundance 2012: Interviews From Park City

Related Photos

• Celebrities Hit The Ground At Sundance 2012 Film Fest

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677696/tracy-morgan-hospitalized-sundance.jhtml

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British skier sets record for solo Antarctic trek

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2011 file photo provided by the Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition, Felicity Aston takes a picture of herself at Union Glacier days before she traveled to her starting point on the Ross Ice Shelf for a solo trek across Antarctica. Aston, 34, crossed Antarctica in 59 days, pulling two sledges for more than 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometers) from the Leverett Glacier to the Hercules Inlet on the Ronne Ice Shelf. On Monday morning, Jan. 23, 2012, she tweeted that she has completed her journey. (AP Photo/Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition/Kaspersky Lab, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2011 file photo provided by the Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition, Felicity Aston takes a picture of herself at Union Glacier days before she traveled to her starting point on the Ross Ice Shelf for a solo trek across Antarctica. Aston, 34, crossed Antarctica in 59 days, pulling two sledges for more than 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometers) from the Leverett Glacier to the Hercules Inlet on the Ronne Ice Shelf. On Monday morning, Jan. 23, 2012, she tweeted that she has completed her journey. (AP Photo/Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition/Kaspersky Lab, File)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) ? British adventurer Felicity Aston completed her crossing of Antarctica on Monday, becoming the first woman to ski across the icy continent alone.

She did it in 59 days, pulling two sledges for 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometers) from her starting point on the Leverett Glacier on Nov. 25.

"!!!Congratulations to the 1st female to traverse Antarctica SOLO.V proud," her Twitter message said.

She announced her achievement from Hercules Inlet on Antarctica's Ronne Ice Shelf, where she waited alone in her tent for bad weather to clear so that a small plane could pick her up and take her to a base camp. Other expeditions also have gathered there, preparing for the summer's last flight off the continent.

Aston also set another record: the first human to ski solo, across Antarctica, using only her own muscle power. A male-female team already combined to ski across Antarctica without kites or machines to pull them across, but Aston is the first to do this alone.

A veteran of expeditions in sub-zero environments, Aston, 34, worked as a meteorologist in Antarctica and has led teams on ski trips in the Antarctic, the Arctic and Greenland.

Her journey took her from the Ross Ice Shelf, up the Leverett Glacier and across the Transantarctic Mountains to the continent's vast central plateau, where she fought headwinds most of the way to the South Pole. Then she turned toward Hercules Inlet and a base camp where the Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions company provides logistical support to each summer's Antarctic expeditions.

She arranged in advance for two supply drops so that she could travel with a lighter load, one at the pole and one partway toward her final destination. Otherwise, her feat was unassisted.

Aston tweeted that she's been promised red wine and a hot shower after she gets picked up. "No plane tonight but I have my last Beef and Ale Stew to enjoy for my final evening alone ? yum!" she wrote.

And while she pondered her achievement in her last hours of solitude Monday, she shared more of her thoughts in a phone call she broadcast live online.

"It's all a little bit overwhelming. After days and days to get here, I seem to have arrived all in a rush. I don't really feel prepared for it. It feels amazing to be finished and yet overwhelmingly sad that it's over at the same time," she said. "I can't quite believe that i'm here and that i've crossed Antarctica, just over 1700 kilometers, just under 1,000 nautical miles, 14.5 degrees and 59 days and here I am."

"I'm just going to sit here and enjoy these last precious moments on my own, and running through my mind all those days behind me, the plane leaving me on my own ... the awful day when I thought I was going to get blown away, all those days of bad weather, slogging through those mountains, up those hills with my sledges, arriving at the pole, leaving the pole again, more bad weather and just empty horizons..."

"I remember all the bad times, sitting in my tent, thinking 'what on Earth am I doing?', but despite all that, this has been the most amazing privilege, to have the opportunity to do this, and just a huge thank you to all those people who made it possible."

___

Online:

Aston's expedition site: www.kasperskyonetransantarcticexpedition.com

Aston on Twitter: www.twitter.com/felicity(underscore)aston

Aston on ipadio: http://www.ipadio.com/broadcasts/TransantarcticExpedition/2012/1/22/Transantarctic-Expedition--63rd-phonecast

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-23-AA-Antarctica-Solo-Crossing/id-7534e8806dea4912bc76d961544c8624

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At least 143 killed in north Nigeria sect attacks (AP)

KANO, Nigeria ? Coordinated attacks claimed by a radical Islamist sect killed at least 143 people in north Nigeria's largest city, a hospital official said Saturday, as gunfire still echoed around some areas of the sprawling city.

Soldiers and police officers swarmed over streets Saturday in Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that remains an important political and religious hub in Nigeria's Muslim north. But their effectiveness remains in question, as the uniformed bodies of many of their colleagues lay in the overflowing mortuary of Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital, Kano's largest hospital.

A hospital official there said at least 143 people died in the attacks Friday. The count included some bodies already claimed by families for immediate burial per Islamic law, the official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to disclose the figure to journalists.

Other bodies could be lying at other clinics and hospitals in the city.

In a statement issued late Friday, federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said attackers targeted five police buildings, two immigration offices and the local headquarters of the State Security Service, Nigeria's secret police.

Nwakpa O. Nwakpa, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said volunteers offered first aid to the wounded, and evacuated those seriously injured to local hospitals. He said officials continued to collect corpses scattered around sites of the attacks. A survey of two hospitals by the Red Cross showed at least 50 people were injured in Friday's attack, he said.

State authorities declared a 24-hour curfew late Friday as residents hid inside their homes amid the fighting.

A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists. He said the attack came as the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.

Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an AP count. So far this year, the group has been blamed for at least 219 killings, according to an AP count.

The sect's targets have included both Muslims and Christians. However, the group has begun specifically targeting Christians after promising it will kill any Christians living in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. That has further inflamed religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria, which has seen ethnic violence kill thousands in recent years along the divide between the north and the largely Christian south.

Friday's attacks also could cause more unrest, as violence in Kano has set off attacks throughout the north in the past, including postelection violence in April that saw 800 people killed. Kano, an ancient city, remains important in the history of Islam in Nigeria and has important religious figures there today.

Amid the recent unrest and attacks, at least two journalists have been killed in Nigeria. Journalist Enenche Akogwu, who worked as a correspondent in Kano for private news station Channels Television, was shot and killed Friday while reporting on the attacks, colleagues said. In central Nigeria's city of Jos, Nansok Sallah, a news editor for a government-owned radio station called Highland FM, was found dead in a shallow stream Thursday, the victim of an apparent murder, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

___

Associated Press writer Salisu Rabiu in Kano, Nigeria contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell reported from Lagos, Nigeria and can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence

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Thoughts on Kodak, Bankruptcy, and Investing

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been rumors swirling about Eastman Kodak?s financial (in)solvency. And then it happened. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. Not surprisingly, their stock dropped 35%. But really, that?s just the tip of the iceberg.

Kodak actually traded at an all-time high of just under $93/share in February 1997. And now? It closed last night at $0.36/share. That?s a stunning decline of 99.99% over the past 14 years. Yikes!

As of right now, they owe a total of $6.75B (yes, billion) to more than 100k creditors. At the same time, they have around $5.1B in assets. Thus, even if they liquidated everything, they?d still be in a $1.75B hole. Not good. Not good at all.

And guess what? Back when we first started getting interested in our finances, we almost invested in Kodak. This was back in the mid-90s, and their stock (like many others) had been on a tear. They were also seemingly well-positioned to take advantage of the transition to digital photography. What could go wrong?

Well? They wound up struggling to make the digital transition and their business suffered.

This was before we had discovered the wonders of broad-based index funds ? and before we had enough money for the then-steep investment minimums in most mutual funds. Thus, we were busy filtering through blue chip companies in search of dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) that would allow us to directly invest our hard-earned dollars.

We were enamored with such household names as 3M (MMM), Campbell?s Soup (CPB), Coca-Cola (K), Intel (INTC), Merck (MRK), Procter and Gamble (PG), and yes, Eastman Kodak (EK). Over the years, some of these have performed reasonably well and others haven?t. But none have imploded like Kodak.

Truth be told, our DRIP investing phase didn?t last very long. We soon discovered the wonders of indexing, and built up enough cash to get over the minimum investment barrier. We ultimately liquidated our individual stock positions and haven?t looked back since.

If nothing else, our near miss with Kodak should be taken as a cautionary tale about diversification. At the time, we were only holding five or six companies ? in part due to a lack of capital ? so taking a major hit on any one company would have really hurt.

Of course, it?s not like they lost that 99.99% overnight, but still? I certainly sleep better at night knowing that we own literally thousands of companies. Yes, we still have market risk, but there?s little in the way of company-specific risk.

Source: http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2012/01/20/thoughts-on-kodak-bankruptcy-and-investing/

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