At War Blog: Military Trains a New Generation of Munitions Experts


Meggan Haller for The New York Times


Specialist Robert Iannello and other students added plastic explosive to ordnance to be disposed of in a demolition training exercise at Naval School Explosive Ordnance Disposal at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. More Photos »







EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — Four students gathered near several cluster munitions stuck nose-down into the ground. They were conferring on how best to flip over a piece of air-dropped dispenser without risking injury from any unseen bomblets hidden underneath. (This was soon done with a rope and shovel, together forming a lever that a student could pull from afar.)






The New York Times

Despite its name and location, the school serves four military services. This year, officers say, it will train 1,800 people. More Photos »






A few miles away, several students clutched watches while testing a green strand of time fuze. They were clocking the rate at which it burned so they could set up a precisely timed demolition later in the morning.


In a third patch of forest, Pvt. Kevin A. Stanley, 20, crouched with Airman First Class Joshua P. Oliver, 21, and studied a temporary mystery: the precise identification of a shell that had failed to explode. Was it Russian? Bulgarian? White phosphorous? High explosive? Something else?


The projectile body was rusted, but the underside of its fuze still carried metal stampings in Cyrillic. The men crawled forward with instruments resembling dental mirrors, trying to read the unfamiliar letters without touching the round and possibly causing it to burst.


Their assignment was to document as many details as possible — the number of rotating bands, the shell’s length and diameter, the paint finish and much more — and then consult a classified database of global munitions to make the identification. The database would then provide instructions on how to make the weapon safe, which would be the exercise’s next step.


These were the nearly simultaneous scenes playing out last month at an American military school that has quietly produced a group of service members in extraordinarily high demand: explosive ordnance disposal techs.


The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have exposed a new generation of Americans to explosive hazards, which include falling rockets, mortar rounds and the makeshift bomb, which takes a dizzying array of forms.


This command, which is formally called Naval School Explosive Ordnance Disposal and run by the Navy on an Air Force base, is neither strictly naval nor for the Air Force, as its name and location might suggest. It is a four-service academy that has become remarkably busy. In 2004, as the use of improvised bombs against American troops spiked, this school trained 600 students. This year, its officers say, the school will train 1,800.


Its approach is atypical. Enlisted service members and officers train side by side in the same classes, learning the same skills. This is in part because ordnance knows no rank. Each student in the 143-day basic course studies — and must pass — identical technical exams.


The school also does more than produce techs ready for American military units.


Many techs serve long careers in uniform. Others move on after a tour and take their skills to federal or other law enforcement agencies. Others return to conflict areas for private firms or as humanitarian de-miners, clearing roads, oil fields, farmland and homes of the lethal remnants of war.


Each of these lines of work can be unforgiving. So it is little surprise that given the breadth of instruction — which covers everything from identifying every piece of ordnance in global production to disabling roadside bombs to clearing aircraft crash scenes of the ordnance still strapped to the crippled plane — roughly a third of the students fail.


They are disenrolled, phase by phase, as the instruction becomes more complex. “The standard is high, and it is not up for discussion,” said Capt. Joseph Polanin of the Navy, the school’s commanding officer.


The reason, he said, is both obvious and unbending. “If you are rendering safe a particular kind of missile, and there are 16 steps for that, then you either do them precisely right or you fail, because if you do that wrong in the field, the results are catastrophic,” he said.


As he spoke, explosions boomed several hundred yards away on a practice range. It is a frequent sound. While many of the school’s training aids — including the shell that Private Stanley and Airman Oliver were examining — are inert, the students spend extensive time on ranges, learning to handle and rig explosives.


“We see visitors flinch here,” said Lt. Nicholas M. Parker of the Navy, who leads the ground ordnance division. “But not students. They get used to that sound.”


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 4, 2012

A slide show that appeared on the home page of NYTimes.com with an earlier version of this article misidentified a plastic explosive. It was C4, not C5.



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Facebook might buy Microsoft’s Atlas Ad platform to compete with Google












Is Facebook (FB) preparing to compete with Google (GOOG) in online advertising? According to AllThingsD and BusinessInsider’s sources Facebook might be taking steps to build its own advertising network for online websites. AllThingsD says that rather than build a new advertising network from scratch, Facebook could just buy Microsoft’s (MSFT) Atlas Solutions platform “that already delivers billions of ad impressions a day.”


BusinessInsider reports that Facebook will reportedly pay a lower price than the $ 6 billion that Microsoft paid for aQuantive in 2007 that included Atlas Solutions. It’s estimated that Atlas is worth more than $ 30 million — a small price to pay to compete with Google’s DoubleClick ad network.












So why is Facebook interested in advertising now? Well, it’s got over 1 billion active users with emails, phone numbers, and unprecedented amounts of “likes.” As BusinessInsider puts itFacebook has so much data it could “tell marketers whether or not a Facebook user saw, on Facebook.com, an ad for a product before going to the store and buying it.”


Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Randy Travis Has 'Given Up Alcohol,' Will Hit Awards Show Stage















12/06/2012 at 04:30 PM EST



Randy Travis is easing back into the spotlight four months after he was arrested while nude and allegedly drunk and belligerent on a Texas highway.

The country star, 53, is performing Friday night at the American Giving Awards in Pasadena for a show airing Saturday night on NBC. This follows his November appearance on CMT Crossroads with the Avett Brothers.

"Randy is doing great. Life is good," says his lawyer Larry Friedman. "He's given up drinking alcohol. He's drinking eight glasses of water a day or more. He's on a strict exercise regimen. … He's in the best shape he's ever been in in his life."

The AGAs, hosted by Joel McHale, is a celebrity tribute to local heroes, with five charities sharing $2 million in grants. Glenn Close will receive the AGA Leadership Award.

"It's an honor being chosen as a performer for this year's American Giving Awards," Travis says in a statement. "The act of giving back to the community is priceless and something that I truly believe in."

While Travis's case is pending, he remains busy in the studio, according to his lawyer.

"He's got 31 new songs," says Friedman. "He did it at a recording studio in Texas. He used his own band. These are all old-time favorites by Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, these are the songs that he grew up with that he loved."

Reporting by KEVEN O'DONNELL

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana


SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.


Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.


Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.


"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."


In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.


That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.


The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."


Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.


Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."


Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.


But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.


The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.


"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.


The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.


That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.


Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.


___(equals)


Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle


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Apple's gains lift tech in quiet day before jobs data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks closed modestly higher on Thursday, a day ahead of the key monthly jobs report, as a rebound in shares of Apple helped boost technology shares.


Traders were reluctant to bet heavily a day before the Friday release of the November employment report. Just 5.62 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, shy of the 6.48 billion daily average this year.


Investors are also keeping watch on the "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington to see if lawmakers can reach a deal to avoid a series of spending cuts and tax hikes beginning in January.


"Right now we're just drifting, waiting to learn about the cliff and jobs," said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York. "The only stabilizing factor is that Apple is higher again, which is lending some support to the broader market."


Apple climbed 1.6 percent to $547.24, reversing losses incurred at the open. The stock was coming off its biggest one-day drop in four years on Wednesday, which occurred on concerns about higher capital gains taxes in 2013 and the company's tablet computer market share.


The S&P technology index <.gspt> was the best performing of the S&P 500's 10 major sectors, gaining 0.8 percent. Semiconductor stocks rallied a day after Broadcom forecast fourth-quarter revenue at the high end of its target range. Broadcom's stock rose 3.2 percent to $33.36 while the PHLX semiconductor index <.sox> rose 1.1 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 39.55 points, or 0.30 percent, to 13,074.04 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 4.66 points, or 0.33 percent, to 1,413.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 15.57 points, or 0.52 percent, to close at 2,989.27.


Monthly payroll numbers, which will be released by the Labor Department before the market opens on Friday, are expected to show a sharp slowdown in jobs growth, though that is largely due to the impact of Superstorm Sandy, which devastated the U.S. Northeast in late October and early November. The unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 7.9 percent.


Broader moves were limited, however, as traders focused on the "fiscal cliff" debate. About three weeks remain before higher tax rates would go into effect, which economists worry would dampen economic growth. Legislators are trying to come up with a deal to avoid some of the negative effects on the economy while still reducing the U.S. budget deficit.


While Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives insist that raising tax rates on the rich is not negotiable, some GOP lawmakers now see it as inevitable to avoid the fiscal cliff.


Without action from Congress, tax cuts on capital gains and dividends will expire at the end of 2012. This has given investors a reason to sell certain stocks such as Apple that have done extremely well in recent years.


The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix>, known as the VIX, rose 0.7 percent, "a reflection of the anxiety people have about the jobs report and skepticism over the cliff," Selkin said.


An S&P index of consumer discretionary shares <.gspd> gained 0.6 percent, lifted by Starbucks Corp shares' advance of 5.7 percent to $53.70 after Baird upgraded the stock to "outperform."


H&R Block climbed 5.1 percent to $18.26 after the company reported a quarterly loss that was narrower than expected.


Sirius XM Radio shares rose 0.7 percent to $2.79 after its board approved a $2 billion stock repurchase and declared a special dividend that gave a big payout to its largest shareholder, Liberty Media . Shares of Liberty climbed 2.7 percent to $109.24.


Garmin shares jumped 5.7 percent to $41.99 after Standard & Poor's said it would add the navigation device maker to the S&P 500 index. Garmin will replace R.R. Donnelley & Sons after the close of trading on December 11.


Slightly more than 50 percent of the stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed higher, while the number of advancing and declining stocks was about even on the Nasdaq.


(Editing by Jan Paschal)



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World Briefing | United Nations: African Union Asks United Nations to Finance Intervention in Mali



The African Union appealed on Wednesday for the United Nations to pay for a military operation to combat Islamist extremists in northern Mali after the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, cautiously recommended that the Security Council approve the force without financing it. Mali descended into chaos in March when soldiers toppled the president, leaving a power vacuum that enabled rebels to seize two-thirds of the country. Islamist extremists, some allied with Al Qaeda, have hijacked the revolt. The African Union observer to the United Nations, Antonio Tete, told the 15-member Security Council that the deployment and operations of an African force of 3,300 troops would need money from the United Nations “to ensure sustained and predictable support to the mission.” Diplomats said the African Union and France, the most vocal Western backer of a plan for African troops to retake northern Mali, were angry that Mr. Ban had not offered United Nations financing.


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25 top-rated Facebook games from 2012












Games can be both a welcome and an annoying diversion on Facebook, the world’s most popular online social network. This year, Facebook crossed a big milestone — reaching 1 billion active users. Game companies such as “FarmVille” creator Zynga Inc. and Rovio Entertainment Ltd. of “Angry Birds” fame seek to tap into that vast base of users to gain more players for their games.


This week, Facebook Inc. issued a list of the 25 top-rated games that launched on Facebook in 2012. The company says the rankings are based on user ratings and engagement with the games. It’s the same methodology that Facebook uses to rank apps in its App Center.












Some of the games are played on Facebook’s website, while others are only on Apple Inc.‘s iOS or Google Inc.‘s Android devices using Facebook’s app.


Here’s the list:


1. “SongPop” (by FreshPlanet, on Facebook.com, iOS and Android)


2. “Dragon City” (by Social Point, on Facebook.com)


3. “Bike Race” (by Top Free Games, on iOS)


4. “Subway Surfers” (by Kiloo, on iOS and Android)


5. “Angry Birds Friends (by Rovio, on Facebook.com)


6. “FarmVille 2″ (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)


7. “Scramble with Friends” (by Zynga, on iOS)


8. “Clash of Clans” (by Supercell, on iOS)


9. “Marvel: Avengers Alliance” (by Playdom, on Facebook.com)


10. “Draw Something” (by Zynga, on iOS and Android)


11. “Hay Day” (by Supercell, on iOS)


12. “Baseball Heroes” (by Syntasia, on Facebook.com)


13. “ChefVille” (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)


14. “CSR Racing” (by NaturalMotion Games, on iOS)


15. “Candy Crush Saga” (by King.com, on Facebook.com and iOS)


16. “Matching With Friends” (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)


17. “Legend Online” (by Oasis Games, on Facebook.com)


18. “Jurassic Park Builder” (by Ludia, on Facebook.com)


19. “Dungeon Rampage” (by Rebel Entertainment, on Facebook.com)


20. “Pockie Ninja II Social” (by NGames Ltd., on Facebook.com)


21. “Jetpack Joyride” (by Halfbrick, on Facebook.com)


22. “Social Empires” (by Social Point, on Facebook.com and iOS)


23. “Bil ve Fethet” (by Peak Games, on Facebook.com)


24. “Ruby Blast Adventures” (by Zynga, on Facebook.com and iOS)


25. “Pyramid Solitaire Saga” (by King.com, on Facebook.com)


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Homeless Man Charged with Subway Killing















12/05/2012 at 04:30 PM EST







Suspect in N.Y.C. subway killing



A homeless man has been arrested and charged with murder for allegedly pushing a man in front of a New York subway train.

Naeem Davis, 30, implicated himself in the crime after being taken into custody and questioned by the New York Police Department on Tuesday, police spokesman Paul J. Browne tells the New York Times.

The suspect's name and the charge were made public Wednesday after witnesses who saw Davis shove Ki-Suck Han, 58, in front of the train Monday afternoon identified him in a lineup, according to police.

Han attempted to climb back up onto the platform as the train approached, a moment captured by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi.

The image covered the New York Post Tuesday, sparking debate over journalistic ethics and, writes the Times, raising "questions about how bystanders in the city can – and perhaps, should – behave in moments of crisis."

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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.


"The result of this trial will have a major, immediate impact on premenopausal women," Ravdin said.


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.


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


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Dow, S&P end higher, but Apple sinks Nasdaq in wild day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A volatile trading session ended with stocks mostly higher on Wednesday, even as Apple, the most valuable company in the United States, suffered its worst day of losses in almost four years.


In a strange occurrence, Apple accounted for the entirety of the Nasdaq 100's <.ndx> fall of 1.1 percent, while the Dow industrials - which do not include Apple as a component - enjoyed the best day since November 28.


With the drop, Apple shed nearly $35 billion in market capitalization, its biggest one-day market-cap loss ever. The company's market value, or market capitalization, now stands at $506.85 billion.


"Today's move is because of index weightings, with the Nasdaq down because of Apple's decline," said Rex Macey, chief investment officer of Wilmington Trust in Atlanta. "The S&P is up because Apple isn't as big a weight in that index, and the Dow is up even more because it isn't there at all."


The broad market seesawed, with the S&P 500 dropping into negative territory before it rebounded off the 1,400 level, seen as a key support point over the past two weeks. Investors cited comments from President Barack Obama suggesting a potential near-term resolution to the "fiscal cliff" wrangling in Washington as a catalyst for the rebound.


Shares of The Travelers Cos Inc rose 4.9 percent to $74. The stock ranked as the Dow's top percentage gainer after the insurance company said it intended to resume stock buybacks it had temporarily suspended while it assessed its exposure to Superstorm Sandy. The company also said a preliminary estimate of net losses from Sandy was about $650 million after tax.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 82.71 points, or 0.64 percent, to 13,034.49 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 2.23 points, or 0.16 percent, to 1,409.28. But the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 22.99 points, or 0.77 percent, to end at 2,973.70.


Apple, the largest U.S. company by market capitalization and a big weight in both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, fell 6.4 percent to $538.79. Apple is down more than 20 percent from an all-time high reached in late September, putting the stock into bear market territory.


Banking shares were led higher by a 6.3 percent jump in Citigroup to $36.46 after the company said it would cut 4 percent of its workforce. [ID:nL1E8N52IQ] The S&P financial sector index <.gspf> climbed 1.3 percent, and Bank of America hit a 52-week high of $10.55 before pulling back slightly. The stock, a Dow component, ended at $10.46, up 5.7 percent for the day.


Still, Apple struggled throughout the session. Market participants cited a host of reasons for the drop in the iPad maker's stock, including a consultant's report about the company losing share in the tablet market and reports that margin requirements had been raised by at least one clearing firm, as well as year-end tax selling ahead of a possible rise in capital-gains tax rates next year.


On the Washington front, Obama told the Business Roundtable, a group of chief executives, on Wednesday that a fiscal cliff deal was possible "in about a week" if Republicans acknowledged the need to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.


Equities have struggled to gain ground recently because of concerns over the fiscal cliff - a series of mandatory spending cuts and tax increases effective in early January that could push the U.S. economy into recession next year. Recently equities have moved on any whiffs of sentiment from Washington in headlines about negotiations.


"Obama's comments generated a lot of optimism, but to the extent the market believes them, that's how much we're setting ourselves up for a decline if that deadline passes with no progress," said Macey, who helps oversee about $20 billion in assets.


In an interview on CNBC after the market closed, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that uncertainty over the fiscal cliff was standing in the way of stronger economic growth, and that there was no prospect for an agreement if tax rates didn't rise on the wealthiest taxpayers.


The stock of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc fell 16 percent to $32.17 and ranked as the S&P 500's biggest percentage decliner. The company said it was acquiring Plains Exploration & Production Co and McMoRan Exploration Co in two separate deals for $9 billion in cash and stock in a major expansion into energy.


McMoRan Exploration soared 87 percent to $15.82 and Plains surged 23.4 percent to $44.50.


After the closing bell, Standard & Poor's said it cut Greece's sovereign long-term foreign currency rating to "selective default" from its already low "C" rating. Last week, the country and its international lenders reached a deal to lower its debt burden through a debt buyback.


About half of the stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed in positive territory, while about 54 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares ended lower.


Volume was higher than it has been in recent sessions, with about 7.01 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, above the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.


(Editing by Jan Paschal)



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