Sony’s PlayStation 4 could lose to the next Xbox before it’s even released

I love all game consoles equally. My Xbox 360 is used equally as much as my PlayStation 3. The Wii — oh, I’ll just leave it at that. The current generation of consoles is all but over — 10-year life cycle be damned — and new consoles are rumored to be coming next fall. If not next fall, then in 2014. Whatever is the case, Sony (SNE) can’t afford to lag in third place again. Sure, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are neck-in-neck in global lifetime sales, and the Xbox 360 did have a one year head start, but coming off the disappointing PS Vita, “confidence is less high” that Sony will deliver a console next year in time to compete with Microsoft (MSFT), according to Kotaku.

[More from BGR: Has the iPhone peaked? Apple’s iPhone 4S seen outselling iPhone 5]

I want a new console just as much as any other gamer. There’s a reason people are still pouncing on those Wii U consoles and flipping them on eBay. Six years is unusually long for a console to still be kicking around.

[More from BGR: Apple execs said to be ‘seething’ over Google Maps praise]

According to the well-informed Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief of Kotaku, the game blog that first broke news on the next-gen Xbox, Microsoft’s “Durango” is ”on the mark” and “Sony appears to inspire less confidence…due to the on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3 and the struggles of the Vita vs. how much lost confidence is due to any problems looming for PS4.“

Totilo says “confidence is high that the next Xbox will be out in time for next Christmas” and confidence is low that the PS4 will be right there on store shelves next to it.

The “on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3″ Totilo is referring to is the anchor that’s weighed the console down since launch: tougher development due to the Cell processor and less available RAM – 256MB vs. 512MB in the Xbox 360.

In the months before the PS3′s launch in 2006, Sony said the console would be the most powerful console ever created, and here we are six years later and multi-platform games on the console consistently end up being buggier and uglier than on the Xbox 360 in many cases. Cases in point: Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

Sony’s in a rut right now. It has the chops to build beautiful and powerful hardware that’s a developer’s dream (ex: PS Vita), but at the same time, it’s always launching after the competition nowadays.

If Sony’s learned any lessons in the last half a decade, it better apply them to the PS4. The console needs to offer next-level processing and graphics. It needs to be backward-compatible with PS3 games and play Blu-ray discs. It should be small and quiet. It should have a strong online platform, support a greater array of apps and most importantly be easy for developers to program for.

Game exclusives will always be important, but now that games are million-dollar productions, multi-platform will be where developers hope to reap back their costs.

With Microsoft said to be preparing an “Xbox 720″ and an “Xbox Lite,” Sony can’t make the mistake of launching late or pricing the console too high. A launch in spring of 2014 would mean Sony will miss Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two biggest shopping days of the year that bring in massive sales.  Ceding sales and market share to Microsoft and Nintendo by launching late would be disastrous.

The PS3 screwed up too many times. At this point, the PS4 needs to be perfect out of the door.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Let's Talk About Kristen Stewart's Sheer Dress, Shall We?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/14/2012 at 02:00 PM ET

Michael N. Todaro/FilmMagic (3); FameFlynet

So kudos to Kristen Stewart for having an amazing body and a stylist who helps her take risks. She’s gone a little out of the box on her recent On the Road press tour, and it’s been fun to watch.

But Stewart’s most recent look — a bra top and boy shorts combo covered with a sheer, floral-print overlay, worn to a premiere in New York Thursday night — has us a little stumped. The Erdem spring 2013 creation — seen on the runway this fall — was for spring, when it’s not 40 degrees in New York. And that’s not the only issue we have with the dress:

1. The midriff. Stewart has one of the hottest bodies in Hollywood, yet her toned tummy is looking a little scrunched in this bra top, thanks to the low bra band, high boy short waistline and satin material, all of which are very unforgiving.

2. The side. The back of the dress is solid, made in the same ice blue as the bra top and shorts. That means an unsightly side seam that makes the dress even busier, and cuts her profile in a strange way.

3. The length. On the runway, this dress was knee-length, making it more appropriate and much more feminine. Though we’d give anything to have Stewart’s killer legs, cutting the dress right at the middle of her thighs isn’t particularly flattering — or ladylike.

On the plus side? Her hair and makeup are flawless, and we’re lusting after those hot heels. But sorry, Stewart: We’re going to have to call this one a major miss. Tell us: How do you feel about this confusing dress? 

PHOTOS: SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON MORE STAR LOOKS IN ‘LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT?’

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APNewsBreak: Texas cancer probe draws NCI scrutiny

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The National Cancer Institute confirmed Friday that federal officials are taking a closer look at a troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas that is under a criminal investigation over a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant awarded by the state agency.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has coveted status as an NCI-approved funding entity — an exclusive group headlined by the nation's most prominent cancer organizations. The list is fewer than two dozen and includes the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and federal entities like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The designation is a federal seal-of-approval that signals high peer review standards and conflict of interest policies. Yearlong turmoil within the Texas institute, or CPRIT, reached a new peak this week when the agency's beleaguered chief executive asked to resign and prosecutors opened cases following an $11 million grant to a private company that was revealed to have bypassed an independent review.

NCI spokeswoman Aleea Farrakh Khan told The Associated Press that officials are "evaluating recent events" at CPRIT. She said officials have not made decisions or contacted the agency directly.

Members of CPRIT's governing board did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

NCI designation is not required for CPRIT to continue running the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars, Khan said. But jeopardizing that status — and especially losing it — would be a severe blow to CPRIT's reputation, which already has been battered by sweeping resignations, internal accusations of politics trumping science and now a criminal investigation.

A recent internal audit at CPRIT discovered an $11 million funding request from Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics was approved without the agency ever scrutinizing the proposal's merits. The revelation came only months after two Nobel laureates and other top scientists left the agency in protest over a $20 million grant some accused of being rushed to approval without a proper peer review.

While CPRIT is funded by taxpayers, donors to cancer nonprofits might look to an NCI designation for assurance that their money is in good hands.

"It says, 'If I'm donating money to this agency, if NCI is approving them, that means NCI says it's handling its money well,'" Khan said.

Khan added that CPRIT's inclusion on the list does not mean all of its funding mechanisms are NCI-approved.

An entire page of CPRIT's website is devoted to boasting its NCI designation. The agency says the status is important because it means cancer centers in Texas seeking its own NCI designation — so as to reassure patients or bolster recruitment — can include CPRIT research dollars in their calculations to maintain levels needed to be NCI approved.

"This enhances Texas' ability to leverage additional federal funding for cancer research and raises Texas' profile as a center for cancer research," according to the website.

Executive Director Bill Gimson submitted his resignation letter Tuesday but offered to stay on through January. He has described Peloton's improper funding as an honest mistake and said no one associated with CPRIT stood to personally profit from the company's award.

Prosecutors have not made any specific criminal allegations. Launching separate investigations into CPRIT are the Texas attorney general's office and the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit, which investigates criminal misconduct within state government.

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

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Wall Street succumbs to Apple's fall, "cliff" uncertainty

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday as another slide in Apple took a toll and investors unloaded some shares because of the uncertainty surrounding the "fiscal cliff" negotiations.

For the Nasdaq, this marked the second losing week in a row. All three major U.S. stock indexes ended the week slightly lower.

Apple's stock slid 3.8 percent to $509.79 after UBS cut its price target on the stock to $700 from $780. The stock of the most valuable U.S. company has been hit hard in the last three months. On Friday, Apple's stock fell after a tepid reception for the iPhone 5 in China.

The S&P Information Technology Index <.gspt> lost 1 percent as Apple fell and Jabil Circuit Inc shed 5.5 percent to $17.51 after UBS cut its price target.

The possibility of a fiscal cliff deal not taking place until early 2013 is rising. The back-and-forth negotiations over the fiscal cliff in Washington have kept markets on hold in what would already be a quiet period for stocks.

"We're faced with uncertainty ... and that's going to continue now into January. It basically puts everybody on hold and (you) just have the markets kind of thrash around," said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

President Barack Obama and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a "frank" meeting on Thursday at the White House to discuss how to avoid the tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in early in 2013.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 35.71 points, or 0.27 percent, to 13,135.01 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 5.87 points, or 0.41 percent, to 1,413.58. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 20.83 points, or 0.70 percent, to close at 2,971.33.

For the week, the Dow slipped 0.2 percent, while the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq declined 0.2 percent.

Among other Nasdaq decliners, shares of chipmaker Qualcomm slid 4.7 percent to $59.83. A semiconductor index <.sox> dropped 0.7 percent.

American Express Co shares fell 1.9 percent to $56.65 and ranked as the heaviest weight on the Dow.

Investors are concerned that going over the cliff could tip the economy back into recession. While a deal is expected to ultimately be reached, a drawn-out debate - like the one over 2011's debt ceiling - can erode confidence.

Best Buy Co Inc slid 14.7 percent to $12.05 after the electronics retailer agreed to extend the deadline for the company's founder to make a bid. Shares jumped as much as 19 percent on Thursday after initial reports of a bid this week from founder Richard Schulze.

Among the day's economic data, consumer prices fell in November for the first time in six months, indicating U.S. inflation pressures were muted. A separate report showed manufacturing grew at its swiftest pace in eight months in December.

Data out of China was encouraging, as Chinese manufacturing grew at its fastest pace in 14 months in December. The news was deemed as helpful for U.S. materials companies, including U.S. Steel , which rose 6.8 percent to $23.85. An S&P material sector index <.gspm> rose 0.9 percent.

Volume was roughly 5.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the year-to-date average daily closing volume of 6.52 billion.

Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a ratio of about 8 to 7. On the Nasdaq, decliners barely held an edge over advancers, with 1,241 stocks falling and 1,196 shares rising.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Senate Panel Approves Findings on Prisoner Interrogations

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday approved a highly critical, classified report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program, the most comprehensive review of the brutal treatment of Qaeda prisoners in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

After the committee voted 9 to 6 in a closed meeting, mostly along party lines, the Democratic chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, issued a statement saying the long-awaited 6,000-page report “uncovers startling details about the C.I.A. detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight.”

“I strongly believe that the creation of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called enhanced-interrogation techniques were terrible mistakes,” Ms. Feinstein said, referring to the agency’s secret overseas prisons and coercive methods, including waterboarding, widely condemned as torture. “The majority of the committee agrees,” she said.

She said the report, with 20 official conclusions and 35,000 footnotes, “includes details of each detainee in C.I.A. custody, the conditions under which they were detained, how they were interrogated, the intelligence they actually provided and the accuracy — or inaccuracy — of C.I.A. descriptions about the program to the White House, Department of Justice, Congress and others.”

The committee’s Republican vice chairman, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, said he voted no because the C.I.A. had not yet fact-checked the report. He said it contained “significant errors, omissions, assumptions and ambiguities — as well as a lot of cherry-picking,” in part because it was based exclusively on documents and not interviews with agency officials.

“I believe the committee has made a mistake in passing judgment without hearing from those involved, and it is the committee’s reputation, the C.I.A.’s reputation and our national security that will pay the price,” he said.

The report now goes to the White House, the C.I.A. and other agencies for review and comment. After that is complete in mid-February, the committee will vote again on how much of the report should be declassified.

One Republican, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, who is retiring, joined all the committee’s Democrats in voting for the report. In addition, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who as the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is a nonvoting member of the Intelligence Committee, gave it a strong endorsement.

Mr. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and has been an outspoken critic of the C.I.A.’s former methods, wrote Intelligence Committee members urging them to “finalize and declassify this report, so that all Americans can see the record for themselves, which I believe will finally close this painful chapter for our country.”

Mr. McCain added: “What I have learned confirms for me what I have always believed and insisted to be true — that the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners is not only wrong in principle and a stain on our country’s conscience, but also an ineffective and unreliable means of gathering intelligence.”

The committee’s inquiry began as a bipartisan effort in March 2009, but Republicans withdrew their support after the Justice Department began a criminal investigation of the interrogation program. That investigation closed earlier this year without prosecutions.

President Obama banned coercive interrogation methods when he took office in 2009, but the government still treats them as secret. Last week, Col. James L. Pohl, the military judge at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is overseeing the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks, granted a request by prosecutors to treat anything the detainees say about their C.I.A. interrogations as classified.

Charlie Savage contributed reporting.

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Verizon Offering $5 Shared 4G Plan for Samsung Galaxy Camera

Imagine the powerful Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, except that it can’t make phone calls and its backplate has been replaced by a digital camera — handgrip, zoom lens, and all. That’s basically the Samsung Galaxy Camera in a nutshell, and whether it’s a small, awkwardly-shaped Android tablet or a digital camera that you can play Modern Combat 3 on depends on how you look at it.

When the Galaxy Camera launched last month, it was only available in white, and cost $ 499 on AT&T’s network with a month-to-month data plan. But on Dec. 13, it launches on Verizon’s network, in both white and black. The Verizon Galaxy Camera costs $ 50 more up front, but in return it has 4G LTE instead of HSPA+, and Verizon is offering a “promotional price” for the monthly charge: Only $ 5 to add it to a Share Everything plan, instead of the usual $ 10 tablet rate.

A 4G digital camera

While it’s capable of functioning as an Android tablet (or game machine), the biggest reason for the Samsung Galaxy Camera’s 4G wireless Internet is so it can automatically upload photos it takes. Apps such as Dropbox, Photobucket, and Ubuntu One offer a limited amount of online storage space for free, where the Galaxy Camera can save photos without anyone needing to tell it to. Those photos can then be accessed at home, or on a tablet or laptop.

Most smartphones are able to do this already, but few (with the possible exception of the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 920) are able to take photos as high-quality as the Galaxy Camera’s.

Not as good of a deal as it sounds

Dropbox is offering two years’ worth of 50 GB of free online storage space for photos and videos, to anyone who buys a Samsung Galaxy Camera from AT&T or Verizon. (The regular free plan is only 2 GB.)

The problem is, you may need that much space. The photos taken by the Galaxy Camera’s 16 megapixel sensor take up a lot more space, at maximum resolution, than ordinary smartphone snapshots do. Those camera uploads can eat through a shared data plan, and with Verizon charging a $ 15 per GB overage fee (plus the $ 50 extra up-front on top of what AT&T charges) it may make up for the cheaper monthly cost.

On top of that, the Galaxy Camera’s photos are basically on par with a $ 199 digital camera’s — you pay a large premium to combine that kind of point-and-shoot with the hardware equivalent of a high-end smartphone.

It does run Android, though, right?

The Galaxy Camera uses Samsung‘s custom software for its camera app, and lacks a normal phone dialer app. Beyond that, though, it runs the same Android operating system found on smartphones, and can run all the same games and apps.

Some apps don’t work the same on the Galaxy Camera as they do on a smartphone, however. Apps which only run in portrait mode, for instance, require you to hold the camera sideways to use them (especially unpleasant when they’re camera apps). And while it can make voice and even video calls over Skype, it lacks a rear-facing camera or the kind of speaker you hold up close to your ear. So you may end up making speakerphone calls and filming the palm of your hand.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Katie Stagliano Feeds the Hungry Through Her Gardening Nonprofit

Heroes Among Us

By Moira Bailey and Diane Herbst

12/13/2012 at 04:20 PM EST

Ever since she was a little girl, Katie Stagliano knew how to make things grow.

Four years ago, Katie planted the seedling for a 40-pound cabbage that would end up making meals for hundreds of hungry people in her Summerville, S.C., community. Now 14, she's been growing and feeding people ever since, with her nonprofit Katie's Krops that now seeds 55 kid-grown gardens in 21 states and produces thousands of pounds of vegetables.

In September, the cabbage that started her crusade landed the Pinewood Prep 8th grader in New York City – and in the company of President Bill Clinton, as one of six recipients of this year's Clinton Global Citizen Awards. "He's really into science," says Katie. "He talked to me about photosynthesis."

Katie works with groups addressing childhood health and nutrition issues and is part of an upcoming documentary Give Me Your Hungry. She's also been featured on the Great American Country cable network's Great American Heroes with Trace Adkins show.

"He's a country boy," says Katie of Adkins. "He makes fun of me and my mom for wearing gardening gloves."

Her now-famous cabbage seedling that she planted in her family's backyard made 275 meals (supplemented with ham and rice) at a homeless shelter in Katie's community.

Says Katie, "I thought, 'Wow, with one cabbage I helped feed that many people? I could do much more.' "

She started other gardens – in her subdivision, on donated land and on a field at school – seeded with donated plants and tended by school and community volunteers Katie recruited.

Those vegetables and volunteer networks have sprouted, feeding growing numbers of the needy. Her nonprofit, started in 2010, offers grants of garden center gift cards to fledgling gardeners ages 9-16 to start their own gardens, with a new grant application cycle that goes through Feb. 12. Katie hopes to eventually have gardens in all 50 states.

Katie is active in monthly suppers in Summerville, where kids cook vegetables from their gardens and feed anywhere from 50-150 people. A November dinner in a neighboring community transformed an elementary school into a restaurant for several hundred students and their families.

"A lot of these kids have never been to a real restaurant before and they're not really eating as healthy as they should be," she says.

Despite being thankful for the oversized vegetable that started it all, Katie offers a tiny admission: "I don't really eat cabbage that much. I know I'm supposed to probably love it but it's not one of my favorite vegetables," she says. "But I mean, it's not that bad."

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine

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Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker

LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.

Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.

With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.

"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.

The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.

The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.

— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.

— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).

— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.

Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.

While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.

"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.

Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.

Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.

"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.

"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.

___

Online:

www.lancet.com

http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org

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S&P 500 ends six days of gains on "cliff" worries

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended its six-day winning streak on Thursday, retreating as worries intensified that Washington's "fiscal cliff" negotiations were dragging on with little progress.

Anxiety about the drawn-out talks between Democrats and Republicans was enough to offset encouraging data on retail sales and jobless claims on Thursday.

There is concern that tax hikes and spending cuts, set to begin in 2013 if a deal is not reached in Washington, will hurt growth. The stock market has taken the heated rhetoric in stride of late, but downbeat remarks from Republican House Speaker John Boehner prompted some selling on Thursday.

Boehner accused President Barack Obama of "slow walking" the economy off the fiscal cliff. He is scheduled to meet with Obama later on Thursday.

"There is no conviction here and Boehner's comments - as harsh as they were - were realistic," said Jason Weisberg, managing director at Seaport Securities Corp., in New York.

"The fiscal cliff is already built in. That being said, people don't like to be told the apocalypse is coming over and over and over again. The real players in this market have already closed their books."

After coming close to a 1 percent decline for the day, the S&P 500 pared losses late in the session. The index had posted six straight sessions of gains through Wednesday's close, and at one point on Wednesday, the S&P touched its highest intraday level since October 22.

While the Federal Reserve's announcement on Wednesday of a new round of economic stimulus bolstered stocks, Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments that monetary policy would not be sufficient to offset the impact of the fiscal cliff weighed on sentiment.

Apple's stock , down 1.7 percent at $529.69, was among the biggest drags on the Nasdaq in Thursday's session, while International Business Machines , down 0.5 percent at $191.99, was among the biggest weights on the Dow. A U.S. jury found that Apple's iPhone infringed three patents owned by MobileMedia Ideas.

Among the day's biggest gainers, Best Buy Co shares shot up 15.9 percent to $14.12 after a report that the company's founder is expected to offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> tumbled 74.73 points, or 0.56 percent, to 13,170.72 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 9.03 points, or 0.63 percent, to 1,419.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> slid 21.65 points, or 0.72 percent, to end at 2,992.16.

Energy and information technology sectors were the S&P 500's weakest performers, with the S&P energy index <.gspe> down 0.9 percent.

In the energy sector, shares of Nabors Industries Ltd dropped 4.7 percent to $13.85 after Jefferies cut the drilling company's rating. Shares of U.S. refining company Phillips 66 lost 1.6 percent to $52.21.

The day's economic data sent some positive signals on the economy, with weekly claims for jobless benefits dropping to nearly the lowest level since February 2008, and retail sales rising in November after an October decline, improving the picture for consumer spending.

In Europe, European Union finance ministers reached agreement to make the European Central Bank the bloc's top banking supervisor, which could boost confidence in EU leaders' ability to confront the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.

Volume was roughly 6.11 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the year-to-date average daily closing volume of 6.52 billion.

Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a ratio of about 7 to 3, and on the Nasdaq, more than five stocks fell for every three that rose.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

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Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Charged With Breach of Trust

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's powerful foreign minister was charged Thursday with breach of trust for actions that allegedly compromised a criminal investigation into his business dealings, throwing the country's election campaign into disarray just weeks before the vote.

While Avigdor Lieberman was cleared of more serious allegations against him, the indictment sparked immediate calls for the controversial politician to step down. He declined to do so at a news conference but said he would consult with his lawyers on what to do next. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also rallied behind his close ally.

Lieberman denied any wrongdoing, calling the investigation against him a witch hunt.

"According to my legal counsel, I do not have to resign," Lieberman told cheering supporters at a campaign rally. "At the end of the day I will make a final decision together with my lawyers."

Lieberman, a native of Moldova, is head of Yisrael Beitenu, an ultranationalist party that is especially popular with fellow immigrants from the former Soviet Union. With a tough-talking message that has questioned the loyalty of Israel's Arab minority, criticized the Palestinians and confronted Israel's foreign critics, he has become an influential voice in Israeli politics even while sometimes alienating Israel's allies.

Yisrael Beitenu and Netanyahu's Likud Party recently joined forces and are running together on a joint list in the Jan. 22 parliamentary elections. Opinion polls have predicted they would form the largest bloc in parliament and lead a new coalition government.

But Thursday's decision threatened to become a distraction during the campaign. Three leading opposition politicians all called for his dismissal.

Lieberman gave no timeframe for deciding on his political future but said he would consider whether the indictment was harming support for his party in the election.

Lieberman's departure could have negative consequences for Netanyahu. Lieberman is Yisrael Beitenu's founder and main attraction to voters. If he were forced to step aside, Netanyahu would be stuck with a list of leftovers with little appeal to the general public.

Perhaps with this in mind, Netanyahu appeared to come to Lieberman's defense. In a statement, Netanyahu congratulated Lieberman for fending off the "main accusations" and said he was entitled to his day in court.

"I believe in the Israeli justice system and I respect it. The right it gives every citizen in Israel to defend himself is extended to Minister Lieberman and I hope he proves his innocence in the one issue remaining," Netanyahu said.

Thursday's decision was a reversal for Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, who last year notified Lieberman that he intended to indict him on charges that included fraud and money laundering.

Prosecutors have long suspected that Lieberman illicitly received millions of dollars from businessmen and laundered the cash through straw companies in eastern Europe while he was a lawmaker and Cabinet minister. In his decision Thursday, Weinstein said the case was not strong enough.

"I am convinced that there is no reasonable chance of a conviction in the offenses Lieberman is suspected of and that the case should be closed," Weinstein wrote.

Instead, Lieberman was charged with the lesser offense of receiving official material from the investigation against him from the former Israeli ambassador to Belarus, Zeev Ben-Aryeh, who reached a plea bargain in the case earlier this year.

The envoy had received the documents from the foreign ministry, which sought additional information on Lieberman from Belarus authorities.

At his news conference, Lieberman described the investigation as a witch hunt that stretched back as far as 1996, when he worked as an aide to Netanyahu.

He denied all the allegations, and said that when he received information about the investigation from his ambassador, he immediately ripped it up and flushed it down the toilet because he knew it was wrong.

Lieberman has said in the past that he would resign if indicted. But he told his supporters that he was only referring to the more serious case against him.

Avraham Diskin, a political scientist at Hebrew University, said Lieberman would have to determine whether the indictment is hurting his party's electoral chances before deciding his future.

"He'll make a calculation. But every move will be coordinated with Bibi. We can be sure of that," he said, using Netanyahu's nickname.

Israeli law is unclear about whether Lieberman must resign. There is a legal precedent for politicians to step down when they face charges that compromise public trust in them.

Analysts said the pressure for him to step down will be great and Weinstein, or even the Supreme Court, could become involved if he refuses.

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