Snow hit Paris and London for the second and third day, respectively, as locals and tourists reveled in the wonder of winter that usually bypasses these European capitals. But travel headaches afflicted both cities, as mere inches of snow shut down both roads and runways. After repeated years of cold and precipitation, at what point will we have to stop calling these European snowfalls “unusual”? And when will European airports and transportation authorities start greeting winter with salt and snow plows for what may be the new normal?
IHT Rendezvous: Paris and London, Snowy, More Beautiful and More Treacherous
Label: WorldRaspberry Pi creator says sequel unlikely in 2013
Label: TechnologyRaspberry Pi’s $ 35 Linux-based computer is a runaway success. Creator Eben Upton told ZDNet in a recent interview that his team thought they would sell 1,000 units when they were designing the mini PC, but sales have now topped 700,000. ”We honestly did think we would sell about 1,000, maybe 10,000 in our wildest dreams,” Upton said. “We thought we would make a small number and give them out to people who might want to come and read computer science at Cambridge.” On a slightly disappointing note to those hoping for an upgraded model in 2013, Upton said in the interview that the company has no plans to launch a sequel to the latest Raspberry Pi “Model B” this year.
[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]
This article was originally published on BGR.com
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Deadly Pills: A National Epidemic
Label: LifestyleJace Uher-Flom's mom dies two weeks after her birth of an overdose of prescription drugs
Grant Delin
Drugs are now the No. 1 accidental killer in the U.S., with the vast majority of deaths caused by prescription meds. A look at how medicines that are now a part of everyday life can also turn families upside down forever.
The statistics are staggering, the medicines powerful and highly addictive: This year more Americans will die of drug over-doses than in any other type of accident – including car crashes. In most cases, those deaths are caused by pills in many people's medicine cabinets given to them by trusted doctors, left over from routine surgeries or prescribed to manage chronic conditions.
"Prescription drug overdoses are a serious nationwide problem," says Dr. Leonard Paulozzi of the C.D.C.'s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, "for which we haven't yet found a solution."
How did we get here? For the millions of Americans who suffer from chronic pain, heavy-duty painkillers are the wonder drugs that help them lead more comfortable lives. But in the past 20 years, as opiate painkillers have become more routinely prescribed, the number of people dying from them – as a result of misuse or accidentally – has skyrocketed.
Often those deaths are due to bad interactions with other substances: Combined with alcohol some antidepressants can cause dangerous spikes in blood pressure, and mixing pain pills with a few drinks "can depress the brain," says Paulozzi, "and lead to death."
It's a problem even the drug industry acknowledges, says Sharon Brigner, of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America: "These medicines can be an important tool – we tell anyone we talk to that medicines save and improve lives every day. But if misused, they can kill."
Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study
Label: HealthResearchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.
The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.
Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.
"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.
In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.
Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.
About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.
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Online:
Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov
Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org
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Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.
The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.
Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.
Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies
"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.
Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.
Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel
Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.
Other major companies reporting next week include Google
CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP
Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.
The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.
"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.
"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."
Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.
Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.
The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.
The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.
Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.
The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.
"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.
"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Algeria Begins ‘Final Assault’ on Gas Field; 7 Hostages Reported Killed
Label: World
Louafi Larbi/Reuters
Algerian police officers escorted a freed Norwegian hostage as he left the In Amenas police station on Saturday.
BAMAKO, Mali — The hostage crisis in the Algerian desert reached a bloody conclusion Saturday as the army carried out a final assault on the gas field taken over by Islamist militants, killing 11 of them, but only after the militants had killed seven hostages, the official Algerian news agency reported.
French, British and American officials said the Algerian government had told them the military operation was over, but a senior Algerian government official said security forces were “doing cleanup” to make sure no kidnappers were hiding in the sprawling industrial complex.
Western officials deplored the loss of life during the four-day siege, which Philip Hammond, the British defense secretary, called “appalling and unacceptable.” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who appeared with Mr. Hammond at a news conference in London, said he did not yet have reliable information about the fate of Americans at the facility, although the Algerian official said two had been found “safe and sound.”
The provisional death toll released by Algeria Saturday, even by the government’s reckoning, was heavy. Out of dozens taken hostage on a site that employed hundreds of workers, 23 were dead while 32 kidnappers were killed, according to the government news service. That represents close to the initial estimate of hostage-takers.
The government said it had recovered machine guns, rocket launchers, suicide belts and small arms.
The Algerian news agency report did not give the nationalities of the hostages it said were executed Saturday, and it remained unclear whether there were other hostages at the remote plant and whether they were alive. Earlier news reports said at least 10 and as many as dozens of hostages from several nations were in the hands of the kidnappers as of Friday.
United States officials had said that “seven or eight” Americans had been at the In Amenas field when it was seized by the militants on Wednesday.
One American, Frederick Buttaccio, 58, of Katy, Tex., was confirmed dead on Friday, and the French government said one of its citizens, identified as Yann Desjeux, had also died before Saturday’s raid. Britain earlier said at least one of its citizens had been killed, and an Algerian state news agency said Algerians had also been killed as of Friday.
The Algerian official, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity, said a precise tally would take time.
“There are corpses that are totally charred,” he said. “We’ve got to do identification work. It’s very difficult.” Algerian officials have said some of the kidnappers blew themselves up. The Algerian news agency said the militants had set fire to part of the complex Friday night, which prompted the troops to launch the military assault Saturday.
The raid, if it swept up all the attackers, would bring to an end a siege involving dozens of hostages and kidnappers that drew criticism from Western governments for the tough manner in which it was handled by the Algerian security services. Attacks on the kidnappers by the government forces caused an unknown number of deaths among the hostages, in addition to those who were executed by the militants, who may be linked to Al Qaeda.
A militant who claimed responsibility for the attack, and who was blamed by the Algerians for leading it, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was until recently a leading commander of Al Qaeda’s North and West African branch, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
One Algerian who managed to escape told France 24 television late Friday night that the kidnappers said, “We’ve come in the name of Islam, to teach the Americans what Islam is.” The haggard-looking man, interviewed at the airport in Algiers, said the kidnappers then immediately executed five hostages.
The militants who attacked the plant said it was in retaliation for French troops sweeping into Mali this month to stop an advance of Islamist rebels south toward the capital. However the militants later said they had been planning an attack in Algeria for two months on the assumption that the West would intervene in Mali.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 19, 2013
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the nationality of a government official who said security forces were searching the gas complex. The official is Algerian, not Turkish.
In Which Actual Joe Biden and ‘Onion’ Joe Biden Pal Around on Reddit and Twitter
Label: TechnologyThe Onion‘s brilliant creation, “Diamond” Joe Biden, stopped by Reddit, in character, for one of the site’s signature Ask Me Anything sessions on Friday afternoon. And, hey, look who asked something over Twitter just as the AMA began:
Q for @reddit AMA with my @theonion pal: A Trans-Am? Ever look under the hood of a Corvette? #imavetteguy –VP twitter.com/VP/status/2923…
— Office of VP Biden (@VP) January 18, 2013
So that happened, and it’s so beyond meta that our heads hurt. It confirms that the vice-president (or at least his office) is aware of his satirical alter-ego: the foul-mouthed, Trans-Am-driving, skirt-chaser known to hundreds of Onion articles. And, of course, “Diamond” Joe answered:
RELATED: The Real Joe Biden vs. The Onion’s Joe Biden: A Quiz
So why would Actual Joe Biden indulge the funniest incarnation of the Uncle Joe Biden whom the Internet loves so much? Maybe he thinks he’s funny! After all, Actual Joe Biden is pretty funny himself, and “Diamond” Joe’s answers on Reddit this afternoon didn’t disappoint. Some highlights:
RELATED: The Gingriches Endorse Meryl Streep; Alec Baldwin’s Mayoral Two-Step
And another:
RELATED: How Joe Biden Stages Those Average-Joe Pictures… in Pictures
One more:
And, yes, there’s a theme here:
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Nicholas Hoult: The Brains in My New Zombie Movie Were 'Pretty Tasty'
Label: LifestyleIt's the age-old story: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl has trouble introducing the boy to her best friend, because the boy is a zombie and ate her last boyfriend.
Wait, what?
In the upcoming comedy Warm Bodies, Nicholas Hoult (A Single Man, X-Men First Class) plays R, a lonely zombie who is dissatisfied with his life of shuffling around an airport, eating brains and grunting out conversations with his best friend (Rob Corddry).
But R's still heart begins to beat when he lays eyes on Julie (Teresa Palmer), the daughter of a zombie-killing general and girlfriend of R's last meal. So he embarks on a mission to befriend Julie and, as he haltingly reminds her, "keep safe."
"I understood that feeling of wanting to connect and caring about someone a lot and wanting to look after them," Hoult tells PEOPLE about why he chose the role. "The great thing about [Julie] is she's bubbly and there's a spark about her. And she's obviously very open to the world around her, and I think that's a good thing. She's positive."
Julie and R form an unlikely bond, with Julie's best friend Nora (Crazy, Stupid, Live's Analeigh Tipton) giving him the requisite inquisition before accepting that R is, indeed, good.
"As much as [Julie is] saving my character and making him human again, she's just as trapped in the human world where the humans have gone down this road of closing themselves in and giving up on finding a cure," says Hoult. "She's the one person who steps out from the crowd and sees hope in my character."
But it's not all romantic glances and swoony zombie love – since R meets Julie after dining on her boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco). And yes, there is the requisite brain-eating (but Warm Bodies delivers a good reason for why the undead prefer the gray matter).
"It was kind of a wet, soft, cold cake mixed with grapefruit and peachy stuff," Hoult says of filming those scenes. "It was quite sweet. Pretty tasty. It's going to be one of my odd requests wherever I go. 'Delicious brains,' please!"
Warm Bodies opens Feb 1.
Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says
Label: HealthThe number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.
The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.
New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.
Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.
The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.
So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.
"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.
About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.
If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.
Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.
To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.
"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.
This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.
About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.
Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.
"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.
Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.
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Online:
Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov
CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
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AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.
___
Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
Dow, S&P 500 end at five-year highs on early earnings beats
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 closed at five-year highs on Friday as the market registered a third straight week of gains on a solid start to the quarterly earnings season.
Morgan Stanley
Shares of Morgan Stanley shot up 7.9 percent to $22.38. It reported a fourth-quarter profit after a year-earlier loss, helped by higher revenue at the bank's institutional securities business.
But Friday's rise was held back by shares of Intel Corp
Another factor that has been weighing on the market before a three-day weekend is uncertainty about the federal debt limit and spending cuts that could hamper U.S. growth. U.S. markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
There were signs on Friday that the question of raising the U.S. debt limit would be put off for a while. House Republican leaders said they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority next week to buy time for the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget that shrinks deficits.
"It could be a big positive for the markets if we come up wih a plan of spending cuts that isn't too awfully hard on the economy," said Bryant Evans, investment adviser and portfolio manager at Cozad Asset Management, in Champaign, Illinois.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 53.68 points, or 0.39 percent, at 13,649.70. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 5.04 points, or 0.34 percent, at 1,485.98. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 1.30 points, or 0.04 percent, at 3,134.71.
The Dow and S&P 500 ended at their highest levels since December 2007. For the week, the Dow ended up 1.2 percent, the S&P 500 ended up 0.9 percent and the Nasdaq ended up 0.3 percent.
The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, fell 8.2 percent. The VIX usually moves inversely to the S&P 500 as it is used as a hedge against further market decline.
Also reporting stronger-than-expected earnings on Friday was General Electric
Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings are forecast to have risen 2.5 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. [ID:nL1E9CI581] That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast from a week ago but well below the 9.9 percent fourth-quarter earnings forecast from October 1, the data showed.
Economic data from China also provided some support to the market, though the focus remained on U.S. corporate earnings. China's economy grew at a modestly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the latest sign the world's second-biggest economy was pulling out of a post-global financial crisis slowdown which saw it grow in 2012 at its weakest pace since 1999.
Despite the gains by Morgan Stanley, financial stocks sagged as Capital One Financial
Volume was roughly 6.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.
Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by about 13 to 11.
(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
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