Wall Street trips and falls on cloudy Italian election

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks on Monday suffered their biggest drop since November after a strong showing in Italian elections by groups opposed to the country's economic reforms triggered worry that Europe's debt problems could once again destabilize the global economy.

The decline marks the biggest percentage drop for the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index since November7, and drove the S&P down to its lowest close since January 18. The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or VIX, Wall Street's favorite barometer of fear, surged 34 percent, its biggest jump since August 18, 2011.

Selling accelerated late in the trading session after the S&P 500 fell below the 1,500 level, which has acted as a significant support point. Monday marked the S&P's first close under 1,500 since February 4.

Italy's center-left coalition holds a slim lead over former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right bloc in the election for the lower house of parliament, three TV projections indicated. But any government must also command a majority in the Senate, a race that is decided by region.

The resulting gridlock in parliament could lead to new elections and cast into doubt Italy's ability to pay down its debt.

"Europe hasn't gone away as an issue, it is going to hang around, and it is rearing its ugly head today," said Stephen Massocca, managing director of Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"If someone gets elected who is simply not going to play by the rules, what are they going to do? It puts them in a real quandary here because their financial support, their monetary support is all stipulated by the fact that these austerity programs are going to be in place."

Earlier polls pointing to a center-left victory boosted stocks in Milan and other European markets, and also helped lift the S&P 500 to a session high of 1,525.84 on optimism that Italy would continue down its austerity path.

After a strong start to the year, equities have retreated more recently. The S&P 500's slight fall last week was its first weekly drop after a seven-week string of gains.

In Monday's volatile session, banks and other financial stocks were among the worst performers on worries about the sector's exposure to Italy's massive debt. The KBW Bank Index <.bkx> fell 2.7 percent.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> ended at 18.99, up 34.02 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 216.40 points, or 1.55 percent, to 13,784.17 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 27.75 points, or 1.83 percent, to 1,487.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 45.57 points, or 1.44 percent, to 3,116.25.

Although the overall market lost ground on Monday, there were a few bright spots.

Barnes & Noble Inc shares shot up 11.5 percent to $15.06 after the bookseller's chairman offered to buy its declining retail business.

Amgen Inc shares climbed 3.1 percent to $89.55, after rival Affymax issued a voluntary recall of its only drug, an anemia treatment that competes with Amgen's top-selling red blood cell booster, Epogen. Affymax shares lost 85.4 percent to $2.42.

The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> edged up 0.04 percent and Italy's main FTSE MIB <.ftmib> ended up 0.7 percent after earlier gaining nearly 4 percent.

Political uncertainty on the home front, though, is also on Wall Street's mind.

U.S. equities will face a test with the looming debate over so-called sequestration - U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting on Friday if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement over spending and taxes. The White House issued warnings about the harm the cuts are likely to inflict on the economy if enacted.

"Sitting out there is the one-thousand-pound gorilla - the sequester issue - and certainly nothing is happening there," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.

Lowe's Companies Inc lost 4.8 percent to $35.86 after the home improvement retailer posted fourth-quarter earnings.

With 83 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69 percent beat profit expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Volume was active with about 7.27 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq, above the daily average of 6.46 billion.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq by a ratio of about 4 to 1.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry, Nick Zieminski and Jan Paschal)

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Lens Blog: The Largely Unknown Photography of Lola Álvarez Bravo

The year 2007 was a pretty good one for rediscovering long-forgotten images in Mexico. Most people already know about Robert Capa’s Mexican suitcase, a trove of his work from the Spanish Civil War. But that same year an unknown archive of vintage prints by Mexico’s greatest photographers was also discovered, left behind in the longtime home of Lola Álvarez Bravo.

The find, known as the Gonzalez-Rendon archive, had prints and original photomontages by Lola, as well as some beautifully printed images by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, to whom she had been married for several years. The find also included work by some of Lola’s students who had gone on to become noted photographers, Mariana Yampolsky and Raul Conde, among them.

Though overshadowed by her more famous partner, who had resisted her foray into photography, Lola ranks among Mexico’s most celebrated photographers, having done portraits of fellow artists and intellectuals as well as work among the indigenous and poor, whom she portrayed with a sense of compassion and social criticism. Her images provide a window in what she — a working photographer and teacher most of her life — valued as an artistic statement.

“It’s what an art historian dreams about, finding the missing pieces,” said James Oles, a lecturer at Wellesley College who was among the first to inspect the images in Mexico. “The material fleshes out some aspects of her work, giving us original titles and dates that radically change the meaning and interpretation of a work of art. And the original photomontages give an idea how she created them.”

Born Dolores Concepcion Martinez in 1903, she grew up in a wealthy family, although she had to move in with relatives when her father died. She first met Manuel in her youth, marrying him in 1925. As an accountant, he was sent to work in Oaxaca, where the couple began to take pictures, Mr. Oles wrote in his recently published book, “Lola Álvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era.”

The area’s poverty struck her, and it elicited a compassion in her work that was different from her husband’s more complex images.

“Lola was maybe a little more natural,” Mr. Oles said. “She was interested in more candid and less intrusive images. She was certainly more interested in people than things.”

The couple separated in 1934, divorcing in 1949. Throughout, she kept his name and did not remarry. She supported herself as a photographer working for government agencies, as well as teaching, where she influenced many.

“I think Lola was a remarkable photographer, especially given all the challenges she faced,” said Elizabeth Ferrer, who published “Lola Álvarez Bravo” with Aperture. “There were women artists, though women were not supposed to be working in the street but in the studio. But the kind of photography done at the time involved a greater public interface, and the fact that she did that showed her incredible strength and desire to photograph the world around her.”

Although she found her own path apart from her more famous husband — she was more gregarious, enjoying the company of artists, writers and intellectuals — work and circumstance worked against her. It was not until the 1980s, Mr. Oles said, that her work as an artist came to the fore.

Mr. Oles visited her in the early 1990s, around the time when the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona acquired an archive of her work. Lola was moved by her son to another apartment, and she died in 1993.

Fourteen years later, Mr. Oles got a call from a museum in Mexico City. Relatives of one of Lola’s friends, who had purchased her old apartment, had been safeguarding several boxes that had been left behind. One of them had taken the time to preserve and order the prints.

“She didn’t sell anything or have it framed in her apartment, but just organized it,” Mr. Oles said. “When I went there, it was amazing. It showed what had been separated at some time by Lola, and God knows when or why, there were a lot of her own photos. Many were by students of hers as well as a group of extraordinary vintage photos by Manuel Álvarez Bravo.”

Her photos — including some vintage prints that were exhibited in Philadelphia in 1943 — shed new light on her work. In some cases, original titles gave new meaning to old images. One shot of an indigenous woman seated against a wrought-iron fence that had long been titled “By the Fault of Others” turned out to have “Death Penalty” (Slide 6) as its original title.

“That changes how we interpret this photo of this woman who looks trapped by this grille,” Mr. Oles said. “You can go into the archive of any major photographer and find images they never printed and exhibit them after their death without knowing what they mean. Finding this material tells us these are the photos she chose which she thought were the key images that she was interested in during that era.”

While her photomontages are well known, the archive has the originals, which she made by gluing together cut-out images she would later photograph for the final montage.

“In Mexico, photomontage was mainly a strategy of media and advertising, not an artistic project,” Mr. Oles said. “What Lola was trying to do was elevate it to the realm of high art and view it as equivalent to muralism. The multiple perspectives of photomontage and the fragmented images resolved into a whole are what a muralist like Diego Rivera does when he shows multiple perspectives of a factory and resolving them together. Lola understood that.”

Among the greatest finds in the archive are works by her students. Even in death, though, Lola’s own images prove to affect a current generation. Mr. Oles said her photos of prostitutes, titled “Triptych of the Martyrs,” has a powerful element of feminist criticism.

“Their faces are obscured with wound-like shadows,” he said. “There is this undercurrent of social critique. Whenever my students see those pictures, they are moved sometimes to the point of tears. I don’t think any of Manuel Álvarez Bravos’s photos move them to tears.”

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The exhibit “Lola Álvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era” will be on view at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson from March 30 through June 23.

Follow @dgbxny and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.

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Microsoft to reportedly unveil next Xbox at April event

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Daniel Radcliffe Dances to Nelly in West Hollywood

Caught in the Act

02/24/2013 at 04:00 PM EST

We're not in Hogwarts anymore.

Daniel Radcliffe made an unexpected appearance at Bootsy Bellows in West Hollywood on Friday night. Arriving with a male pal around 1:40 a.m., the Harry Potter star was "in party mode but really friendly," an onlooker tells PEOPLE.

Wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and jeans, the actor hung out at a table in the club's back VIP room, where he made himself vodka cocktails.

As DJ BeeFowl spun hit after hit, Radcliffe "started singing and dancing at the table to Nelly's 'Country Grammar' and 'Ride Wit Me'," the source adds. "He introduced himself to people at his table casually as 'Dan.' "

As the evening progressed, Girl Meets World star Ben Savage chatted up Radcliffe and the two shared a laugh.

The next song to make Radcliffe dance was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

The source adds, "He was very happy-go-lucky," and Radcliffe "posed for a few photos and stayed at the club until closing time."

– Jennifer Garcia

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Investors face another Washington deadline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors face another Washington-imposed deadline on government spending cuts next week, but it's not generating the same level of fear as two months ago when the "fiscal cliff" loomed large.

Investors in sectors most likely to be affected by the cuts, like defense, seem untroubled that the budget talks could send stocks tumbling.

Talks on the U.S. budget crisis began again this week leading up to the March 1 deadline for the so-called sequestration when $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to take effect.

"It's at this point a political hot button in Washington but a very low level investor concern," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The fight pits President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats against congressional Republicans.

Stocks rallied in early January after a compromise temporarily avoided the fiscal cliff, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> has risen 6.3 percent since the start of the year.

But the benchmark index lost steam this week, posting its first week of losses since the start of the year. Minutes on Wednesday from the last Federal Reserve meeting, which suggested the central bank may slow or stop its stimulus policy sooner than expected, provided the catalyst.

National elections in Italy on Sunday and Monday could also add to investor concern. Most investors expect a government headed by Pier Luigi Bersani to win and continue with reforms to tackle Italy's debt problems. However, a resurgence by former leader Silvio Berlusconi has raised doubts.

"Europe has been in the last six months less of a topic for the stock market, but the problems haven't gone away. This may bring back investor attention to that," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

OPTIONS BULLS TARGET GAINS

The spending cuts, if they go ahead, could hit the defense industry particularly hard.

Yet in the options market, bulls were targeting gains in Lockheed Martin Corp , the Pentagon's biggest supplier.

Calls on the stock far outpaced puts, suggesting that many investors anticipate the stock to move higher. Overall options volume on the stock was 2.8 times the daily average with 17,000 calls and 3,360 puts traded, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.

"The upside call buying in Lockheed solidifies the idea that option investors are not pricing in a lot of downside risk in most defense stocks from the likely impact of sequestration," said Jared Woodard, a founder of research and advisory firm condoroptions.com in Forest, Virginia.

The stock ended up 0.6 percent at $88.12 on Friday.

If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on reducing the U.S. budget deficit in the next few days, a sequester would include significant cuts in defense spending. Companies such as General Dynamics Corp and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp could be affected.

General Dynamics Corp shares rose 1.2 percent to $67.32 and Smith & Wesson added 4.6 percent to $9.18 on Friday.

EYES ON GDP DATA, APPLE

The latest data on fourth-quarter U.S. gross domestic product is expected on Thursday, and some analysts predict an upward revision following trade data that showed America's deficit shrank in December to its narrowest in nearly three years.

U.S. GDP unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, according to an earlier government estimate, but analysts said there was no reason for panic, given that consumer spending and business investment picked up.

Investors will be looking for any hints of changes in the Fed's policy of monetary easing when Fed Chairman Ben Bernake speaks before congressional committees on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Shares of Apple will be watched closely next week when the company's annual stockholders' meeting is held.

On Friday, a U.S. judge handed outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn a victory in his battle with the iPhone maker, blocking the company from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.

(Additional reporting by Doris Frankel; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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IHT Rendezvous: Opera for an Era When Money Is Tight

VIENNA—Not long ago it looked as if cuts in arts funding would sound the death knell of the Vienna Chamber Opera, known in German as the Kammeroper, an ensemble esteemed for its chamber-scale productions in an intimate, inviting setting. The Austrian federal government’s decision to eliminate entirely its support, which constituted half of the company’s governmental subsidies (the other half coming from the city) effectively put the Kammeroper out of business.

Yet the 2012-13 season has seen the Kammeroper come roaring back with five new productions—including a “Bohème” finishing up performances this weekend— put on by a resident company with an established orchestra in the pit.

How to explain this turnaround? In fact, the old company, which was founded over 50 years ago by Hans Gabor and was subsequently run by Isabella, his widow, is history. The new Kammeroper, formally known as Theater an der Wien in der Kammeroper, is a case of one opera company rushing to fill the void left by the collapse of another.

Few opera companies today are in a financial position to go into expansionary mode. But, with the city willing to continue its support, the Theater an der Wien saw an opportunity, as its director of artistic administration, Sebastian Schwarz, who oversees the Kammeroper, explained by phone. Surprisingly, as he pointed out, the Vienna Staatsoper lacks a young artists program, so the new venture helps meet a need in the city. It also adds a degree of continuity to the Theater an der Wien’s own operations, which include world-class productions of interesting repertory that are assembled individually, with visiting performers and orchestras.

What has happened at the Kammeroper would be akin the Metropolitan Opera taking over the name and venue of a smaller New York company in financial trouble, giving the city the “Mini-Met” audiences have fancied for decades. The Kammeroper’s venue is especially choice: the gilded former ballroom, dating from the turn of the last century, of the venerable Hotel Post in the old Fleischmarkt district of the city. Outfitted with an orchestra pit, it comfortably seats 300. The performance I attended was packed, and with ticket prices ranging from 16 to 48 euros ($21-64), it is a bargain.

At the core of the new Kammeroper is an ensemble of seven young singers, which Mr. Schwarz described as constituting a “cast for ‘Così Fan Tutte’ ”—two sopranos, a mezzo soprano, a tenor, a baritone and a bass, plus a counter-tenor. In addition to their Kammeroper duties, the singers take smaller roles at the Theater an der Wien.

“La Bohème” can make a special impact when cast with young singers, and so it does here, as performed in Jonathan Dove’s 1986 chamber version with newly composed modernistic music at the start and between acts by Sinem Altan. Basically, the opera is performed straight, but with choral and other big moments from Acts 2 and 3 excised. The interludes, which included prerecorded music, are atmospheric and intermittently engaging, but essentially peripheral. For one not knowing what to expect, it was a relief when—with Rodolfo and Marcello already onstage—the familiar music of Act 1 began to unfold and continued on uninterrupted.

The lively, updated staging is by Lotte de Beer, the young director of Robin de Raaff’s recent “Waiting for Ms. Monroe” at the Netherlands Opera. The set by Clement & Sanôu, who also did the lighting, focuses on the modern kitchen of the bohemians’ apartment, which also, somewhat confusingly seems to be part high-end boutique (at least until the merchandise is removed after Act 2). In any case, it is handsome and full of stylish details. The playwright Rodolfo writes at a laptop and throws pages of his opus into the oven for warmth.

There is an inevitable loss of grandeur in Act 2, but Ms. de Beer nicely handles Rodolfo and Mimi’s growing attraction to each other and the conflicts of Act 3. The setting of Mimi’s hospital room for Act 4 is rather contrived, however, especially since the others, not at first being allowed in, communicate with her from pay phones in the lobby, which detracts from the emotional impact. Mimi has lost her hair, presumably as a result of treating a fatal illness different from that specified by Puccini. Still, this is an engaging show

The vocal ensemble, which is capably augmented by two guests, Oleg Loza as Schaunard and Martin Thoma as Benoit and Alcindoro, is uniformly strong. From the opera’s opening line by Marcello, one admired Ben Connor’s rich, fluent baritone, and it didn’t take long for the tenor Andrew Owens to catch his stride as Rodolfo and spin his own handsomely lyrical phrases and a fine high C.

All the singers displayed ample voices that could be overpowering in a hall this size, but they didn’t allow that to happen. Cigdem Soyarslan’s Mimi was a little uneven at first, but one came to appreciate her warm spinto sound, especially in her Act 3 aria, and Anna Maris Sarra sings Musetta with a glinting soprano that is heard to fine effect in her animated account of the waltz aria.

Igor Bakan brings a full, resonant bass voice and a strong emotional charge to Colline’s farewell to his overcoat. The fine Vienna Chamber Orchestra is in the pit, led with assurance by Claire Levacher.

The newly constituted Kammeroper has thus emerged as a bright spot on the Viennese opera scene.

Two more productions remain this season, a double bill of Britten’s “Curlew River” and “Prodigal Son” and Handel’s “Orlando.”

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Paying People to Play Video Games

House Speaker John Boehner tweets that the Obama administration is spending $ 1.2 million “paying people to play video games.” That’s misleading. The government did pay $ 1.2 million for university research that includes the study of how video games can stimulate the cognitive abilities of seniors. A fraction of that cost went to compensate seniors who participated in the study, researchers say.

Boehner was one of several prominent Republican congressmen who sent out a flurry of tweets – hashtag #cutwaste – distorting the research. Some Republicans said the money was spent to play the video game World of Warcraft. That’s wrong. World of Warcraft is not part of research funded by the federal government, although the study does use, in part, the Wii game Boom Blox.

We take no position on whether spending $ 1.2 million studying ways to improve the cognitive abilities of seniors is a waste of taxpayer money. But the Republicans should call it what it is and not distort the facts – even if they get only 140 characters to make their case against it.

But before we get into the facts of the research project, let’s dissect the anatomy of this Republican talking point.

The first volley in the “World of Warcraft” Twitter campaign appears to have come from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Feb. 19.

Cantor, Feb. 19: President Obama wants to raise your taxes so he can pay people $ 1.2 million to play World of Warcraft. http://1.usa.gov/Y3NGOH

The link goes to a press release from Cantor’s office listing a number of examples of “federal government waste,” including: “The National Science Foundation spent $ 1.2 million paying seniors to play ‘World of Warcraft’ to study the impact it had on their brain.” That’s not exactly right, but even that incomplete description gets further distorted in a series of tweets from Cantor and other House Republicans on Feb. 20.

Cantor, 10:56 a.m.: Federal Government spends $ 1.2 million paying people to play World of Warcraft video games. Instead of raising taxes, let’s #CutWaste

Speaker John Boehner, 10:57 a.m.: Pres Obama wants more tax hikes, refuses to #cutwaste like $ 1.2M spent paying people to play video games #Obamaquester

GOP Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 11:01 a.m.: Not a kid’s fairytale: fed gov’t actually pays ppl w taxpayer dollars to play video games. Time to #CutWaste. http://1.usa.gov/Y3NH4U

Rep. Ann Wagner, 11:01 a.m.: Did you know the govt paid $ 1.2 million to pay people to play World of Warcraft? http://tinyurl.com/bg8njug Instead of tax hikes #CutWaste

Rep. Diane Black, 11:03 a.m.: Waste of the Day: $ 1.2 million tax dollars used to pay people to play World of Warcraft http://bit.ly/UIG5oK #CutWaste don’t raise taxes

Rep. Renee Ellmers, 11:08 a.m.: Tax dollars at work: govt paid $ 1.2 million to study seniors playing World of Warcraft http://tinyurl.com/bg8njug Instead of tax hikes #CutWaste

Rep. Darrell Issa, 11:46 a.m.: That awkward moment when @BarackObama says “We don’t have a spending problem” then it comes out the Gov paid $ 1.2 mil to play video games…

Rep. David McKinkley, 12:15 p.m.: Did you know the govt paid $ 1.2 million to pay people to play World of Warcraft? http://tinyurl.com/bg8njug Instead of tax hikes #CutWaste

How did this research grant suddenly become the poster child for government waste? It traces its roots to “Wastebook 2012,” Sen. Tom Coburn’s list of 100 wasteful government expenditures. The project in question was No. 87.

Coburn, Wastebook 2012: 87) Should grandparents play World of Warcraft ? — (NC) $ 1.2 million

Soon, grandma may have to skip dinner to join her World of Warcraft guild in a dungeon raid. Researchers believe they have found another means to help our memories as we age: the “World of Warcraft,” a fantasy video game featuring characters like orcs, trolls, and warlocks. The team of academics used part of $ 1.2 million in grants from the National Science Foundation to continue a video game study this year.

The study asked 39 adults ages 60 to 77 to play “World of Warcraft” for two hours a day over two weeks. In the game, players choose a character and rove around the virtual world participating in guild (group) missions, casting spells, and defeating evil creatures.

Millions of people around the world play, with the average player spending almost 11 hours per week playing.

At the end of the two-week study period, researchers found no cognitive improvement in older people who already scored well on cognitive tests. People who started out with lower initial results, however, experienced some improvements.

It’s true that the National Science Foundation — using funds from the economic stimulus — funded two grants totaling $ 1.2 million to study the ways in which the use of some video games by older people can improve their cognitive and everyday abilities, such as memory and reasoning. You can read the abstracts for the two grant awards here and here.

More broadly, according to the abstract, the researchers hope to “advance the knowledge and understanding of how cognitive training reduces age-related decline.”

The project is being led by Anne McLaughlin and Jason Allaire, both at the North Carolina State University’s Gains Through Gaming Lab, which is “dedicated to conducting applied research examining the relationship between playing commercially available video games and important psychological constructs” and specifically “how video games can improve cognitive functioning.”

We spoke to McLaughlin about the way her research was being characterized by Republican leaders in the House.

“Misleading doesn’t describe it,” McLaughlin said. “It is entirely inaccurate.”

For starters, she said, the research that included the World of Warcraft game was not funded by the National Science Foundation, though it helped to set the stage for the federally funded project.

The initial study looked at the effects of playing an “attentionally demanding game” — in this case, World of Warcraft — on the cognitive abilities of seniors. For the uninitiated, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). (It’s the game featured in episodes of “South Park” and the sitcom “Big Bang Theory.”)

The study cost a total of $ 5,000 and was funded entirely by N.C. State, McLaughlin said. It was initiated as a pilot and showed some promising results in improving the cognitive abilities of some seniors, particularly those who scored poorly in the cognitive pre-tests. Results of this study were featured in stories by the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and CBS News, as well as in a press release from N.C. State.

Spurred by those results, McLaughlin and Allaire sought and were awarded two grants from the NSF to perform a much larger series of studies — in part employing the interactive Wii game Boom Blox.

By manipulating various aspects of the game, they are trying to pinpoint what kinds of game play best improve cognition and functioning for older adults, McLaughlin said, as well as determining the effects of playing alone versus in groups.

That’s just the first phase. Then, in collaboration with computer whizzes at Georgia Tech, they hope to develop guidelines for games for older players that will lead to “a new class of ‘brain games’ with reliable effectiveness,” according to the abstract.

“The whole purpose of this is to generalize beyond any game and promote cognitive improvement,” McLaughlin said.

Begun in 2009, the research is still in progress, McLaughlin said.

For the record, McLaughlin said, “We don’t pay anyone to play video games. We pay them to participate in a study.”

Participants first take a three-hour cognitive test to use as a baseline. Then they are asked to come back and play a video game for an hour a day for 15 straight days. Then they are given another three-hour cognitive test immediately afterward, and then two more tests — one three months later and the last a year later. The amount of the $ 1.2 million grant money spent on paying the participants of the study is a small fraction of the overall cost, McLaughlin said.

We initially were led to the grants after making an inquiry with Cantor’s office seeking backup material for claims about the federal government spending $ 1.2 million for people to play World of Warcraft.

In addition to passing along links to the study abstracts, Megan Whittemore, Cantor’s press secretary, offered this response: “The President of the United States said he was going to have to turn criminals loose on the street. Clearly, he created a false choice between raising taxes or near-apocalyptic conditions. In reality, we need to make choices on how the federal government spends taxpayers’ hard earned dollars. While some of these programs may have some merit to some people, should they be saved before preventing the drastic scenario the President painted this week?”

Again, as independent fact-checkers, we take no position about whether these grants are a worthwhile use of taxpayer money. Cutting budget deficits — a stated goal of both Republicans and Democrats — is going to require some tough choices. But the facts simply get in the way of this Republican talking point. Paying people $ 1.2 million to play video games sounds a lot more outrageous than studying ways to improve the cognitive abilities of seniors. And it misleadingly twists what the grants are all about.

– Robert Farley

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We Totally Agree With Your Pick for Best Dressed Star This Week

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/23/2013 at 12:00 PM ET

Sara De Boer/Startraks

For a moment, it looked like Miranda Kerr was going to be crowned the best dressed star for a second week in a row. But one very stylish actress managed to steal the supermodel’s throne: Mila Kunis.

The Oz: The Great and Powerful star’s cream lace tea-length Dolce & Gabbana dress earned just enough votes to place first on this week’s best dressed list. Kunis paired the winning number with Christian Louboutin peep-toe heels and purple Sutra statement earrings for the film’s Hollywood premiere.

PHOTOS: SEE THE TOP 10 BEST DRESSED STARS ON PEOPLE.COM THIS WEEK!

Kerr was about 400 votes shy of nabbing the number one spot thanks to her LBD, ankle-strap heels and red lips, which she donned to a Clear Scalp & Hair event in Sydney, Australia.

Check out who else made the top 10 and vote for your favorites here. Tell us: Is Kunis your best dressed star of the week? If not, who is?

–Jennifer Cress

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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