Wall Street drops as Apple falls, "cliff" looms

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday, with the Nasdaq weighed down by another drop in shares of Apple, and as the overhang of "fiscal cliff" negotiations kept buying to a premium.

Apple slid 4 percent to $508.75 after UBS cut its price target on the stock to $700 from $780. The most valuable U.S. company has seen its stock hit hard in the last three months, and it fell on Friday after a tepid reception for iPhone 5 in China.

The S&P Information Technology Index <.gspt> dropped 0.9 percent as Apple fell and Jabil Circuit Inc lost 6.2 percent to $17.38 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 Abruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

President Barack Obama and 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 S&P 500 dropped 0.6 percent on Thursday after six straight positive sessions. 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 seen over 2011's debt ceiling - can erode confidence.

"The markets are not being reactionary right now, though we lost ground yesterday," said Stephen Carl, head equity trader at the Williams Capital Group in New York.

"It doesn't look like anything has been resolved, or is leaning one way or another."

Still, expectations of an eventual agreement have helped the S&P 500 bounce back over the last month, and on Wednesday, the index hit its highest intraday level since late October. For the year, the S&P has advanced more than 12 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 24.09 points, or 0.18 percent, to 13,146.63. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 4.81 points, or 0.34 percent, to 1,414.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 15.50 points, or 0.52 percent, to 2,976.66.

Best Buy Co Inc slid 15.5 percent to $11.93 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.

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 seen as helping U.S. materials companies, including U.S. Steel , which rose 6.3 percent to $23.73.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jan Paschal)

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The Lede Blog: Journalists Punched by Israeli Officers After Fatal Shooting at West Bank Checkpoint

Two Palestinian journalists working for Reuters were punched, hit with rifle butts and forced to strip by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday as they tried to reach the scene of a fatal shooting at a West Bank checkpoint, the news agency reports. The soldiers then confiscated the crew’s camera and gas masks before letting off a tear-gas canister which forced one of the men to seek medical treatment.

Although the journalists had press credentials, they were not allowed to show them by the officers, who accused them of working instead for an Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, which provides video cameras to Palestinians to help document life under Israeli military occupation.

Someone who was does work with the Israeli rights group managed to record video at the checkpoint in the city of Hebron, just after the fatal shooting of Muhammad al-Salameh, 17.

Video recorded on Wednesday in the West Bank city of Hebron by a volunteer for an Israeli human rights group, just after a Palestinian was shot and killed by an Israeli officer.

The video includes a brief glimpse of the boy lying on the ground and, according to Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian-American founder of The Electronic Intifada, near the end of the clip, “medics can be seen attending to Muhammad as a voice calls for his father, ‘Abu Awad.’ In the final moments of the video a man, possibly Abu Awad, is heard saying, ‘Ibni, ibni’ – ‘My son, my son.’”

As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, the officer who shot the boy said that she fired only after the boy attacked another officer and pulled out a toy gun that looked real. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, Captain Barak Raz, posted an image on Twitter of what he said was the toy gun in the boy’s possession on Twitter.

Pretty sure (even where I grew up in NY)realistic toy guns outlawed in many places due2 such incidents. looks real2 me http://t.co/c4CLWlMM

— Captain Barak Raz (@CaptainBarakRaz) 12 Dec 12

The dead boy’s uncle told Agence France-Presse, “The plastic gun story isn’t true and it is all fabrication,” adding that Muhammad was stopped by the officers on his way to a bakery to pick up a cake for his 17th birthday party. A photograph said to show Muhammad hours before he was shot and killed, grinning during a birthday celebration at school, circulated online after his death.

RIP Mohamed Salaymeh 17 yo from #Hebron, celebrating his last birthday at school today http://t.co/WX7RKGHo

— Mohamed Jaradat (@jaradat_m) 12 Dec 12

According to a report on the Israeli news blog +972, the dead boy’s family said that “none of those who knew Muhammad had ever seen” the toy gun in his possession. The blogger added that while the two versions of events do not match, “Luckily, the checkpoints in Hebron are monitored by Israeli security cameras, and I am sure that if her story is true, the I.D.F. will release the video, showing a 17-year-old teen taking out a toy gun and holding it to the head of a soldier.”

The young female officer who fired the fatal shots, described in Israeli media reports as a 19-year-old, told The Jerusalem Post, “I know I did the right thing. This is what they taught us, to fire at the terrorist in order to neutralize them, fake gun or not.”

The Israeli security forces in Hebron are there in large numbers to protect several hundred Jewish settlers who moved to the city of nearly 200,000 Palestinians after it was occupied by Israel’s military in 1967. The shooting took place near the boy’s home and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site revered by Jews and Muslims as the traditional burial place of the founding fathers of both religions.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel said in a statement describing the incident that it “condemns in the strongest terms the assault by Israeli soldiers of two of our members in Hebron.” The statement continued:

Yousri Al Jamal and Ma’amoun Wazwaz, both highly experienced cameramen who work for Reuters, were stopped while driving to the scene of a shooting incident in the heart of the city. Their car was clearly marked ‘TV’ and they were both wearing blue flak jackets with ‘Press’ emblazoned on the front. The soldiers forced them to leave the vehicle at gunpoint, punching them and hitting them with the butts of their guns. The two men were not allowed to show their ID and were made to strip and kneel in the street with their hands behind their head. One of the soldiers then dropped a tear-gas canister in front of the men and the IDF patrol ran away. More tear gas was fired as Jamal and Wazwaz tried to escape the scene. Wazwaz was overwhelmed by the fumes and needed hospital treatment.

The group also welcomed Israel’s promise to investigate the incident, but added that it is still waiting to hear the results of the Israeli military’s investigation into an attack on a journalist in another part of the West Bank four months ago.

Paul Danahar, the group’s chairman and the BBC’s Middle East bureau chief, was distinctly downbeat about the possibility of the military’s investigation in a message posted on Twitter shortly before the statement was released.

Foreign Press Association (I’m chairman) will issue statement on IDF attack. IDF will again promise investigation. Bet nothing will change

— Paul Danahar (@pdanahar) 14 Dec 12

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Apple falls on lower shipment forecasts, muted China debut

(Reuters) – Apple Inc shares fell 3.9 percent on Friday after the iPhone 5 debuted in China to a cool reception and two analysts cut shipment forecasts.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek trimmed his iPhone shipment estimates for the Jan-March quarter, saying that the technology company had started cutting orders to suppliers to balance excess inventory.

Shares of Apple suppliers Jabil Circuit Inc, Qualcomm Inc, Skyworks Solutions Inc, TriQuint Semiconductor Inc, Avago Technologies Ltd, and Cirrus Logic Inc also fell in early trading.

Apple shares have lost a quarter of their value since they hit a life high of $ 705.07 on September 21, as it faces increasing competition from phones using Google Inc’s Android operating system.

Misek cut his first-quarter iPhone sales estimate to 48 million from 52 million and gross margin expectations for the company by 2 percentage points to 40 percent.

UBS Investment Research cut its price target on Apple stock to $ 700 from $ 780 on lower expected iPhone and iPad shipments for the March quarter.

The brokerage said it was modeling more conservative growth for the world’s biggest technology company after making supply chain checks that revealed that fewer iPhones were being built.

“Some of our Chinese sources do not expect the iPhone 5 to do as well as the iPhone 4S,” UBS analyst Steven Milunovich wrote in a note to clients.

Apple launched the iPhone 5 in China on Friday, a move widely expected to bring the Cupertino-based company some respite from a recent slide in market share in China, but early reports indicated that demand may not be as great as expected.

“The iPhone 5 China launch has been surprisingly muted but (we) are unsure how much weather (snow) or the required pre-ordering (to prevent riots) are factors,” Misek said.

Apple shares fell as low as $ 508.50 in morning trading on the Nasdaq on Friday.

(Editing by Supriya Kurane)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lindsey Vonn Reveals Depression Battle

Photo Exclusive

By Elizabeth Leonard

12/13/2012 at 12:45 PM EST

Lindsey Vonn seems to have it all.

As the most decorated skier in U.S. history, Vonn's easy smile and record-decimating athletic career have made her a fixture on podiums, magazine covers and multi-million dollar endorsement deals. But life off the slopes wasn't always so rosy.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the Olympic gold medalist, 28, discloses that she's quietly suffered from depression for many years and currently takes an anti-depressant to help manage her symptoms.

"Everything about my life seemed so perfect to people. But I struggle like everyone else," Vonn confesses.

At one point in 2008, she says, "I couldn't get out of bed anymore. I felt hopeless, empty, like a zombie."

But these days, Vonn is happier than she's been in a long time. "I feel like I just needed to get everything off my chest," says the ski racer, who filed for divorce late last year from her husband Thomas Vonn, also her longtime manager and coach.

With the winter race season underway – Vonn nabbed her 57th World Cup win on Dec. 8 in St. Moritz, Switzerland – she's hit a new groove.

"All the parts of my life are finally in sync," she says. "I accept who I am, and I'm moving forward."

For the star athlete's exclusive interview and photo shoot, pick up PEOPLE magazine, on newsstands Friday

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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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Wall Street dips as "fiscal cliff" fears outweigh data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell slightly on Thursday, pulling back from six straight days of gains despite a batch of positive economic releases as "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington weighed on sentiment.

Weekly claims for jobless benefits dropped near the lowest level since February 2008 and retail sales rose in November after an October decline, improving the picture for consumer spending.

Best Buy Co shares shot up more than 18 percent after a report that the company's founder is expected to offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week.

Trading was constrained by the drawn-out fiscal talks between Democrats and Republicans. Investors worry that tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in 2013 if a deal is not reached in Washington will hurt growth. Republican House Speaker John Boehner accused President Barack Obama of "slow-walking" the economy off the fiscal cliff.

"There's a lot of confusion. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the cliff," said Tom Schrader, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets in Baltimore.

Despite the overarching concerns, the S&P 500 has managed gains for six sessions, touching its highest level since October 22 on Wednesday.

"I don't know if there's a lot of anticipation that they're going to get anything done, but the market doesn't seem too worried about it," Schrader said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 9.35 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,236.10. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 0.88 point, or 0.06 percent, at 1,427.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 3.60 points, or 0.12 percent, at 3,017.41.

A day after the Federal Reserve announced a new round of stimulus for the economy, markets focused on Chairman Ben Bernanke's reiteration that monetary policy would not be sufficient to offset going over the fiscal cliff.

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.

CVS Caremark Corp gained 3.0 percent to $48.97 after saying it expects higher earnings in 2013.

Best Buy's stock was trading up $2.09 at $14.27 at midday.

Jobless claims dropped 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 343,000, indicating healing in the labor market.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Review: PlayStation icons join in ‘Battle Royale’

The holiday season is a good time to catch up with old friends. If you’re an Xbox fan, you’re probably getting reacquainted with galactic warrior Master Chief in his new adventure, “Halo 4.” If you’re a Nintendophile, you’re probably frolicking with Mario on your new Wii U.

Sony, meanwhile, has expanded its holiday guest list to invite nearly two decades worth of characters to mix it up in “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale” (for the PlayStation 3, $ 59.99; Vita, $ 39.99). Fans of the original PlayStation can welcome back old pals like Sir Daniel Fortesque of “MediEvil” and the title character of “Parappa the Rapper.” Younger gamers who have only known the PS3 will be happy to see Nathan Drake from “Uncharted” and Cole MacGrath from “Infamous.” Turn them loose in an assortment of game-inspired arenas and you’ve got chaos.

It’s not an original idea: Nintendo has been pitting its lovable characters against each other since 1999′s “Super Smash Bros.” As you’d expect, “All-Stars” lets up to four players choose their favorite personalities and pound on each other until one is left standing.

The technique is a change from most fighting games. Most of the time, kicking or punching your opponent doesn’t do much damage. Instead, each blow adds to an attack meter; build up enough energy and you can unleash three levels of truly deadly moves. There’s a little more strategy, but most players won’t find it too complicated.

The solo campaign is awfully skimpy, but “All-Stars” makes for a lively party when you have a few friends over. Two-and-a-half stars out of four.

— Sony’s burlap-clad goofball Sackboy is part of the “All-Stars” lineup, but he takes center stage in “LittleBigPlanet Karting” ($ 59.99).

Yes, it’s a go-kart racer — a genre that has already made room for Mario, Donkey Kong and Sonic the Hedgehog — but Sony freshens it up by giving you the ability to build your own racetracks and share them online. By exploring the game’s built-in courses, you can find hundreds of elements to add to your own, and they all share the homespun “arts-and-crafts” aesthetic of the original “LittleBigPlanet.”

Unfortunately, “LBP Karting” also revives the weird, floaty physics of its parent. That worked fine in the two-dimensional fantasy world of “LBP,” but it’s annoying when you’re behind the wheel. The tracks are filled with the power-ups, obstacles and gravity-defying leaps you’d expect in a kart racer, but the vehicles themselves feel sluggish and unresponsive. Two stars.

—Insomniac Games’ popular “lombax”-robot buddies are celebrating their 10th anniversary, both in “All-Stars” and their own “Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault” ($ 19.99). The latter game, however, is a big disappointment, stripping away most of what made the team so endearing.

It’s a “base defense” game, meaning you’re plopped down on a planet and then have to protect your turf from waves of invading enemies. That eliminates the exploration and discovery that made most of the “R&C” games so absorbing, replacing it with a tiresome cycle of building fortifications, having them destroyed, then rebuilding them. Instead of the comedy that was once this series’ trademark, you get drudgery. One star.

___

Follow Lou Kesten on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lkesten

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Want Megan Fox's Killer Body? Harley Pasternak Shares Her Workout

Celebrity Blog

By Harley Pasternak

12/12/2012 at 12:25 PM EST

Megan Fox with Brian Austin Green while pregnant, and last week in L.A.

GSI; Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Lately I've been getting a lot of questions about Megan Fox and how incredible she looks only weeks after giving birth to her son. Megan, and her husband Brian Austin Green, have been clients of mine for years and may just be the fittest couple in Hollywood.

This week, I sat down with PEOPLE to answer some of those questions and share secrets to Megan's fit pregnancy and killer post-baby body.

How did Megan stay healthy throughout her pregnancy?
We worked out throughout her entire pregnancy. She was a model of health through the whole process. She really educated herself big time and had a great relationship with her physician so she really understood the safe boundaries of how to exercise and eat well during pregnancy. As a result, she knew how active she could be and she was very consistent and didn't overdo it.

As she progressed from trimester to trimester, we'd modify things. As a result, she was so fit at the point of delivery that it actually went more easily and she was able to get medical clearance relatively quickly to come back and keep working out.

How long after giving birth did she start working out?
Definitely within a few weeks she was able to come back and workout. We didn't start at full speed – we eased into it.

How did she train post-baby?
We used the exact same exercises as we did pre-baby. We just focused more on the process and adjusted our program to suit her specific needs and limitations. The workouts we did are like all of my other Five Factor workouts. They are five phases: a minimum five minute cardio warm-up, a lower body sculpting exercise, an upper body toning exercise, then an abdominal sculpting exercise, and finally, a five minute cool down. We tried to have her do minimal impact. Post-baby there shouldn't be a lot of jumping up and down.

On the days when she doesn't want to leave her baby and come to the gym to see me, she does my video game Harley Pasternak's Hollywood Workout. I actually developed it for a lot of my new mom clients from Jessica Simpson to Hilary Duff, Megan and Milla Jovovich. It's a great, intense workout.

A Sample Workout

Warm-up: Five minutes on the bike or treadmill

Lower Body: Skater lunge
Cross your right leg behind your left leg as you bend your left knee into a half-squat position. Extend your left arm out to the side and swing your right arm across your hips. Hop a few feet directly to the right, switching the position of your legs and arms. Repeat on opposite side.

Upper Body: Supine (lying down) triceps extension
Lie face up on a bench with your arms raised straight above you, a weight in each hand; slowly lower them to the sides of your forehead and repeat.

Abdominal Sculpting: Superman
Lay on your stomach with your legs and arms fully extended. Slowly, contract your lower back and raise your legs and arms off the ground. Then lower them back down.

Cool-down: Five minutes on stationary bike.

We do 20 repetitions of each upper body, lower body, and abs and cycle through those three exercises non-stop, repeating that circuit four times. Each day of the week she would come in and we'd do different body parts at least three days a week.

Post-baby, which is more important, exercise or diet? 
What's more important in a car, the gas or the tires? You need both. Megan and Brian eat really well. They both cook and love using their blender. They love my smoothie recipes! Megan's favorite is the red smoothie, which is whatever berries are in season, Chai tea, a scoop of protein powder and little bit of almond milk.

Check back every Wednesday for more insider tips from celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak on Hollywood's hottest bodies – and learn how to get one yourself! Plus: follow Harley on Twitter at @harleypasternak

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

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Wall Street adds slight gains after Fed

DEAR ABBY: I have been married for 14 years to a man who had two failed marriages. I never felt insecure in my married life until I read his answers to a Yahoo Answers poll that asked, "Do you dream about the one that got away?" and, "Have you found the love of your life?"My husband responded that he thinks about her very often, especially on her birthday and Valentine's Day. To the other question he replied he had found the love of his life, but the relationship had ended in divorce, which he admitted was his fault.I know he was talking about his first wife. I feel so sad and insecure. ...

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