The Lede is providing updates on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on Monday that he intends to resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries. (Turn off auto-refresh to watch videos.)
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Purported HTC M7 image reveals edge-to-edge display, familiar design
Label: TechnologyTitle Post: Purported HTC M7 image reveals edge-to-edge display, familiar design
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Chris Brown Crashes Car During Paparazzi Chase
Label: LifestyleGrammy weekend got off on a bumpy start for Chris Brown.
The best urban contemporary album nominee walked away uninjured after crashing his black Porsche into a wall during a paparazzi chase, reports the Associated Press.
Beverly Hills police say the accident occurred Saturday around when Brown, 23, lost control of his vehicle. Lt. Lincoln Hoshino said authorities will investigate the incident, although he didn't know whether any of the involved parparazzi have been identified, according to the AP.
It's been just four years since Brown first caused a stir during Grammy weekend as a domestic violence drama began to unfold between him and on-again girlfriend Rihanna right before the 2009 awards ceremony. Now, fans will wait and see if the two attend this year's show together.
A call to Brown's lawyer by the AP was not immediately returned.
After early start, worst of flu season may be over
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.
The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.
The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.
But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.
For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.
Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.
"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.
In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.
Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications
But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.
So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.
Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.
The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says
On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.
Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
___
Online:
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/
Analysis: Accounting risk clouds big U.S. business bets in China
Label: BusinessNEW YORK/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tales of shady business practices abound in China - fake revenues, phony invoices, sham factories - but until recently, the problem seemed confined mostly to Chinese companies.
No longer.
Concern is growing about risks to U.S.-based multinationals in a country where American audit regulators are locked out by the Chinese government and bribery and fraud are routine.
Questions about transparency and integrity weigh heavily on China, the world's second-largest economy, as it assumes greater economic leadership and responsibility. These doubts test its ability to adhere to international standards.
Stories of business deception - confirmed by corporate sleuths, former business executives, court filings and experts on accounting in China - are commonplace.
There was the Chinese company that billed itself as a high-tech television screen manufacturer, but had a factory that turned out to be a man selling fireworks from a shack.
Or there was the Chinese biodiesel plant that sat idle for months, then sprang to life one day - when investors showed up for a tour - only to fall silent again.
Last month, there was the scandal at a Chinese unit of Caterpillar Inc
On January 18, Caterpillar disclosed "deliberate, multi-year, coordinated accounting misconduct" at the Siwei unit of ERA Mining Machinery. Caterpillar said it would write off most of the $654 million it had paid to acquire ERA only months earlier.
Caterpillar's Siwei stumble was not the first for a U.S. multinational in China, but the scope of the problem stood out.
Caterpillar has provided few details, but it has disclosed inventory discrepancies, inflated profits and improperly recorded costs and revenue at Siwei.
Caterpillar declined further comment.
Part of Caterpillar's problem may have been inadequate due diligence work prior to the ERA acquisition. Companies often try to keep fees down for this type of work, but in China that may be asking for trouble, says Paul Gillis, an accounting professor at Peking University in Beijing.
Acquiring firms typically do some of their own due diligence while also relying on deal advisers, legal experts and auditors. Due to the risks in China, efforts should be beefed up to uncover fraud, Gillis said. "When you start cutting corners on audits ... you're enabling those who commit fraud."
GOING FOR GROWTH
Of course, it is not as if the United States has not had its own share of egregious accounting frauds over the years. In 2001-2002, a series of major scandals involving the likes of Enron, WorldCom and Tyco shook the U.S. economy.
Legislation followed that strengthened oversight of auditing and accountability of companies' top officers. That has not stopped U.S. accounting fraud, but it has made it easier to identify and deter some of the most egregious behavior.
In China, where large U.S. corporations are making some very big bets, a new frontier of accounting risk is opening up.
Lured by an economy growing much more quickly than the United States, U.S. companies have directly invested $54 billion in Chinese businesses, factories and property, most of it in the past decade, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data.
Despite a cooling off of China's growth last year, demand from its massive consumer class is still lifting revenues at companies that range from coffee seller Starbucks Corp
The Caterpillar experience and the growing catalog of smaller instances of deception and abuse have some experts wondering if U.S. companies' Chinese results can be trusted.
Though China is shifting to a market economy, much business is still done on a handshake, China experts say. State secret laws hinder investigations by outsiders. Audits done in China of U.S. corporate units there cannot be inspected by U.S. regulators because the Chinese government refuses to allow them.
A former executive at a large, U.S.-based multinational active in China recalled the firm's auditor being fired for trying to correct improper accounting at a joint venture in China. Managers there were trying to book sales early, sometimes for unassembled products, to avoid a coming tax increase, said the executive, who asked not to be named. He said he had the auditor reinstated and the accounting changed.
Dealings with a Chinese joint venture did not end well for California-based RAE Systems Inc, which makes chemical detection monitors. It had to pay nearly $3 million to the U.S. government to settle complaints in 2010 that it did too little to stop bribery at a Chinese joint venture.
'RED FERRARI' TEST
Despite well-known risks in China, auditors there often are not inquisitive enough or alert to possible fraud, some experts say.
Auditors in China may pore tirelessly over documents and yet "fail to spot the red Ferrari parked on the doorstep and fail to ask who it belongs to, how it was paid for," said Peter Humphrey, founder of ChinaWhys, a Shanghai-based anti-fraud consultancy that has investigated white-collar crime and fraud at scores of multinational firms in China.
China experts said it is difficult to do business there without encountering demands for gifts or kickbacks.
Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, surveyed business executives who said Chinese firms in 2011 were second only to Russian companies in being most likely to pay bribes abroad.
But six U.S. companies, including technology group IBM
Retailer Wal-Mart Stores
There have been plenty of other red flags. For example, U.S. regulators have deregistered dozens of Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges after fraud probes, and some major U.S. investors have been caught flat-footed.
Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson suffered big losses after a disastrous bet on Chinese forestry company Sino Forest. Sino Forest was rocked by allegations in 2011 that it falsified its timber assets and later filed for bankruptcy.
Chinese software company Longtop Financial Technologies
The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which is responsible for regulating auditors of U.S.-listed companies, has been trying to get access to China to inspect audits there. But China has resisted because of sovereignty concerns.
Being unable to inspect in China "continues to create a gaping hole in investor protection," James Doty, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based PCAOB, said in a statement.
The PCAOB recently reached deals with France and Finland to inspect in those countries, adding to its growing list of cooperation agreements with 16 nations.
The SEC has hit a wall trying to get documents out of China to investigate fraud. In December the commission began legal proceedings against the Chinese affiliates of five of the world's biggest audit firms - Deloitte
Meanwhile, investment in China continues. Over the past five years, U.S. companies and investment groups have announced or completed about $25 billion of whole or partial acquisitions in China, according to Thomson Reuters data.
(Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Ernest Scheyder in New York, Clare Baldwin in Hong Kong; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Dan Grebler)
IHT Rendezvous: A Different Kind of Labyrinth in the London Underground
Label: WorldLONDON — The artist Mark Wallinger has a few strings to his bow: he spent 10 days in a bear suit in 2004 in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin; he won the Turner Prize in 2007; he enjoyed a few days of media admiration/derision in 2009 when he proposed a 50-meter white horse as a public art project in Ebbsfleet in Kent.
On Thursday, Mr. Wallinger presented his newest work: a commission from the London Underground, for which he has created 270 individual panels — one for every Tube station — showing a labyrinth design in black on white square enamel panels. A small red cross marks a point of entry, and each panel is individually numbered, according to the order used by the winner of the Tube Challenge, an eccentric affair in which people compete to pass through every Tube stop on the network in the shortest possible time. (The current record is 16 hours, 29 minutes and 59 seconds.)
The Underground has long had a tradition of commissioning art. Its headquarters in St. James’s Park boasts reliefs by Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein among others, and its Art on the Underground program has shown admirable eclecticism in its choice of artists for commissioned posters, map brochures and in-station work. Mr. Wallinger’s Labyrinth project is part of Art on the Underground’s celebration, this year, of the Tube’s 150th anniversary.
“Something like 4 million people every day have an opportunity to encounter the art works,” said Tamsin Dillon, the head of Art on the Underground, in a statement marking the official opening of the project.
On the basis of visits, on Friday morning, to 4 of the 10 Tube stations at which the panels were displayed, and the remaining 260 stations will get theirs over the next few months, it seems clear that opportunity is one thing, actual encounters are another.
At Baker Street station (No. 58), my first stop, a friendly Tube employee went to find out where the panel was located and came to look at it with me. It was next to the Marylebone Road exit, near a few public phones. In and out streamed the passengers; no one except the two of us seemed to notice the new artwork. “Nice,” he said cautiously.
Similar indifference pertained at Oxford Circus (no. 60), Victoria (no. 103) and Green Park (no. 232), where a man stood consulting his cell phone right next to the panel without noticing it was there.
While this may be a bit discouraging for Mr. Wallinger and Ms. Dillon, there was something rather nice about seeking out the unobtrusively placed artworks, and a slightly Harry Potter-ish aspect to being the only person who could apparently see them as the rest of the world wandered by. Looking for the panels may not be the journey that Mr. Wallinger had in mind (unlike a maze, the labyrinth allows a straightforward passage between entrance and exit, and presumably symbolizes each passenger’s trajectory), but it’s a pleasant diversion in the hurly-burly of commuting. I see a Labyrinth Challenge coming up.
HTC’s new M7 flagship phone may just be called the ‘HTC One’
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Katy Perry (Sort Of) Steals Spotlight at Bruce Springsteen Pre-Grammy Tribute
Label: LifestyleKaty Perry at the MusiCares Person of the Year gala
Lester Cohen/WireImage
It may have been a tribute to Bruce Springsteen but Katy Perry seemed to be the main attraction for some at Friday's MusiCares Person of the Year tribute at the Los Angeles Convention Center before Sunday's Grammy Awards.
For more behind-the-scenes photos of your favorite stars, follow @peoplemag on Instagram.
The singer, who arrived at the charity event which raises money for musicians in need sans beau John Mayer, was interrupted by two young fans who asked to take a picture with her as she was talking to director J.J. Abrams. But that wasn't all: the pop star, who later hung out with Elton John, was approached by even more fans in the lobby at the show.
Other MusiCares attendees included Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, who arrived hand-in-hand before the dinner began. (McGraw and Hill later performed "Tougher Than the Rest" during the concert.)
As for the man of the hour, when the auction slowed The Boss offered up the ultimate prize: himself.
While composer David Foster urged the crowd to bid on a guitar signed live by many of the music stars in attendance, Springsteen grabbed the mic himself and threw in a few very personal extras to amp up the bidding.
First, he offered a one-hour guitar lesson and a ride in the sidecar of his Harley Davidson. Next, he added eight tickets to an E Street Band show of the bidder's choice, plus backstage passes and a backstage tour he promised to conduct personally.
"So dig in you one-percenters," he urged the audience with a smile. Springsteen raised the winning bid to a whopping $250,000 by making it a family affair, promising to also include "a lasagna made by my mother!"
Auction winner Tracey Powell, a "full-time mom," was so thrilled that she ran to Springsteen and kissed him on the lips – twice!
"I'm a Jersey girl and that's why I did it," Powell, who now lives in California, tells PEOPLE of her generous bid. "He's an amazing musician and I've followed him for years. Plus it was for an amazing cause that I'm so happy to support."
Jon Stewart hosted the evening's entertainment, a the Springsteen tribute concert that featured artists Elton John, Mumford & Sons, Sting, Neil Young (who sang "Born in the USA"), John Legend, Natalie Maines, Ben Harper, Emmylou Harris, Kenny Chesney and others, who performed some of Springsteen's classics.
John Legend performing at the MusiCares pre-Grammy tribute to Bruce Springsteen
After early start, worst of flu season may be over
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.
The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.
The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.
But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.
For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.
Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.
"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.
In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.
Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications
But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.
So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.
Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.
The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says
On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.
Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
___
Online:
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/
Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.
The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.
The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp
Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.
AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.
Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.
"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.
The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.
"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.
For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.
Shares of Dell
Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.
Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.
Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.
Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.
Molina Healthcare Inc
The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.
"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."
Volume was roughly 5.6 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 almost 5 to 3.
(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Barry and Andrew Hay)
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