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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Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Charged With Breach of Trust

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's foreign minister says he is resisting calls to resign following his indictment on a breach of trust charge.

Avigdor Lieberman told a news conference Thursday night that under the law, he does not have to resign. He says he will confer with his lawyers before making any decision.

He gave no timeframe for his decision and hinted it could come after parliamentary elections on Jan. 22.

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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.

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

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Amar'e Stoudemire Gets Married at Small, Secret 12-12-12 Wedding

By Tim Nudd

12/13/2012 at 01:15 PM EST

Alexis Welch and Amar'e Stoudemire

Amanda Schwab/Startraks

Amar'e Stoudemire's latest triple double will go down as the most memorable of his life.

The New York Knicks power forward, 30, married his longtime girlfriend Alexis Welch on the rooftop deck of their Manhattan home on Wednesday, a date they picked because it was 12-12-12.

"I feel blessed," says Stoudemire, who posted a photo of the couple's wedding rings on Twitter.

"12.12.12 now has a special & spiritual meaning for us," he wrote.

The couple – who have been together for a decade and have three children – had just 12 people at the ceremony.

The bride wore a custom dress and the groom was in a tuxedo by Calvin Klein. They both have rings by Shayan Afshar, and her wedding band is by Harry Glinberg.

Following the ceremony, they visited the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief at Madison Square Garden before heading to STK for a reception.

Stoudemire and Welch, who were engaged June 2 in Paris, plan to celebrate their love again this summer at a bigger wedding with friends, teammates and family.

Alexis Welch and Amar'e Stoudemire's rings

Courtesy Amar'e Stoudemire

• Reporting by Lesley Messer

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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 eyes the "cliff" after six days of gains

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks retreated after six days of gains on Thursday as encouraging reports on retail sales and jobless claims were outweighed by the uncertainty surrounding the "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington.

Drawn-out fiscal negotiations between Democrats and Republicans have constrained trading. There is concern that tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in 2013 if a deal is not reached in Washington will hurt growth, but overall, the stock market has taken it in stride.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday accused President Barack Obama of "slow-walking" the economy off the fiscal cliff.

"Today's there's a certain sense that both sides are still apart," said Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, describing Thursday's trading as "tweaking" while investors watch Washington's back-and-forth drama.

"I think it's imperative they cooperate on some levels, and if they do, I think we'll see a Santa Claus rally."

The S&P 500 managed gains for six straight sessions and touched its highest level since October 22 on Wednesday.

Best Buy Co shares shot up 15.4 percent to $14.05 after a report that the company's founder is expected to offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week. The shares hit an intraday high at $14.48 - up 18.8 percent.

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

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> lost 50.86 points, or 0.38 percent, to 13,194.59. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> slid 7.80 points, or 0.55 percent, to 1,420.68. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 20.67 points, or 0.69 percent, to 2,990.14.

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 the impact of going over the fiscal cliff.

The S&P energy index <.gspe> slid 1 percent as Nabors Industries Ltd dropped 5.4 percent to $13.75 after Jefferies cut the drilling company's stock to "underperform" from "hold," and shares of U.S. refining company Phillips 66 lost 3.1 percent to $51.42.

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 shares gained 2 percent to $48.48 after saying it expects higher earnings in 2013.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

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Facebook revises privacy controls in effort to make them more accessible, comprehensible

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is trying to make its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an effort to turn the world’s largest social network into a more discreet place.

The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook Inc.‘s more than 1 billion users in the next few weeks.

The biggest change will be a new “privacy shortcuts” section that will appear as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people’s news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users will be able to get answers to common questions such as “Who can see my stuff?”

Other updates will include a tool that will enable individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Sir Paul McCartney to Lead Nirvana Reunion at 12-12-12 Sandy Relief Concert

Music News

12/12/2012 at 01:50 PM EST

Paul McCartney; Nirvana (Dave Grohl, Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic)

INF, Everett

Smells like The Beatles?

Sir Paul McCartney will front a Nirvana reunion as part of Wednesday night's 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, a source confirms to PEOPLE.

The performance comes 18 years after lead singer Kurt Cobain took his own life at just 27 in 1994.

The Sun reports that McCartney, 70, has been "secretly working" with the former band members, Foo Fighters singer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic, following a recent session at a studio.

As for whether the trio will perform new music ...

"I won't say it's not true," is all another source will add. No word yet on the possibility of it being a Nirvana classics-heavy set.

Other performers include Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Roger Waters, Kanye West and The Who. The concert will be live-streamed on PEOPLE.com as well as 121212concert.org.

Whether you think it's a great idea or not, here's what fans have to say on social media about McCartney fronting a Nirvana reunion.

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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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Stocks hit session highs after Fed announcement

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed to session highs on Wednesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a new stimulus plan at the end of its two-day monetary policy meeting in its latest attempt to kickstart a struggling economy.

The central bank replaced a more modest stimulus program due to expire at year-end with a fresh round of Treasury purchases that will increase its balance sheet, as was widely expected. It committed to monthly purchases of $45 billion in Treasuries on top of the $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed bonds it started buying in September.

"The market was expecting this - they basically stopped doing the Operation Twist, and it looks like they are going to be doing $45 billion a month in Treasury purchases, which was the expectation," said Troy Logan, managing director and senior economist at Warren Financial Service, in Exton, Pennsylvania.

"This was expected, and the market is waiting for the year-end 'fiscal cliff' issue to be solved, so what we have to do is have confidence our political system can actually make a functional decision."

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Wednesday "serious differences" remain with President Barack Obama in talks to avert the "fiscal cliff" of steep tax hikes and budget cuts set for the end of the year.

The S&P 500 was up for a sixth straight day, its longest winning streak since August, although gains have been less than 0.5 percent per day, on average, in part due to uncertainty over the cliff negotiations.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 71.44 points, or 0.54 percent, to 13,319.88. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 10.19 points, or 0.71 percent, to 1,438.03. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 12.29 points, or 0.41 percent, to 3,034.59.

Shares of Aetna , the third-largest U.S. health insurer, jumped 4.8 percent to $46.61 a day after the company gave a higher forecast for profit and revenue growth next year.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc fell 2.3 percent to $69.24 as the biggest drag on the Dow after India's government announced an inquiry into the company's lobbying practices.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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