App of the Week: Hooked

App Name: Hooked

Price: Free

Available Platforms: Android

What does this app do? Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Mahjong Connect – these are just a few of the popular apps in the Google Play Store for Android devices. For game app lovers, wading through the possibilities can be daunting.

Hooked, a game recommendation app developed by Hooked Media Group, can help.

“There are hundreds of thousands of apps out there people may really enjoy,” says Pita Uppal, CEO of the San Francisco based company.

Uppal, who recognizes people like to play with variety game apps but may have no idea what to try, likens Hooked to Netflix and Pandora rolled into one.

Once you download the app, Hooked analyses more than 40 factors, such as device type, the kinds of games a user has on his or her device, and usage statistics. By looking at what a consumer already has and how he or she is using those games, Hooked aims to offer users intelligent suggestions.

From the homescreen, select the menu button at the top and then search categories such as “Top Picks for You,” which provides a customized, star-rated list of recommendations. Press the tools key in the upper right hand corner and customize your recommendations by category, such as puzzle and racing, or by price.

Select “My Games”, and the app displays a dashboard of icons to help you understand your game activity. A folder icon, for example, shows what and how many games you have installed, and a clock icon tells you the amount of time you’ve spent playing a particular game. I spent an entire minute playing “Stupid Zombies.”

Logging in through Facebook or Google+ allows you to see what your friends and connections are playing, too.

Is it easy to set up? Yes, the 2.1MB app installs quickly. Log in with your account and go.

Should I try it? Hooked is like a personal shopper for game-loving app users, and the more you use it the more it understands what you might like. For the moment, it is only available for Android, but Uppal says the company plans to launch Hooked for iOS in the coming months.

Also Read
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Jessica Biel: Married Life with Justin Timberlake 'Feels Incredible'

By Dahvi Shira

11/30/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

Jessica Biel and Ellen DeGeneres

Michael Rozman/Warner Bros

It's all about the little things for newlywed Jessica Biel.

The Hitchcock star, 30, who tied the knot last month, says a huge perk of being married to Justin Timberlake is getting to use a certain seven-letter word.

"It's weird because it feels like almost nothing has changed, yet something that you can't really describe, or something that isn't tangible has changed," Biel says on The Ellen DeGeneres Show airing on Monday. "The weirdest and kind of most wonderful thing is that word. That's my husband."

Changing up her voice, the actress adds, "That's the word, and every time I say it, I go really Southern with it. 'Oh, that's my husband. That's him over there.' I touch my hair and I completely go like I'm from the South or something. It's weird."

As for life as Timberlake's wife, Biel says with a smile, "It just feels incredible. It feels like you have this partner who is going to be with you and also change light bulbs and do dishes with you."

Read More..

Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents

NYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.

Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.

Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.

"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."

In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.

"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."

As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.

Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.

"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.

Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.

The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.

The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.

"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."

He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.

But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.

For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.

Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.

Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.

"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.

When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.

"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."

___

On the Internet:

http://www.trees4children.org/

Read More..

Wall Street ends flat as "fiscal cliff" focus lingers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 wrapped up its fifth positive month in the last six on Friday, although it ended the day flat as politicians remain at odds about how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.

Trading has been choppy in the last two weeks as investors react to statements from policymakers on the state of discussions on how to avert a series of tax hikes and spending cuts that could pull the economy back into recession.

The S&P 500 was up 0.29 percent in November even as it suffered a slide of more than 6 percent from the month's high to its low.

"Given the 'on again, off again' fiscal cliff (negotiations), it's rather surprising how resilient this market has been," said David Rolfe, chief investment officer at St. Louis-based Wedgewood Partners.

"Between now and the end of the year, there's going to be an information vacuum outside the fiscal cliff, and I believe that resiliency will be tested."

In contrast to the apparent calm in equities, the CBOE Volatility Index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, jumped 5.4 percent, its largest daily gain in two weeks.

The VIX also rose for the week, but posted a whopping 14.7 percent decline for November.

On Friday, President Barack Obama accused a "handful of Republicans" in the U.S. House of Representatives of holding up legislation to extend tax cuts for middle-class Americans in order to try to preserve them for the wealthy.

Speaking shortly after the president, House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said: "There is a stalemate; let's not kid ourselves."

Despite the divisive language, many market participants are betting that a deal will be struck - if only at the eleventh hour.

Corporations continue to react to what is expected to be a harsher tax regime next year. Whole Foods Market was the latest to announce a special cash dividend - of $2.00 per share in this case - ahead of expected higher tax rates in 2013.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 3.76 points, or 0.03 percent, to 13,025.58 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained a mere 0.23 of a point, or 0.02 percent, to finish at 1,416.18. But the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dipped 1.79 points, or 0.06 percent, to end at 3,010.24.

For the month of November, the S&P 500 rose 0.29 percent, its smallest monthly variation since March 2011. The Dow fell 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq gained 1.1 percent.

For the week, though, all three major U.S. stock indexes advanced, with the Dow up 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 up 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq up 1.5 percent.

VeriSign shares dropped 13.2 percent to $34.15 after the company said the U.S. Department of Commerce approved its agreement with ICANN to run the .com internet registry, but VeriSign won't be able to raise prices as it did before.

Yum Brands slid 9.9 percent to $67.08 a day after the parent of the KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains said it expects a drop in fourth-quarter sales at established restaurants in China.

After a close relationship for several years, Facebook and Zynga revised terms of a partnership agreement, according to regulatory filings on Thursday. Under the new pact, Zynga, creator of the "Farmville" game, will have limited ability to promote its site on Facebook.

Zynga's stock fell 6.1 percent to $2.46. Facebook's stock gained 2.5 percent to $28.

Apple Inc's latest iPhone received final clearance from Chinese regulators, paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its share of product sales. Apple's stock fell 0.7 percent to $585.28.

The markets' reaction to data on Friday was muted.

U.S. consumer spending fell in October for the first time in five months and income growth stalled, leading some economists to cut already weak estimates of fourth-quarter economic growth.

Slightly more than 7 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, more than the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares and the largest in two weeks.

On the NYSE, roughly six issues rose for every five that fell, while on Nasdaq, the ratio was nearly 1 to 1.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Egyptians protest after draft constitution raced through

CAIRO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Egyptians protested against President Mohamed Mursi on Friday after an Islamist-led assembly raced through approval of a new constitution in a bid to end a crisis over the Islamist leader's newly expanded powers.

"The people want to bring down the regime," they chanted in Tahrir Square, echoing the chants that rang out in the same place less than two years ago and brought down Hosni Mubarak.

Mursi said a decree halting court challenges to his decisions, which sparked eight days of protests and violence by Egyptians calling him a new dictator, was "for an exceptional stage" and aimed to speed up the democratic transition.

"It will end as soon as the people vote on a constitution," he told state television while the constituent assembly was still voting on a draft, which the Islamists say reflects Egypt's new freedoms. "There is no place for dictatorship."

But the opposition cried foul. Liberals, leftists, Christians, more moderate Muslims and others had withdrawn from the assembly, saying their voices were not being heard.

Even in the mosque where Mursi said Friday prayers some opponents chanted "Mursi: void" before sympathizers surrounded him shouting in support, journalists and a security source said.

Tens of thousands gathered across the country, filling Tahrir Square and hitting the streets in Alexandria and other cities, responding to opposition calls for a big turnout. Rival demonstrators clashed after dark in Alexandria and the Nile Delta town of Al-Mahala Al-Kobra, some hurling rocks in anger.

An opposition leaflet distributed on Tahrir urged protesters in Cairo to stay overnight before Saturday's rallies by Islamists; the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies said they would avoid the square during their demonstrations backing Mursi.

The disparate opposition, which has struggled to compete with well-organized Islamists, has been drawn together and reinvigorated by the crisis. Tens of thousands had also protested on Tuesday, showing the breadth of public anger.

POTENT MACHINE

But Islamists have a potent political machine and the United States has looked on warily at the rising power of a group it once kept at arms length now ruling a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is at the heart of the Arab Spring.

Protesters said they would push for a 'no' vote in a constitutional referendum, which could happen as early as mid-December. If the new basic law were approved, it would immediately cancel the president's decree.

"We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society," said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

ElBaradei said in a statement the constitution had "lost legitimacy" and called for ending the polarization of Egypt.

The plebiscite on the constitution is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief they can mobilize voters again after winning every election held since Mubarak was toppled in February 2011.

Despite the big numbers opposed to him, Mursi can count on backing from the disciplined Brotherhood and Islamist allies, as well as many Egyptians who are simply exhausted by the turmoil.

"He just wants us to move on and not waste time in conflicts," said 33-year-old Cairo shopkeeper Abdel Nasser Marie. "Give the man a chance and Egypt a break."

But Mursi needs the cooperation of judges to oversee the vote, and many have been angered by a decree from Mursi they said undermined the judiciary. Some judges are on strike.

The assembly concluded the vote after a 19-hour session, faster than many expected, approving all 234 articles of the draft, covering presidential powers, the status of Islam, the military's role and human rights.

It introduces a presidential term limit of eight years - Mubarak served for 30. It also bring in a degree of civilian oversight over the military - though not enough for critics.

An Egyptian official said Mursi was expected to approve the document on Saturday and then has 15 days to hold a referendum.

"This is a revolutionary constitution," said Hossam el-Gheriyani, head of the assembly, urging members to campaign for the new constitution across Egypt, after the all-night session.

DEEPENING DIVISIONS

Critics argue it is an attempt to rush through a draft they say has been hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood, which backed Mursi for president in a June election, and its Islamist allies.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in protests since the decree was announced on November 22, deepening the divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their critics.

Seeking to placate opponents, Mursi welcomed criticism but said there was no place for violence. "I am very happy that Egypt has real political opposition," he told state television.

He said Egypt needed to attract investors and tourists. The crisis threatens to derail a fragile economic recovery after two years of turmoil. Egypt is waiting for the International Monetary Fund to finalize a $4.8 billion loan to help it out.

An alliance of opposition groups pledged to keep up protests and said broader civil disobedience was possible to fight what it described as an attempt to "kidnap Egypt from its people".

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt's system of government but keeps in place an article defining "the principles of sharia" as the main source of legislation - the same phrase found in the previous constitution.

The president can declare war with parliament's approval, but only after consulting a national defense council with a heavy military and security membership. That was not in the old constitution, used when Egypt was ruled by ex-military men.

Critics highlighted other flaws, such as articles pertaining to the rights of women and freedom of speech.

A new parliamentary election cannot be held until a new constitution is passed. Egypt has been without an elected legislature since a court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald)

Read More..

Is Facebook planning to develop its own games? Revised Zynga terms open the door

As Zynga (ZNGA) continues its free fall into irrelevancy with layoffs and its one-hit social games, the gaming company has revised its contract with Facebook (FB) to free it from being “forced to launch games exclusively on the Facebook platform” and “obligated to use Facebook Credits for Zynga game pages,” according to AllThingsD. The change of terms filed with the SEC also includes a clause that states “Facebook will no longer be prohibited from developing its own games” on March 31, 2013. Could Facebook start developing its own social games? Theoretically, yes. But would Facebook really jeopardize its relationships with game developers who already make games for its social network? Probably not.

“We’re not in the business of building games and we have no plans to do so,” a Facebook spokesman told AllThingsD. “We’re focused on being the platform where games and apps are built.”

AllThingsD’s report says the change in terms isn’t so much as a bid by Facebook to make its own games, but to shed its dependence on Zynga to supply it with hit games. The new revised terms give Facebook more leverage and other game developers such as Wooga and King.com greater incentive to create games.

At the end of the day, Facebook is a publicly traded company chasing profits, despite what CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. It might not be developing games today, but that doesn’t mean it won’t create them in the future. The new terms with Zynga now leaves that door open, should it want to make its own games one day.

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry Reach Truce in Custody War

By Ken Lee

11/29/2012 at 07:40 PM EST

Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry

Jason Merritt/Getty; Chris Weeks/WireImage

After a long court battle and an ugly fistfight outside her house, Halle Berry and her ex Gabriel Aubry appear to have settled their key differences over custody of 4 ½-year-old daughter Nahla – for now.

"The parties have reached an amicable agreement," read a written statement held up by attorney Blair Berk, who represents Berry, after a hearing Thursday in Los Angeles. "There will be no further statements regarding this matter."

Aubry, wearing a black sport coat with dark sunglasses to mask his bruised
face, was present, but Berry and her fiancé Olivier Martinez did not
attend.

Just exactly what they agreed to – earlier issues ranged from residency to restraining orders – wasn't known.

But the deal was worked out on the same day an emergency protective order issued against Aubry was to expire. That order barred him from seeing his daughter or going anywhere near Berry and Martinez.

It's also unclear whether Aubry's restraining order against Martinez, filed Monday, remains in effect or if it had been, or will be, withdrawn.

Meanwhile, LAPD Commander Andrew Smith tells PEOPLE the Thanksgiving Day altercation between Aubry and Martinez is still under investigation. "Our officers have initially concluded that Aubry was the primary instigator," he says, but adds it's too early
to say whether the case will be referred to prosecutors.

Read More..

Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.

"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.

"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.

President Barack Obama echoed that promise.

"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.

Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.

Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.

That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.

Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.

The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.

Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.

Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."

The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.

In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.

Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.

"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.

Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.

"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.

Read More..

Wall Street ends higher after swings on 'fiscal cliff'

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished higher on Thursday as investors bought on sporadic dips in a market roiled by conflicting comments from Washington about negotiations on an agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff."

Tech shares, including Research In Motion and Advanced Micro Devices , helped the Nasdaq outperform the broader market. Telecommunications and health-care stocks were the day's best-performing sectors.

Reflecting the uncertainty surrounding U.S. budget talks, trading was choppy. Wall Street reversed early gains and fell shortly after House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, dashed hopes that lawmakers were getting closer to a budget deal that would avert automatic tax increases and spending cuts set for early 2013 - the fiscal cliff - that could push the U.S. economy into a recession next year. But the market rebounded by afternoon and the three major U.S. stock indexes rebounded to near their session highs.

"There is an emotional part in buying on the small dips here. Investors are more worried about missing the rally than losing money as they believe that the 'fiscal cliff' will be solved eventually," said James Dailey, portfolio manager at TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

"Until the fiscal cliff is solved, the madness of the crowd will not subside."

Discussions on Capitol Hill are aimed at avoiding big automatic spending cuts and tax hikes, known as the fiscal cliff, that will start taking effect beginning in January.

Boehner's comment about a lack of progress in talks with the White House was one of a series of contrary pronouncements by lawmakers and the Obama administration over whether Washington will finally cut a deal.

There have been some signs that leaders are moving closer to a fiscal agreement. The S&P 500 has gained about 5 percent recently after a sell-off that took it down almost 8 percent following the U.S. election on November 6. But investors remain wary that politicians' ad hoc statements can spark quick reversals in the market.

U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion rose 4 percent to $11.54 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral" on optimism ahead of the launch of the BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc shares gained 4.1 percent to $2.04 on plans to sell and lease back its campus in Austin, Texas. The sale and lease-back will raise cash and fund its chipmaking business as Advanced Micro Devices diversifies beyond the struggling PC industry into new markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 36.71 points, or 0.28 percent, to 13,021.82 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 6.02 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,415.95. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 20.25 points, or 0.68 percent, to close at 3,012.03.

So far this week, the Dow is up 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 is up 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq is up 1.5 percent.

But shares of top retailers retreated in the wake of data showing a weak start to November sales after Superstorm Sandy. Kohl's Corp fell 12 percent to $45.02.

Tiffany shares dropped 6.2 percent to $59.80 after the upscale jeweler reported quarterly results and cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts.

Supervalu shares sank 18.6 percent to $2.28 after a report that Cerberus Capital Management was having difficulty obtaining financing to buy out the troubled grocery chain.

Data showed the U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter as businesses restocked, but consumer and business spending were revised lower in a sobering reminder of the economic recovery's underlying weakness.

Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose more than expected in October, a sign the housing market recovery advanced into the fourth quarter despite a mammoth storm and concerns over looming tax hikes. Homebuilders' shares rose. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> rose 0.8 percent.

About 6.15 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.

On both the NYSE and the Nasdaq, roughly three stocks rose for every one that fell.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Analysis: The next stop for Palestinians could be global courts

(Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly's overwhelming vote to recognize Palestine as a non-member state offers little prospect for greater clout in world politics but it could make a difference in the international courts.

The formal recognition of statehood, even without full U.N. membership, could be enough for the Palestinians to achieve membership at the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), where member states have the power to refer for investigation alleged war crimes or crimes against humanity.

With its upgraded status at the U.N., the Palestinians may now seek to apply to the ICC for membership and authority to file war-crimes charges against the Israeli government and its officials.

That threat of so-called "lawfare" has already prevented some Israeli civilian and military leaders from traveling abroad out of fear they'd be arrested as war criminals.

"Israelis are afraid of being hauled to The Hague," said Robert Malley, the Middle East program director for the International Crisis Group.

The Palestinians have long planned to use non-membership statehood at the U.N., once obtained, as a way to enter the ICC. One Palestinian negotiator, in talking to the International Crisis Group, called the strategy a "legal or diplomatic intifada" against Israel.

When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations in September he specifically accused Israel of committing war crimes.

Israeli officials have said the country's armed forces strictly adhere to international law and argue the true aim of Palestinians' accusations is to isolate Israel.

Last spring, the ICC's former chief prosecutor turned down a 2009 Palestinian request for prosecution of Israel's actions in the 2008-2009 Gaza war with Hamas, specifically noting that Palestine was only a U.N. observer entity.

In September, the new ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said a General Assembly vote could make the difference.

"What we have also done is to leave the door open and to say that if this -- if Palestine is able to pass over that (statehood) hurdle, of course, under the General Assembly, then we will revisit what the ICC can do," Bensouda said during a talk in New York.

The Hague-based ICC is the one international venue where individuals can be criminally charged. All 117 countries that ratified the Rome Statute, which created the court, are bound to turn over suspects.

The United States and Israel have not joined the Rome Statute, but that would not prevent the Palestinians from pursing cases under the treaty. ICC arrest warrants and rulings carry geopolitical weight even when they can't be enforced. An indictment of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi last year helped mobilize international support for the rebels who opposed him.

Of course, if the Palestinians enter the legal battlefield, they, too, risk being accused and prosecuted in the venues where they'd try to target Israelis.

There is no guarantee for either side that the ICC prosecutor would follow through on charges. The ICC has procedural obstacles that could head off any prosecution there.

Some commentators argue that, like lawyers in any legal fight, both the Palestinians and Israelis have exaggerated the stakes in what's more of a political and public-relations drama.

"The concern that something dramatic would change is overblown," said Rosa Brooks, a professor of international law at Georgetown University who has also served in policy roles at the State and Defense departments.

And it's important to remember that the ICC is a political organization as much as a legal one -- cases are initiated by member governments and the U.N. Security Council -- so geopolitical considerations can trump a strictly legal case.

(Reporting by Joseph Schuman; Editing by Eileen Daspin and Lisa Shumaker)

Read More..