Wall Street trips and falls on cloudy Italian election

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



Read More..

Huge protest vote pushes Italy towards deadlock


ROME (Reuters) - A huge protest vote by Italians enraged by economic hardship and political corruption pushed the country towards deadlock after an election on Monday, with voting projections showing no coalition strong enough to form a government.


With more than two thirds of the vote counted, the projections suggested the center left could have a slim lead in the race for the lower house of parliament.


But no party or likely coalition appeared likely to be able to form a majority in the upper house or Senate, creating a deadlocked parliament - the opposite of the stable result that Italy desperately needs to tackle a deep recession, rising unemployment and a massive public debt.


Such an outcome has the potential to revive fears over the euro zone debt crisis, with prospects of a long period of uncertainty in the zone's third largest economy.


Italian financial markets took fright after rising earlier on hopes for a stable and strong center-left led government, probably backed by outgoing technocrat premier Mario Monti.


The projected result was a stunning success for Genoese comic Beppe Grillo, leader of the populist 5-Star Movement, who toured the country in his first national election campaign hurling obscenity-laced insults against a discredited political class.


With vague election promises and a team of almost totally unknown candidates, the shaggy haired comedian channeled pure public anger against what many see as a sclerotic and useless political system.


The likely result was also a humiliating slap in the face for colorless center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who appeared to have thrown away a 10-point opinion poll lead less than two months ago against Silvio Berlusconi's center right.


Berlusconi, 76, who staged an extraordinary comeback from sex and corruption scandals since diving into the campaign in December, appeared to be leading in the Senate race, but Grillo's projected bloc of Senators would leave him well short of a majority.


Projections gave Bersani's center-left alliance a lead of less than one percentage point in the lower house. If confirmed, that would be enough to control the chamber because of election laws that guarantee a 54 percent majority to the party with the largest share of the vote.


In the Senate the picture was different. The latest projection from RAI state television showed Berlusconi's bloc winning 112 Senate seats, the center-left 105 and Grillo 64, with Monti languishing on only 20 after a failed campaign which never took off. The Senate majority is 158.


Berlusconi, a master politician and communicator, wooed voters with a blitz of television appearances and promises to refund a hated housing tax despite accusations from opponents that this was an impossible vote buying trick.


Grillo has attacked all sides in the campaign and ruled out a formal alliance with any group although it was not immediately known how he would react to his stunning success or how his supporters would behave in parliament.


DANGER OF NEW ELECTION


A bitter campaign, fought largely over economic issues, made some investors fear a return of the kind of debt crisis that took the euro zone close to disaster and brought the technocrat Monti to office, replacing Berlusconi, in 2011.


The projected results showed more than half of Italians had voted for the anti-euro platforms of Berlusconi and Grillo.


Officials from both center and left warned that the looming deadlock could make Italy ungovernable and force new elections.


A center-left government either alone or ruling with Monti had been seen by investors as the best guarantee of measures to combat a deep recession and stagnant growth in Italy, which is pivotal to stability in the currency union.


The benchmark spread between Italian 10-year bonds and their German equivalent widened from below 260 basis points to above 300 and the Italian share index lost all its previous gains after projections of the Senate result.


"These projections suggest that we are heading for an ungovernable situation", said Mario Secchi, a candidate for Monti's centrist movement.


Stefano Fassina, chief economic official for Bersani's center-left, said: "The scenario from the projections we have seen so far suggests there will be no stable government and we would need to return to the polls."


If the results are confirmed the only possibility looks like a "grand coalition" combining right and left, like the one Monti led for a year. But politicians said before the vote this could not work for long and would struggle to work decisively.


Monti helped save Italy from a debt crisis when Rome's borrowing costs were spiraling out of control, but few Italians now see him as the savior of the country, in its longest recession for 20 years.


Grillo's movement rode a huge wave of voter anger about both the pain of Monti's austerity program and a string of political and corporate scandals. It had particular appeal for a frustrated younger generation shut out of full-time jobs.


"I'm sick of the scandals and the stealing," said Paolo Gentile, a 49-year-old Rome lawyer who voted for 5-Star.


"We need some young, new people in parliament, not the old parties that are totally discredited."


Berlusconi, a billionaire media tycoon, exploited anger against Monti's austerity program, accusing him of being a puppet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in many areas Grillo was a bigger beneficiary of public discontent.


Italy desperately needs a strong, reform-minded government to revive growth after two decades of stagnation and address problems ranging from record youth unemployment to a dysfunctional justice system and a bloated public sector.


Italians wrung their hands at prospects of an inconclusive result that will mean more delays to these reforms.


"It's a classic result. Typically Italian. It means the country is not united. It is an expression of a country that does not work. I knew this would happen," said 36-year-old Rome office worker Roberta Federica.


Another office worker, Elisabetta Carlotta, 46, shook her head in disbelief. "We can't go on like this," she said.


(Additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei, Steve Scherer, Gavin Jones, Naomi O'Leary and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome and Lisa Jucca in Milan; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Peter Graff)



Read More..

Facebook Now Has an Entire Team Devoted to Sandy Hook Scams






When three Connecticut lawmakers asked Mark Zuckerberg in a letter on Monday to do something about the flood of fake Sandy Hook memorial pages, he got back to them quickly. Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and Rep. Elizabeth Esty, also a Democrat, pointed out that Facebook is filled countless pages that “have become vehicles for harassment, intimidation and possibly financial fraud.” The lawmakers added that such pages enable fraudsters “to violate the privacy of families as they grieve, or seek financial gain through soliciting donations under false pretenses, or generating Facebook ‘likes’ for marketing purposes, should not be given quarter in the Facebook community.” One teacher named Victoria Soto who was killed in the attack had over 100 pages dedicated to her, and the victim’s mother went to the lawmakers for help pulling them down.


RELATED: Morsi’s Anti-Semitism, Newtown Parents, and ‘The Real Husbands of Hollywood’






Facebook called Sen. Blumenthal’s office within hours of the letter being sent to ensure him that the company had a dedicated team to deal with Sandy Hook-related requests. In a statement, the company said, “For the past few months, our rapid response team has acted swiftly to remove inappropriate materials flagged by the foundation and the families.” Indeed, it’s been nearly two months since we found out about the first Sandy Hook scammer, a New York woman who posed as the aunt of one of the first grade victims of the shootings and solicited money for a “funeral fund.” One would’ve thought that the social network would have cranked up the security dials after that scandal, but apparently it wasn’t enough. If the trouble at Facebook continues, at least we’ll know it wasn’t for lack of trying.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Facebook Now Has an Entire Team Devoted to Sandy Hook Scams
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/facebook-now-has-an-entire-team-devoted-to-sandy-hook-scams/
Link To Post : Facebook Now Has an Entire Team Devoted to Sandy Hook Scams
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

And the Oscar Goes To ...













01/20/2012 at 06:00 AM EST

















Credit: Warner Bros.; Universal; Sony





Best Motion Picture – Drama


  • Argo

  • Les Misérables

  • Zero Dark Thirty

  • Amour

  • Beasts of the Southern Wild

  • Django Unchained

  • Life of Pi

  • Lincoln

  • Silver Linings Playbook












Credit: Weinstein Co.; Dreamworks; Universal





Best Actor


  • Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

  • Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

  • Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables

  • Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

  • Denzel Washington, Flight












Sony; Weinstein Co.; Summit





Best Actress


  • Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

  • Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

  • Naomi Watts, The Impossible

  • Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

  • Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild











Credit: Warner Bros.; Weinstein Co.(2)





Best Supporting Actor


  • Alan Arkin, Argo

  • Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook

  • Christoph Waltz, Django UnchainedWINNER

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

  • Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln












Credit: Weinstein Co.; Dreamworks; Universal





Best Supporting Actress


  • Amy Adams, The Master

  • Sally Field, Lincoln

  • Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

  • Helen Hunt, The Sessions

  • Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook












Credit: Twentieth Century Fox; Dreamworks; Weinstein Co.





Best Director


  • Ang Lee, Life of Pi

  • Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

  • David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

  • Michael Haneke, Amour

  • Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild











Credit: Weinstein Co.; Focus Features; Sony





Best Original Screenplay


  • Django Unchained

  • Moonrise Kingdom

  • Zero Dark Thirty

  • Amour

  • Flight












Credit: Warner Bros.; Twentieth Century Fox; Dreamworks





Best Adapted Screenplay


  • Argo

  • Life of Pi

  • Lincoln

  • Beasts of the Southern Wild

  • Silver Linings Playbook












Best Animated Film


  • BraveWINNER

  • Frankenweenie

  • Wreck-It Ralph

  • ParaNorman

  • The Pirates! Band of Misfits













Best Foreign Language Film


  • Amour, Austria

  • Kon-Tiki, Norway

  • War Witch, Canada

  • No, Chile

  • A Royal Affair, Denmark












Credit: Focus Features; Warner Bros.; Twentieth Century Fox





Production Design


  • Anna Karenina

  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

  • Life of Pi

  • Les Misérables

  • Lincoln











Credit: Focus Features; Twentieth Century Fox; Columbia Pictures





Cinematography


  • Anna Karenina

  • Life of PiWINNER

  • Skyfall

  • Django Unchained

  • Lincoln











Credit: Focus Features; Dreamworks; Universal





Costume Design


  • Anna Karenina

  • Lincoln

  • Snow White and the Huntsman

  • Les Misérables

  • Mirror Mirror











Credit: Warner Bros.; Weinstein Co.; Sony





Editing


  • Argo

  • Silver Linings Playbook

  • Zero Dark Thirty

  • Life of Pi

  • Lincoln












Credit: Sony; Columbia Pictures; Weinstein Co.;





Sound Editing


  • Zero Dark Thirty

  • Skyfall

  • Django Unchained

  • Argo

  • Life of Pi













Sound Mixing


  • Argo

  • Les Misérables

  • Lincoln

  • Life of Pi

  • Skyfall











Credit: Focus Features; Twentieth Century Fox; Columbia Pictures





Original Score


  • Life of Pi

  • Skyfall

  • Anna Karenina

  • Argo

  • Lincoln












Credit: Twentieth Century Fox; Columbia Pictures; Universal





Original Song


  • "Pi's Lullaby" from Life of Pi

  • "Skyfall" from Skyfall

  • "Suddenly" from Les Misérables

  • "Before My Time" from Chasing Ice

  • "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted













Documentary Feature


  • 5 Broken Cameras

  • How to Survive a Plague

  • The Invisible War

  • The Gatekeepers

  • Searching for Sugar Man












Documentary Short


  • Open Heart

  • Inocente

  • Kings Point

  • Mondays at Racine

  • Redemption











Credit: Fox; Warner Bros.; Universal





Makeup


  • Hitchcock

  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

  • Les Misérables












Animated Short Film


  • Adam and Dog

  • Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare"

  • PapermanWINNER

  • Fresh Guacamole

  • Head Over Heels












Live Action Short Film


  • Buzkashi Boys

  • Curfew

  • Henry

  • Asad

  • Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)












Credit: Warner Bros.; Twentieth Century Fox; Universal





Visual Effects


  • Life of Pi

  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

  • Snow White and the Huntsman

  • Marvel's The Avengers

  • Prometheus























On Newsstands Now






  • Mindy McCready: A Tragic Life's Troubled End

  • Princess Kate: Back with a Bump!

  • Exclusive: Miley's Wedding Plans

Pick up your copy on newsstands




Click here for instant access to the Digital Magazine










blog comments powered by


Advertisement













'
+ ' '
+ '
'
+ '';

$(document).ready(function(){
$('#ptvplayer').html(playerhtml);
brightcove.createExperiences();
PEOPLE.tv.title = $('#ptvplayer .videoTitle a');
});

PEOPLE.tv.onTemplateLoaded = function (id) {
PEOPLE.tv.videoPlayer = bcPlayer.getPlayer(id);
PEOPLE.tv.videoPlayerModule = PEOPLE.tv.videoPlayer.getModule(APIModules.VIDEO_PLAYER);
PEOPLE.tv.experienceModule= PEOPLE.tv.videoPlayer.getModule(APIModules.EXPERIENCE);
PEOPLE.tv.videoPlayerModule.addEventListener(BCMediaEvent.COMPLETE, PEOPLE.tv.videoComplete);
};

PEOPLE.tv.videoComplete = function () {

if (PEOPLE.tv.videoIndex

Read More..

FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Read More..

Asian shares edge higher, yen falls on BOJ report

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares edged higher on Monday, with investors still picking up shares battered by last week's steep plunge, while the yen fell to fresh lows on news a reflationary advocate could head the Bank of Japan next month.


The news Japan's government is likely to nominate Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda, an advocate of aggressive monetary easing, as its next central bank governor, is set to be a major factor in financial markets this week.


Markets are pondering whether Italy's weekend elections will produce a stable government, and the implications of that for euro zone cohesion, while Moody's credit downgrade on Britain will play on confidence in the pound and government bonds.


Investors also await testimony on Tuesday from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for further clues of when the Fed may slow or stop buying bonds. Financial markets were rattled last week after minutes of the Fed's January meeting suggested some Fed officials were mulling scaling back its strong monetary stimulus earlier than expected.


The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was up 0.1 percent, pulled higher by Australian shares <.axjo> which gained 0.6 percent on reassuring comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials on the bank's current stimulus program, which has helped underpin risk sentiment globally.


South Korean shares <.ks11> opened up 0.2 percent, with the nation's new leader, who has shown willingness to talk down the won, being sworn in on Monday.


Tokyo's Nikkei stock average <.n225> opened 1.6 percent higher. <.t/>


Early on Monday, the yen touched its lowest since May 2010 of 94.61 yen against the dollar, while the euro rose to a high of 124.83 yen, still off its 34-month peak of 127.71 set early this month.


The Nikkei newspaper reported the Japanese government is likely to nominate Haruhiko Kuroda and Kikuo Iwata, both vocal advocates of aggressive monetary expansion, as BOJ governor and deputy governor.


The dollar fell sharply to below 93 yen last week on media reports that Toshiro Muto, a former financial bureaucrat perceived as less willing to take unconventional steps, was the frontrunner candidate for the top BOJ job.


"The dollar's move this morning is merely a rebound from disappointment on Muto last week. I don't think this topic will be enough to hoist the dollar above 95 yen," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan at UBS in Tokyo. "No matter who is elected at the BOJ, it will not affect the longer-term trend of a weak yen," he said.


Speculation over the BOJ has been a key factor driving the yen lower recently due to anticipation for strong reflationary measures, but other fundamental factors such as Japan's deteriorating trade balances and signs of firmer U.S. growth also supported a weakening yen trend.


Abe told Americans on Friday "I am back and so is Japan" and vowed to get the world's third biggest economy growing again.


Investors remained cautious before the full official results of Italy's elections come out on Tuesday, worried a potential political stalemate could impede Rome's progress on fiscal reforms.


The euro was up 0.1 percent to $1.3192, off Friday's six-week low of $1.31445.


Sterling fell to a 31-month low of $1.5073 early on Monday and a record low against the New Zealand dollar at NZ$1.8025 following Friday's one-notch downgrade of Britain's prized triple-A sovereign rating by Moody's.


Investors will also seek signs of recovery from the flash estimate of China's manufacturing PMI from HSBC/Markit due later in the session.


Wall Street ended higher on Friday, boosted strong earnings from Dow component Hewlett-Packard , but the benchmark Standard & Poor's Index <.spx> posted its first weekly decline of the year. European shares rose on Friday after data showed German business morale surged at its fastest pace in over two years in February.


Hedge funds and other big speculators cut their bullish bets on U.S. commodities by nearly $13 billion, the most in about 10 months, in the week to February 19 to $69 billion, just before oil and metals prices tumbled last week on rumors a commodities fund was dumping positions, trade data showed on Friday.


U.S. crude was up 0.1 percent to $93.26 a barrel.


(Editing by Eric Meijer)



Read More..

Cuban leader Raul Castro says he will retire in 2018


HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Sunday he will step down from power after his second term ends in 2018, and the new parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most visible successor.


"This will be my last term," Castro, 81, said shortly after the National Assembly elected him to a second five-year term.


In a surprise move, the new parliament also named Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice president, meaning he would take over if Castro cannot serve his full term.


Diaz-Canel is a member of the political bureau who rose through the Communist Party ranks in the provinces to become the most visible possible successor to Castro.


Raul Castro starts his second term immediately, leaving him free to retire in 2018, aged 86.


Former President Fidel Castro joined the National Assembly meeting on Sunday, in a rare public appearance. Since falling ill in 2006 and ceding the presidency to his brother, the elder Castro, 86, has given up official positions except as a deputy in the National Assembly.


The new government will almost certainly be the last headed up by the Castro brothers and their generation of leaders who have ruled Cuba since they swept down from the mountains in the 1959 revolution.


Cubans and foreign governments were keenly watching whether any new, younger faces appeared among the Council of State members, in particular its first vice president and five vice presidents.


Their hopes were partially fulfilled with Diaz-Canel's ascension. He replaces former first vice president, Jose Machado Ventura, 82, who will continue as one of five vice presidents.


Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes, 80, and Gladys Bejerano, 66, the comptroller general, were also re-elected as vice presidents.


Two other newcomers, Mercedes Lopez Acea, 48, first secretary of the Havana communist party, and Salvador Valdes Mesa, 64, head of the official labor federation, also earned vice presidential slots.


Esteban Lazo, a 68-year-old former vice president and member of the political bureau of the Communist Party, left his post upon being named president of the National Assembly on Sunday. He replaced Ricardo Alarcon, who served in the job for 20 years.


Six of the Council's top seven members sit on the party's political bureau which is also lead by Castro.


The National Assembly meets for just a few weeks each year and delegates its legislative powers between sessions to the 31-member Council of State, which also functions as the executive through the Council of Ministers it appoints.


Eighty percent of the 612 deputies, who were elected in an uncontested vote February 3, were born after the revolution.


EFFORT TO PROMOTE YOUNGER GENERATION


Raul Castro, who officially replaced his ailing brother as president in 2008, has repeatedly said senior leaders should hold office for no more than two five-year terms.


"Although we kept on trying to promote young people to senior positions, life proved that we did not always make the best choice," Castro said at a Communist Party Congress in 2011.


"Today, we are faced with the consequences of not having a reserve of well-trained replacements ... It's really embarrassing that we have not solved this problem in more than half a century."


Speaking on Sunday, Castro hailed the composition of the new Council of State as an example of what he had said needed to be accomplished.


"Of the 31 members, 41.9 percent are women and 38.6 percent are black or of mixed race. The average age is 57 years and 61.3 percent were born after the triumph of the revolution," he said.


The 2011 party summit adopted a more than 300-point plan aimed at updating Cuba's Soviet-style economic system, designed to transform it from one based on collective production and consumption to one where individual effort and reward play a far more important role.


Across-the-board subsidies are being replaced by a comprehensive tax code and targeted welfare.


Raul Castro has encouraged small businesses and cooperatives in retail services, farming, minor manufacturing and retail, and given more autonomy to state companies which still dominate the economy.


The party plan also includes an opening to more foreign investment.


At the same time, Cuba continues to face a U.S. administration bent on restoring democracy and capitalism to the island and questions about the future largess of oil rich Venezuela with strategic ally Hugo Chavez battling cancer.


(Editing by Kieran Murray and Vicki Allen)



Read More..

It's a Girl for The Price Is Right's Rachel Reynolds




Celebrity Baby Blog





02/23/2013 at 04:00 PM ET



On Feb. 13, the date was definitely right for Rachel Reynolds.


The Price Is Right model and husband David Dellucci welcomed their first child, daughter Ruby Rey Dellucci, on Wednesday, Feb. 13 — the couple’s third wedding anniversary.


Born at 10:54 p.m. in Baton Rouge, La., Ruby weighed in at 7 lbs., 5 oz. and was 20¼ inches long.


“David and I never dreamed that exactly three years from the day of our wedding we would welcome our little baby girl. We couldn’t have asked for a better anniversary gift,” Reynolds, 30, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “It’s very special! We are so in love with her and having so much fun. Every day is new and full of firsts for us and for Ruby.”


She and Dellucci, a former major league baseball player and member of the 2001 World Series Champion Arizona Diamondbacks, announced the pregnancy in August.


Rachel Reynolds Welcomes Daughter Ruby Rey
Courtesy Rachel Reynolds


– Sarah Michaud


Read More..

FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Read More..

Investors face another Washington deadline

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


OPTIONS BULLS TARGET GAINS


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


EYES ON GDP DATA, APPLE


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


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


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


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


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


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



Read More..