S&P 500 ends flat as bank profits temper growth concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended nearly flat on Wednesday as solid earnings from two major banks and a bounceback in Apple shares offset concerns about a lower forecast for global growth in 2013.


Shares of Goldman Sachs hit their highest since May 2011 as earnings nearly tripled on increased revenue from dealmaking and lower compensation expenses. JPMorgan Chase said fourth-quarter net income jumped 53 percent and earnings for 2012 set a record.


JPMorgan shares rose 1 percent to $46.82, while Goldman climbed 4.1 percent to $141.09.


They were among the first big banks to report results and helped to lift estimates for S&P 500 corporate earnings slightly, to a 2.2 percent gain, Thomson Reuters data showed.


"Pretty solid numbers from both JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are putting a lot of momentum behind the financials, with a lot more names to report this week. But I think that's helping to put a better bid to the market overall," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.


Apple rebounded after three days of losses, helping the Nasdaq outperform the S&P 500 and Dow. Apple rose 4.2 percent to $506.09. It closed below $500 on Tuesday for the first time since February.


"There could not have been more negativity around Apple going into today. So was it due for an oversold bounce on a trading basis? Absolutely," James said.


A slow economic recovery in developed nations is holding back the global economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday, as it sharply scaled back its forecast for world growth in 2013 to 2.4 percent from an earlier forecast of 3.0 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 23.66 points, or 0.17 percent, at 13,511.23. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.29 points, or 0.02 percent, at 1,472.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 6.77 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,117.54.


The biggest drag on the Dow was Boeing , whose shares fell 3.4 percent to $74.34 on concerns about its new Dreamliner passenger jets. Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of 787s after an emergency landing, adding to safety concerns triggered by a series of recent incidents.


After the bell, shares of eBay were trading up 0.7 at $53.28, reversing an initial decline following the release of its results. Also after the close, shares of CBS rose 8.3 percent to $41.10 after it said it will convert its Outdoor Americas division into a real estate investment trust. [ID:nL4N0AL98X]


Earlier in the day, U.S. economic data showed consumer prices were flat in December, pointing to muted inflation pressures that should give the Federal Reserve room to prop up the economy by staying on its ultra-easy monetary policy path.


Other data showed U.S. homebuilder confidence in the market for single family homes held steady near seven year highs in January, suggesting the outlook for the housing market remained upbeat.


Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Decliners outpaced advancers on the NYSE by nearly 8 to 7 and on the Nasdaq by almost 7 to 5.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)



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Story of Te'o girlfriend death apparently a hoax


SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A story that Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o's girlfriend had died of leukemia — a loss he said inspired him to help lead the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game — was dismissed by the university Wednesday as a hoax perpetrated against the linebacker.


Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Te'o told coaches on Dec. 26 that he had received a call while at an awards ceremony from the phone number of his late girlfriend, Lennay Kekua.


By Te'o's own account, she was an "online" girlfriend. Swarbrick said they also talked by telephone.


Swarbrick said that, based on a report from an investigative firm hired by the school, he believes Te'o was duped into an online relationship with a woman whose death was then faked by the perpetrators of the hoax.


"Nothing about what I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te'o one iota," Swarbrick said at a news conference Wednesday night after Deadspin.com reported in a lengthy story that it could find no record that Kekua ever existed.


Te'o said in a statement: "This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her.


"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," he said.


"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."


Swarbrick said investigators' report indicated those behind the hoax were in contact with each other, discussing what they were doing.


Deadspin reported that there was no record of Lennay Marie Kekua dying with the Social Security Administration, that a record search produced no obituary or funeral announcement. She supposedly attended Stanford but there is no mention of her death in the Stanford student newspaper.


The website reported Stanford registrar's office has no record that a Lennay Kekua ever enrolled. There is no record of her birth in the news.


There are a few Twitter and Instagram accounts registered to Lennay Kekua, but the website reported photographs identified as Kekua online and in TV news reports are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua.


The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. Te'o didn't miss the game. He said Kekua had told him not to miss a game if she died. Te'o turned in one of his best performances of the season in the 20-3 victory in East Lansing, and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season.


Te'o's statement also said: "It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.


"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.


The linebacker's father, Brian Te'o, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in early October that he and his wife had never met Kekua, saying they were hoping to meet her at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.


Te'o went on the become a Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing second in the voting, and leading Notre Dame to its first appearance in the BCS championship.


Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.


"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life," he said in his statement, "and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."


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EPA changed course after gas company protested






WEATHERFORD, Texas (AP) — When a man in a Fort Worth suburb reported his family’s drinking water had begun bubbling like champagne, the federal government sounded an alarm: A company may have tainted their wells while drilling for natural gas.


At first, the Environmental Protection Agency believed the situation was so serious that it issued a rare emergency order in late 2010 that said at least two homeowners were in immediate danger from a well saturated with flammable methane. More than a year later, the agency rescinded its mandate and refused to explain why.






Now a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press and interviews with company representatives show that the EPA had scientific evidence against the driller, Range Resources, but changed course after the company threatened not to cooperate with a national study into a common form of drilling called hydraulic fracturing. Regulators set aside an analysis that concluded the drilling could have been to blame for the contamination.


For Steve Lipsky, the EPA decision seemed to ignore the dangers to his family. His water supply contains so much methane that the gas in water flowing from a pipe connected to the well can be ignited.


“I just can’t believe that an agency that knows the truth about something like that, or has evidence like this, wouldn’t use it,” said Lipsky, who fears he will have to abandon his dream home in an upscale neighborhood of Weatherford.


The case isn’t the first in which the EPA initially linked a hydraulic fracturing operation to water contamination and then softened its position after the industry protested.


A similar dispute unfolded in west-central Wyoming in late 2011, when the EPA released an initial report that showed hydraulic fracturing could have contaminated groundwater. After industry and GOP leaders went on the attack, the agency said it had decided to do more testing. It has yet to announce a final conclusion.


Hydraulic fracturing — often called “fracking” — allows drillers to tap into oil and gas reserves that were once considered out of reach because they were locked in deep layers of rock.


The method has contributed to a surge in natural gas drilling nationwide, but environmental activists and some scientists believe it can contaminate groundwater. The industry insists the practice is safe.


Range Resources, a leading independent player in the natural gas boom, has hundreds of gas wells throughout Texas, Pennsylvania and other mineral-rich areas of the United States. Among them is a production site — now owned by Legend Natural Gas — in a wooded area about a mile from Lipsky’s home in Weatherford, about a half-hour drive west of Fort Worth.


State agencies usually regulate water and air pollution, so the EPA’s involvement in the Texas matter was unusual from the start. The EPA began investigating complaints about the methane in December 2010, because it said the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees oil and gas drilling, had not responded quickly enough to the reports of bubbling water.


Government scientists believed two families, including the Lipskys, were in danger from methane and cancer-causing benzene and ordered Range Resources to take steps to clean their water wells and provide affected homeowners with safe water. The company stopped doing that after state regulators declared in March 2011 that Range Resources was not responsible. The dispute between the EPA and the company then moved into federal court.


Believing the case was headed for a lengthy legal battle, the EPA asked an independent scientist named Geoffrey Thyne to analyze water samples taken from 32 water wells. In the report obtained by the AP, Thyne concluded from chemical testing that the gas in the drinking water could have originated from Range Resources’ nearby drilling operation.


Meanwhile, the EPA was seeking industry leaders to participate in a national study into hydraulic fracturing. Range Resources told EPA officials in Washington that so long as the agency continued to pursue a “scientifically baseless” action against the company in Weatherford, it would not take part in the study and would not allow government scientists onto its drilling sites, said company attorney David Poole.


In March 2012, the EPA retracted its emergency order, halted the court battle and set aside Thyne’s report showing that the gas in Lipsky’s water was nearly identical to the gases the Plano, Texas-based company was producing.


“They said that they would look into it, which I believe is exactly what they did,” Poole said. “I’m proud of them. As an American, I think that’s exactly what they should have done.”


The EPA offered no public explanation for its change in thinking, and Lipsky said he and his family learned about it from a reporter. The agency refused to answer questions about the decision, instead issuing a statement by email that said resolving the Range Resources matter allowed the EPA to shift its “focus in this case away from litigation and toward a joint effort on the science and safety of energy extraction.”


After the agency dropped its action, the company offered scientists access to a site in southwestern Pennsylvania. The EPA has not yet accepted the offer.


Rob Jackson, chairman of global environmental change at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, reviewed Thyne’s report and the raw data upon which it was based. He agreed the gas in Lipsky’s well could have originated in a rock formation known as the Barnett shale, the same area where Range Resources was extracting gas.


Jackson said it was “premature” to withdraw the order and said the EPA “dropped the ball in dropping their investigation.”


Lipsky, who is still tied up in a legal battle with Range Resources, now pays about $ 1,000 a month to haul water to his home. He, his wife and three children become unnerved when their methane detectors go off. Sometime soon, he said, the family will have to decide whether to stay in the large stone house or move.


“This has been total hell,” Lipsky said. “It’s been taking a huge toll on my family and on our life.”


The confidential report relied on a type of testing known as isotopic analysis, which produces a unique chemical fingerprint that sometimes allows researchers to trace the origin of gas or oil.


Jackson, who studies hydraulic fracturing and specializes in isotopic analysis, acknowledged that more data is needed to determine for certain where the gas came from. But even if the gas came from elsewhere, Range Resources’ drilling could have contributed to the problem in Lipsky’s water because gas migrates, he added.


The company insists the gas in Lipsky’s water is from natural migration and not drilling. Range Resources’ testing indicates that its gas well was working properly and that the gas came from a different rock formation called Strawn shale and not the deeper Barnett shale, Poole said.


In addition, he said, isotopic analysis cannot be used in this case because the chemical makeup of the gases in the two formations is indistinguishable. A Range Resources spokesman also dismissed Thyne and Jackson as anti-industry.


Range Resources has not shared its data with the EPA or the Railroad Commission. Poole said the data is proprietary and could only be seen by Houston-based Weatherford Laboratories, where it originated. It was analyzed for Range Resources by a Weatherford scientist, Mark McCaffrey, who did not respond to requests for an interview.


Gas has always been in the water in that area, Poole said. And years before Range Resources began drilling, at least one water well in the neighborhood contained so much methane, it went up in flames.


At another home with dangerously high methane levels in the water, the company insisted the gas had been there since the well was first dug many years ago. The homeowner was not aware of anything wrong until Range Resources began drilling in 2009.


Jackson said it was “unrealistic” to suggest that people could have tainted water and not notice.


“It bubbles like champagne or mineral waters,” he said. “The notion that people would have wells and have this in their water and not see this is wrong.”


___


Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant in Dallas, Allen Breed in Raleigh, N.C., and Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pa., contributed to this report.


___


Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP


Energy News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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NRA's paranoid fantasy undemocratic






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Paul Waldman: Obama announced gun curbs; gun advocates said it'll be tyranny

  • NRA ad calling Obama "elitist" because his kids get protection is not sane view, he says

  • He says some gun advocates urge resistance to duly authorized law enforcement

  • Waldman: Freedom is guaranteed by law, not gun owners




Editor's note: Paul Waldman is a contributing editor at the American Prospect and the author of "Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success." Follow him on his blog and on Twitter.


(CNN) -- When President Obama announced on Wednesday his proposals to curb gun violence, no surprise: Gun advocates condemned it as the first step in a rapid slide toward tyranny.


The night before, the National Rifle Association released an ad calling Obama an "elitist hypocrite," because, the ad says, he's "skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school." (Obama had said in an interview last month that he was "skeptical" that the "only answer" was putting more guns in schools.) Republicans and Democrats alike condemned the NRA for using the president's children in a political attack ad, but the ad was actually quite revealing.



Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman



A sane person might argue that the president and his family require special protection because they face threats the rest of us don't. But the NRA and many of its most fervent supporters don't see it that way. As far as they're concerned, all of us are just as threatened as the person in the Oval Office. The fact that you're an ordinary person and not the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth doesn't mean you haven't already been targeted by an al Qaeda death squad or a murderous drug gang, so you'd better be prepared, not just with a gun but with an entire arsenal of military-style weaponry.


But the real threat in the fantasy world some gun owners have spun inside their heads isn't terrorists. You know the people I'm talking about: the "doomsday preppers," the angry tea partiers talking about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants," the folks who can't talk about guns for 30 seconds without bringing up Hitler (who, for what it's worth, didn't actually disarm the German people, as so many gun advocates believe). What's important isn't just that these folks are paranoid, it's who they're paranoid about: the United States government.


Opinion: Real hypocrites are at NRA



Take, for one vivid example, James Yeager, the CEO of a Tennessee company called Tactical Response. In response to the prospect of stricter gun laws, he posted a YouTube video saying, "If that happens, it's gonna spark a civil war, and I'll be glad to fire the first shot. ... I'm not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I'm not letting anybody take my guns. If it goes one inch further, I'm gonna start killing people."


And who is it, exactly, whom he'd be killing in this fantasy of his? His neighbors? No, he'd be killing the duly constituted authorities of the United States. He's talking about -- maybe dreaming about -- the day when police officers or members of the U.S. military come to his door, so he can kill them. (Yeager later apologized after Tennessee officials suspended his concealed carry permit.)


OK, so this guy is an extremist. But there are thousands, maybe millions, of gun owners out there whose sentiments are only a notch or two more restrained. These people talk a lot about liberty and freedom and love to call themselves patriots, but they seem to have a real problem with democracy. In a democracy, if people are proposing a law you don't like, you criticize it, you argue against it, you campaign against it, you vote against the politicians who support it. But if you believe in democracy, you don't threaten to start killing people if it passes. You don't say that if you don't like a new law, you'll start an insurrection to overthrow the government.


Yet that's exactly what some people are saying, and it isn't just some lonely nut with a webcam and a YouTube account. People like him are spurred on by a conservative media that encourages them to believe that every Obama administration effort they disagree with isn't just something objectionable, it's the very definition of dictatorship.


If you're a regular listener to conservative talk radio, you've heard Barack Obama compared to Hitler and Stalin innumerable times, over every issue from health care to taxes (after Obama's press conference, one Fox News Radio host tweeted, "Freedom ends. Tyranny begins."). Since his election in 2008, supposedly respectable politicians have talked about simply refusing to obey laws they don't like, and some even proposed seceding from the union.


To be clear, most gun owners aren't stockpiling canned goods and assault rifles in preparation for some kind of societal breakdown that will give them permission to act out the violent fantasies they've been nurturing for years. But many would say that their "right" to own any and every kind of firearm they please is the only thing that guarantees that tyranny won't come to the United States.


Well, guess what: They're wrong. In today's world, most tyrants aren't overthrown by an armed populace. Nonviolent revolutions can result in a quick transition to democracy, while violent insurrections often result in long and bloody civil wars.


And here in America, it isn't 1776, and it won't ever be again. The founders may have thought citizens should be able to keep a musket if they wanted, but they also wrote into the Constitution that the government had the obligation to "suppress insurrections." They hoped that our freedom would be guaranteed by our laws and institutions, not by a guy down the block with an AR-15 and a chip on his shoulder.


They certainly didn't set up our democracy in the hope that every time any group of people didn't like a law that democracy produced, they'd abandon any pretense of support for our system of government and start killing the cops and soldiers who protect us. There's a word for people who dream about doing that, and it isn't "patriot."


Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion


Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul Waldman.






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Notre Dame's Te'o embroiled in girlfriend hoax

Notre Dame Vice President/Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick makes statement on Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Allegations









Manti Te'o's ascendancy to national star and Heisman Trophy candidate was jet-propelled by the personal backdrop of a girlfriend tragically lost to leukemia in September.

Except that girlfriend never existed.






And so the former Notre Dame linebacker and Heisman runner-up has plunged into a morass of controversy and confusion, with a Deadspin story reporting that the woman known as Lennay Kekua was a hoax -- and Notre Dame confirming that later Thursday in an official statement.

"On Dec. 26, Notre Dame coaches were informed by Manti Te’o and his parents that Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia," the school's statement read.

"The University immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax. While the proper authorities will continue to investigate this troubling matter, this appears to be, at a minimum, a sad and very cruel deception to entertain its perpetrators."

In a news conference Wednesday night, Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick detailed what he described as "a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax perpetrated for reasons we can't fully understand but had a certain cruelty at its core."

Swarbrick said that Te'o was contacted while in Orlando, Fla., for a Dec. 6 college football awards show from a phone number he associated with the woman he knew as Lennay Kekua.

"When he answered it, the person sounded like the same voice he had talked to, who told him that she was in fact not dead," Swarbrick said. "Manti was very unnerved as you might imagine."

It wasn't until the morning of Dec. 26, Swarbrick said, that Te'o contacted Notre Dame coaches about the call. Swarbrick said Te'o wanted to discuss the issue face-to-face with his parents over a holiday break before bringing it to the staff's attention, and on Dec. 27, Te'o and Swarbrick met to discuss the details of the relationship.

Swarbrick said Notre Dame then engaged an independent investigative firm which produced a final report on Jan. 4, a report then discussed with the Te'o family on Jan. 5 during the run-up to the BCS championship game vs. Alabama. Swarbrick said he believed the Te'o's were poised to release the story next week before the Deadspin article ran Thursday.

To Notre Dame's estimation, Te'o was the victim of "Catfish"-ing, a scheme that begins with an initial reaching-out, a slow build-up of a relationship and then a tragic event.

The independent investigation revealed online "chatter" with the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, that demonstrated "the joy they were taking, the casualness among themselves referring to what they accomplished and what they had done."

"There was a place to send flowers," Swarbrick said, alluding to the funeral arrangements for Lennay Kekua. "There was no detail of the hoax left undone."

Swarbrick said the school did not approach law enforcement early on due to concerns about possible extortion or game-fixing, as well as a belief "that was the victims' decision to make, and Manti was the victim here."

Swarbrick said the relationship between Te'o and the person claiming to be Lennay Kekua was exclusively an online and telephone relationship, which conflicts with an anecdote reported in the South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12 that the two met, face-to-face, on the field after Notre Dame's game at Stanford in 2009.

Of that discrepancy, Swarbrick said: "I'll let Manti provide the details. When Manti took me through the entire story start to finish, when he first described the contact, he used the word 'met,' and for him the fact that they met online was consistent with using that verb."

Swarbrick said emphatically that he did not believe Te'o was complicit in the scheme.

"Every single thing about this, until that day in first week of December, was real to Manti," Swarbrick said. "There was no suspicion that it wasn't, no belief that it might not be. The pain was real, the grief was real, the affection was real. That's the nature of this sad, cruel game."

It was the week of the Michigan State game in September in which the story unfolded: Te'o lost his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then Kekua, his purported girlfriend, in a 48-hour span.

That double-loss vaulted Te'o on to the cover of Sports Illustrated and, along with Notre Dame's eventual undefeated regular season, into the Heisman Trophy mix. Te'o would finish second in that voting to Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, tying for the best finish ever by a pure defender.

Early Wednesday evening, Te'o released a statement acknowledging never having met Kekua:

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in the statement. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.

"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.

"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."

bchamilton@tribune.com

Twitter @ChiTribHamilton



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Sahara hostage siege turns Mali war global


ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist fighters have opened an international front in Mali's civil war by taking dozens of Western hostages at a gas plant in the Algerian desert just as French troops launched an offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.


Nearly 24 hours after gunmen stormed the natural gas pumping site and workers' housing before dawn on Wednesday, little was certain beyond a claim by a group calling itself the "Battalion of Blood" that it was holding 41 foreign nationals, including Americans, Japanese and Europeans, at Tigantourine, deep in the Sahara.


Algerian media said a Briton and an Algerian were killed in the assault. Another local report said a Frenchman had died.


One thing is clear: as a headline-grabbing counterpunch to this week's French buildup in Mali, it presents French President Francois Hollande with a daunting dilemma and spreads fallout from Mali's war against loosely allied bands of al Qaeda-inspired rebels far beyond Africa, challenging Washington and Europe.


A French businessman with employees at the site said the foreigners were bound and under tight guard, while local staff, numbering 150 or more, was held apart and had more freedom.


Led by an Algerian veteran of guerrilla wars in Afghanistan, the group demanded France halt its week-old intervention in Mali, an operation endorsed by Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a haven in the desert.


Hollande, who won wide praise for ordering air strikes and sending troops to the former French colony, said little in response. In office for only eight months, he has warned of a long, hard struggle in Mali and now faces a risk of attacks on more French and other Western targets in Africa and beyond.


The Algerian government ruled out negotiating and the United States and other Western governments condemned what they called a terrorist attack on a facility, now shut down, that produces 10 percent of Algeria's gas, much of which is pumped to Europe.


The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men at the base, near the town of In Amenas close to the Libyan border, and that they were armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles.


They said they had repelled a raid by Algerian forces after dark on Wednesday. There was no government comment on that. Algerian officials said earlier about 20 gunmen were involved.


LIVES AT RISK


The militants issued no explicit threat but made clear the hostages' lives were at risk: "We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.


The group also said its fighters had rigged explosives around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end." The large numbers of gunmen and hostages involved pose serious problems for any rescue operation.


Smaller hostage-taking incidents have been common in the Sahara and financial gain plays a part in the actions of groups whose members mingle extremist religious aims with traditional smuggling and other pursuits in the lawless, borderless region.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.


A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.


French media said the militants were also demanding that Algeria, whose government fought a bloody war against Islamists in the 1990s, release dozens of prisoners from its jails.


AMERICANS


The militants said seven Americans were among the 41 foreign hostages - a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.


Norwegian energy company Statoil, which operates the gas field in a joint venture with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach, said nine of its Norwegian employees and three of its Algerian staff were being held.


Also reported kidnapped, according to various sources, were five Japanese working for the engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman and a number of Britons.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, "I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation."


He said he lacked firm information on whether there were links to the situation in Mali. Analysts pointed to shifting alliances and rivalries among Islamists in the region to suggest the hostage-takers may have a range of motives.


In their own statements, they condemned Algeria's secularist government for "betraying" its predecessors in the bloody anti-colonial war against French rule half a century ago by letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of shutting its border to Malian refugees.


Panetta said Washington was still studying legal and other issues before providing more help to France in the war in Mali.


Hollande has called for international support against rebels who France says pose a threat to Africa and the West, and admits it faces a long struggle against well-equipped fighters who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali and have imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheading.


Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.


Some of those held at the facility, about 1,300 km (800 miles) inland, had sporadic contact with the outside world.


The head of a French catering company said he had information from a manager who supervises some 150 Algerian employees at the site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told BFM television the local staff was being prevented from leaving but was otherwise free to move around inside and keep on working.


"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed. Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.


"Direct action seems very difficult. ... Algerian officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the situation under control and do not need their assistance."


MALI OFFENSIVE


French army chief Edouard Guillaud said ground forces were stepping up their operation to engage directly "within hours" the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and Mali's home-grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA.


West African military chiefs said the French would soon be supported by about 2,000 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other states - part of a U.N.-mandated deployment that had been expected to start in September before Hollande intervened.


Chad's foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, told Radio France International his country alone would send 2,000 troops, suggesting plans for the regional force were already growing.


In Mali, residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles had set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.


A Malian military source said French special forces units were taking part in the operation. Guillaud said France's strikes, involving Rafale and Mirage jet fighters, were being hampered because militants were sheltering among civilians.


Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks, although some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.


Hollande said on Tuesday that French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation.


The conflict, in a landlocked state of 15 million twice the size of France, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people and raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region.


But many who have lived for many months under harsh and violent Islamist rule said they welcomed the French.


"There is a great hope," one man said from Timbuktu, where he said Islamist fighters were trying to blend into civilian neighborhoods. "We hope that the city will be freed soon."


(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Andrew Callus in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Cooney)



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Dow, S&P 500 inch up with retailers but Apple drags again

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 edged higher on Tuesday after stronger-than-expected retail data, though tech heavyweight Apple dragged on the market for a third day.


Apple was the biggest weight on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> after reports on Monday of cuts to orders for iPhone parts. Shares declined 3.2 percent to $485.92 and closed below $500 for the first time since February.


Retail stocks advanced after a government report showing retail sales rose more than expected in December was seen as a favorable sign for fourth-quarter growth. A separate report showed manufacturing activity in New York state contracted for the sixth month in a row in January.


"A little better-than-expected news on retail sales once again reinforces that the consumer remains alive and reasonably well," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, which manages about $54 billion in assets.


Among retailers, American Eagle Outfitters Inc gained 4.8 percent to $20.58 and Gap Inc rose 3.4 percent to $32.46. The Morgan Stanley retail index <.mvr> advanced 1.5 percent.


Express Inc surged 23.8 percent to $17.40 after the apparel retailer raised its fourth-quarter and full year 2012 outlook.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 27.57 points, or 0.20 percent, at 13,534.89. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.66 points, or 0.11 percent, at 1,472.34. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 6.72 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,110.78.


Apple's stock has lost about 7 percent in the last three sessions and is down 8.7 percent since the start of the year.


"It's tough to discern exactly what's putting the pressure on it. But at the end of the day, its influence, considering it's still 3 1/2 to 4 percent of the S&P 500 index, is being felt," Luschini said.


"I attribute (it) to just some of the bloom coming off of the rose. They haven't necessarily done anything wrong, as much as others have caught up."


Also keeping investors on edge is the looming debt ceiling debate. On Monday, President Barack Obama rejected any negotiations with Republicans over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The United States could default on its debt if Congress does not increase the borrowing limit.


Resolving the debt ceiling is more a question of how than if. Investors don't expect a U.S. default, but they are also wary of another eleventh-hour agreement like the one in August 2011.


An expected lackluster earnings season, too, kept investors from taking aggressive bets. Analyst estimates for the quarter have fallen sharply since October. S&P 500 earnings growth is now seen up just 1.8 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.


Homebuilder Lennar reported a sharp rise in quarterly profit, but the stock declined 0.8 percent to $40.68 on worries that growth in orders was slowing.


Dell Inc shares added to Monday's gains, ending up 7.2 percent to $13.17 after sources said talks to take the computer maker private are in an advanced stage.


On the down side, shares of Facebook dropped 2.7 percent to $30.10. The company unveiled a "graph search" feature that CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would help its billion-plus users sort through content within the social network and its content feeds.


Volume was roughly 5.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by about 17 to 12 and on the Nasdaq by about 13 to 11.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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Anti-doping officials want Armstrong under oath


A televised confession by Lance Armstrong isn't enough.


Anti-doping officials want the disgraced cyclist to admit his guilt under oath before considering whether to lift a lifetime ban clouding his future as a competitive athlete. That was seconded by at least one former teammate whom Armstrong pushed aside on his way to the top of the Tour de France podium.


"Lance knows everything that happened," Frankie Andreu told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "He's the one who knows who did what because he was the ringleader. It's up to him how much he wants to expose."


Armstrong has been in conversations with U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials, touching off speculation that he may be willing to cooperate with authorities there and name names.


Interviewer Oprah Winfrey didn't say if the subject was broached during the taping Monday at a downtown Austin hotel. In an appearance on "CBS This Morning," she declined to give details of what Armstrong told her, but said she was "mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers."


Asked whether the disgraced cyclist appeared genuinely contrite after a decade of fierce denials, Winfrey replied, "I felt that he was thoughtful, I thought that he was serious, I thought that he certainly had prepared for this moment. I would say that he met the moment."


She was promoting what has become a two-part special, Thursday and Friday, on her OWN network.


Around the same time, World Anti-Doping Agency officials issued a statement saying nothing short of "a full confession under oath" would cause them to reconsider Armstrong's lifetime ban from sanctioned events.


The International Cycling Union also urged Armstrong to tell his story to an independent commission it has set up to examine claims that the sport's governing body hid suspicious samples from the cyclist, accepted financial donations from him and helped him avoid detection in doping tests.


The ban was only one of several penalties handed to Armstrong after a scathing, 1,000-page report by USADA last year. The cyclist was also stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, lost nearly all of his endorsements and was forced to cut ties with the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997.


The report portrayed Armstrong as the mastermind of a long-running scheme that employed steroids, blood boosters such as EPO, and a range of other performance-enhancers to dominate the tour. It included revealing testimony from 11 former teammates, including Andreu and his wife, Betsy.


"A lot of it was news and shocking to me," Andreu said. "I am sure it's shocking to the world. There's been signs leading up to this moment for a long time. For my wife and I, we've been attacked and ripped apart by Lance and all of his people, and all his supporters repeatedly for a long time. I just wish they wouldn't have been so blind and opened up their eyes earlier to all the signs that indicated there was deception there, so that we wouldn't have had to suffer as much.


"And it's not only us," he added, "he's ruined a lot of people lives."


Armstrong was believed to have left for Hawaii. The street outside his Spanish-style villa on Austin's west side was quiet the day after international TV crews gathered there hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Nearby, members of his legal team mapped out a strategy on how to handle at least two pending lawsuits against Armstrong, and possibly a third.


The AP reported earlier Tuesday that Justice Department officials were likely to join a whistleblower lawsuit against Armstrong by former teammate Floyd Landis, citing a source who works outside the government and requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.


The lawsuit by Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive, alleges that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. government by repeatedly denying he used performance-enhancing drugs. The deadline to join the False Claims Act lawsuit, which could require Armstrong to return substantial sponsorship fees and pay a hefty penalty, is Thursday.


Landis is hardly the only one seeking money back from Armstrong.


During his long reign as cycling champion, Armstrong scolded some critics in public, didn't hesitate to punish outspoken riders during the race, and waged legal battles against still others in court.


The London-based Sunday Times has already filed a lawsuit to recover about $500,000 it paid Armstrong to settle a libel case, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny him a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million awarded by an arbitration panel.


In Australia, the government of the state of South Australia said it will seek the repayment of several million dollars in appearance fees paid to Armstrong for competing in the Tour Down Under in 2009, 2010 and 2011.


"We'd be more than happy for Mr. Armstrong to make any repayment of monies to us," South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said.


___


Litke reported from Chicago, Vertuno from Austin, Texas. Pete Yost in Washington and John L. Mone in Dearborn, Mich., also contributed to this report.


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Snow Possible for Atlanta Area Thursday






There may not be a lot of snow expected, but the National Weather Service is at least alerting Georgia residents to the possibility. And it’s been since 2011 that snow of any accumulation has hit the Atlanta area. Last winter was extremely mild, and the whole 2012 year saw a record low in days that registered less than 32 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.


As it’s tracking now, the winter weather would hit the area around the evening commute on Thursday, January 17, according to Keith Stellman, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City. But he cautions that there is still a lot of uncertainty. So no need to stock up on bread and milk just yet.






The forecast says snow could be seen as far south as La Grange or Athens, but adds that the greatest chance for accumulation is the I-20 corridor west of Atlanta and the I-85 corridor to the north.


The storm system is the same that’s causing all the rain and snow in Mississippi and Louisiana, said Stellman. “It could kick out our way Thursday,” he said. “It’s bringing a lot of cold air, and it should have just enough moisture.”


But he added, “We’re not expecting a lot of accumulation.”


The Weather Service alert said there are no expected travel difficulties, but cautioned those in the higher elevations to still be careful and motorists to watch for black ice and slick overpasses Thursday night to Friday morning, when temperatures should be below freezing.


Mike Benzie has been a reporter and editor for several major news organizations in the Southeast, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Greenville News, and the Asheville Citizen-Times.


Weather News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Are gun curbs just symbolism?






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Gun violence recommendations are expected from Vice President Biden on Tuesday

  • The proposals are expected to contain substantive and symbolic ideas to curb gun violence

  • Presidents use symbolism to shift public opinion or affect larger political or social change




Washington (CNN) -- The pictures told the story: Vice President Joe Biden looked solemn, patrician and in control as he sat at a long table in the White House, flanked by people on both sides of the gun control issue.


The images conveyed a sense that the White House was in command on this issue.


And that's the point. Historically, presidential administrations have used symbolic imagery—at times coupled with marginal actions—to shift public opinion or affect larger political or social change.


"Politics is a risk taking project," said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian and CNN contributor. "They put together these commissions in response to some crisis. You try a hundred things and hope something works."


As Biden's gun control task force recommendations land on the desk of President Barack Obama, political experts say it is important that his administration sends a clear signal that it has things in hand.


Obama says gun lobby stokes fear of federal action










That is especially critical in what will likely be an uphill battle to push specific changes, like an assault weapons ban, as part of a broader effort on gun control.


The first move in the image battle will be to appear to move quickly and decisively.


"You have to give the Obama administration credit for one thing: They've learned from history to do things quickly," Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said of previous task force initiatives that fizzled.


In 2010, Obama appointed a bipartisan commission headed by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, a former Democratic White House chief of staff, to come up with a proposal to balance the budget and cut the debt.


Like the gun task force, Simpson-Bowles reviewed current regulations, gathered input from the public and engaged in tense internal conversations. But after months of working on a proposal—a blend of steep revenue increases and spending cuts—the group struggled to agree to a solution. The president did not take up the recommendations.


Obama largely avoided the issue of gun control during his first term.


He wrote an opinion piece two months after the 2011 assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, acknowledging the importance of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. In the piece he also called for a focus on "effective steps that will actually keep those irresponsible, law-breaking few from getting their hands on a gun in the first place."


Newtown searches for answers a month later


But in the aftermath of that shooting and as the election season loomed, the Justice Department backed off from a list of recommendations that included a measure designed to help keep mentally ill people from getting guns.


For now, at least, there is a sense in Washington that the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting where 26 people -- 20 of them young children -- were slaughtered could lead to meaningful legislative reform.


Public opinion would seem to suggest that the White House efforts are well timed.


In the month since the massacre, a new poll showed the percentage of Americans who said they were dissatisfied with America's gun laws has spiked.


The Gallup survey released on Monday showed 38% of Americans were dissatisfied with current gun regulations, and wanted stricter laws. That represented 13-point jump from one year ago, when 25% expressed that view. "You want to strike while the iron is hot," Sabato said. "We Americans have short attention spans and, as horrible as the Newtown shooting was, will anyone be surprised if we moved along by spring?"


The White House has since worked overtime to show it considers gun control an urgent matter.


The vice president has spent the last week meeting with what the White House calls "stakeholders" in the gun control debate.


On Monday, Biden was to meet with members of a House Democratic task force on guns, along with Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services.


Universal background check: What does it mean?


In a series of face to face discussions on Thursday, Biden sat down with the National Rifle Association and other gun owners groups before conferring with representatives from the film and television industry.


In a sign the White House is prepared to move aggressively on its proposals, Biden made public comments just before meeting with the National Rifle Association, the country's most powerful gun lobby.


"Putting the vice president in charge of (the task force) and having him meeting with these groups is intended to show seriousness and an effort to reach out and respond to concerns and wishes of various groups," said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University.


Still, the NRA expressed disappointment in its discussion with Biden and later released a statement that accused the administration of mounting "an agenda to attack the Second Amendment."


Organizations seeking tougher gun control laws insist an assault weapons ban is critical to addressing the nation's recent rash of mass shootings. However, such a ban could be difficult in a Congress mired in gridlock.


"The bully pulpit is limited. It's hard for the president to sustain that momentum," Zelizer said of the White House's gun control efforts after the Newtown shootings. "The thing about symbolism is, like the shock over Newtown, they fade quickly."


Newtown opens eyes to other gun violence against young people


CNN's Jim Acosta and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report






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