Wall Street slips as investors seek cliff progress

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished slightly lower in a quiet session on Tuesday as the back-and-forth wrangling over the "fiscal cliff" gave investors little reason to act.


Trading volume was light as legislators continue to negotiate a deal to avoid a $600 billion package of tax hikes and federal spending cuts that would begin January 1 and could push the economy into recession.


Just 5.86 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, below the year's daily average of 6.48 billion shares.


A key measure of investor anxiety has remained muted. The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, was at 17.12, up 2.9 percent. It has not traded above 20 since July.


Optimism for progress was dented after remarks by President Barack Obama, who rejected a Republican proposal to resolve the crisis as "out of balance" and said any deal must include a rise in income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.


"People don't know if what's going on is political posturing or real negotiations that represent progress," said Bernard Baumohl, managing director and chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, New Jersey.


Expectations of higher taxes on dividends beginning in 2013 have pushed many companies to pay special dividends this year or advance their next payback to investors. Coach became the latest to move up the date of its next dividend payment, and the news lifted shares of the upscale leather-goods maker earlier in the session. By the close, though, Coach was down 1.2 percent at $57.52.


One of the S&P 500's top sectors for the day was health care <.gspa>, considered a defensive group.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 13.82 points, or 0.11 percent, to 12,951.78 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dipped 2.41 points, or 0.17 percent, to 1,407.05. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> shed 5.51 points, or 0.18 percent, to close at 2,996.69.


The market has been sensitive to rhetoric from Washington, as a failure to reach an agreement could send the U.S. economy back into recession. Still, many expect a resolution to be found, which could extend the S&P 500's rally of 12 percent so far this year.


Differences within the Republican Party came to the fore on Tuesday as one senator opposed to raising taxes lashed out at Republican House Speaker John Boehner for proposing to increase revenue by closing some tax loopholes.


Congressional Republicans recently proposed steep spending cuts to bring down the budget deficit, but gave no ground on Obama's call to raise tax rates on the rich. The proposal was quickly dismissed by the White House.


"We're on hold trying to figure it out, but investors are stressed since they have to make decisions soon about how to proceed with their investments if taxes are indeed going up. We could see a real pick-up in volume over the next week or so," Baumohl said.


Netflix Inc was the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, advancing 14 percent to $86.65 after Walt Disney Co agreed to give the company exclusive TV distribution rights to its movies, starting in 2016.


Intel Corp shares rose 2.2 percent to $19.97 after the top chipmaker sold $6 billion in bonds to fund stock buybacks and other business activities.


Darden Restaurants Inc shares plunged 9.6 percent to $47.40 as the S&P 500's worst performer after the company warned that its latest quarter would miss expectations after unsuccessful promotions led to a decline in sales at its Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse chains.


In contrast, Big Lots Inc surged 11.5 percent to $31.27 after the close-out retailer posted a smaller-than-expected loss and boosted its full-year adjusted earnings forecast.


MetroPCS Communications shares tumbled 7.5 percent to $9.96 after Sprint Nextel appeared unlikely to make a counter-offer for the wireless service provider.


Almost half of the stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed lower, while 50 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed in negative territory.


After the closing bell, Pandora Media Inc


shares plunged 23 percent after the company reported its third-quarter results.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Syrian spokesman flees country, diplomat says

CAIRO/BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, who was the most public face of Bashar al-Assad's government as it battled a 20-month-old uprising, has fled the country, a diplomat in the region said on Monday.


Jihad al-Makdissi, who is in his 40s, previously worked at the Syrian embassy in London and returned to Damascus a year ago to serve as spokesman for the ministry, defending the government's crackdown on the revolt against Assad's rule.


He had little influence in a system largely run by the security apparatus and the military. But Assad's opponents will see the loss of such a high profile figure, if confirmed, as further evidence of a system crumbling from within.


Rebel forces have made advances in recent weeks, seizing military bases including some close to the capital Damascus. Amid talk that troops had moved chemical weapons, U.S. President Barack Obama again warned Assad against using them.


Makdissi belongs to Syria's Christian minority, which has largely stood behind Assad. He worked with the foreign ministry for 10 years and speaks fluent English, a rarity in a state apparatus shaped by the Baath Party's anti-Western ideology.


"He defected. All I can say is that he is out of Syria," the diplomatic source, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.


Lebanon's al-Manar Television, citing government sources, said Makdissi was sacked for making statements that did not reflect the government's position.


He was rarely seen in the media in recent weeks. His mobile telephone was switched off and there was no immediate comment in Syrian state media. The pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya said Makdissi had left Beirut and was on his way to London, where he was expected to remain.


"We're aware of reports that he has defected and may be coming to the UK. We're seeking clarification," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.


CHEMICAL WEAPONS


Rebels have begun to advance more quickly after months of slow sieges to cut off army routes and supplies. In the past few weeks, they seized several military bases, and are now using anti-aircraft weapons to attack the military helicopters and fighter jets that had bombarded their positions with impunity.


Media reports citing European and U.S. officials said Syria's chemical weapons had been moved and could be prepared for use in response - long a fear raised by the opposition.


White House spokesman Jay Carney said U.S. concerns about Syria's intentions regarding the use of chemical weapons were increasing, prompting Washington to make contingency plans.


Syria said it would not use chemical weapons against its own people: "Syria has stressed repeatedly that it will not use these types of weapons, if they were available, under any circumstances against its people," the foreign ministry said.


Obama, who has steered clear of repeating in Syria the kind of military engagements Washington has seen in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, later repeated a warning to Assad - vaguely worded - against using chemical weapons to keep himself in power:


"The world is watching," Obama said. "The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable."


DAMASCUS BATTLES


The army appears to have focused most of its energy on Damascus, where rebels have been planning to push into the capital from the surrounding suburbs.


The military has been trying to seal off the city, using heavy bombardment and air raids to try to drive rebels back. Over 56 people were killed around Damascus alone on Sunday, with 200 dead across the country.


Damascus itself has not been free of unrest. Rebel-held southern districts have been bombarded heavily, activists say. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce clashes around the Tishreen military hospital in the northern Barzeh district and a car bomb in the southern area of Tadamon.


Neither side appears to have the upper hand in the fighting around Damascus. A previous attempt by rebels last July to hold ground in the city was crushed, but the fighters fell back into the suburbs and nearby countryside.


Clashes and tensions also remain high around Damascus International Airport and along the airport highway, which has become an on-and-off battleground that forced foreign airlines to suspend flights to Damascus since Thursday evening.


EgyptAir, which tried to resume flights on Monday, had to call back a plane headed to Damascus due to the "bad security situation" around the airport, an airline official said.


The conflict has grown increasingly bloody in recent months, as rebels began to contest Assad's power around the capital as well as in Aleppo, Syria's largest city. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict, with hundreds more killed each week.


The United Nations said on Monday it was withdrawing "all non-essential international staff" from Syria because of deteriorating security, and was restricting remaining staff to Damascus. It said more armored vehicles were needed following attacks on humanitarian aid convoys sometimes caught in the crossfire.


A European Union official said the EU was pulling international staff from Damascus because of the security situation and its ambassador to Syria had ended his posting.


(Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald; Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Erika Solomon, Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Michael Roddy)


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Four Things Google’s Nexus 4 Has in Common with the iPhone 4












Besides being each company’s flagship smartphone (and having the number 4 in their names), Google‘s new Nexus 4 and the 2010 iPhone 4 have a fair bit in common with each other.


This could be a good thing, if you remember just how popular the iPhone 4 was. Unfortunately, in this case it’s more of a bad thing, and hearkens back to “Antennagate” and the iPhone 4′s other problems. Do any of these features remind you of anything?












​A glass back


With the iPhone 5, Apple finally moved from a crack- and scratch-prone glass backplate to a solid, aluminum unibody construction. Google doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo that the former may have been a bad idea, however, and the Nexus 4 has a sparkly glass back surface.


While sparkly things obviously have their fans, the Nexus 4′s chassis also seems to lean towards the brittle side. Joshua Topolsky, who reviewed the Nexus 4 for The Verge, managed to crack the glass when he accidentally knocked his phone off the table. Meanwhile, Droid-Life’s Kellex found that setting the phone on a stone countertop caused its glass back to fracture in two.


​No 4G


Even Topolsky’s glowing review of the Nexus 4 said “It feels slow,” and “There’s simply no way to ignore this deficit.” That’s because, like the iPhone 4, the Nexus 4 lacks a 4G radio (even though it has the chip to support one if it had it).


The iPhone 4, however, was released in 2010, when 4G was still a new thing and the Android “superphones” which supported it had enormous screens and horrible battery life. Today, even the iPhone has 4G. Possibly because of bad blood between Google and the wireless carriers, which appear to resent Google’s selling phones unsubsidized and sans “customizations,” the Nexus 4 does not.


​Selling out fast


Every one of Apple’s iPhone models has sold out faster, and more dramatically, than the one before. Google’s Android devices, in contrast, haven’t tended to do so … although the new Nexus smartphones and tablets are starting to have this problem.


How bad is it? After Google finally got a new wave of Nexus 4s up for sale, they sold out in about a half-hour. Google claims that it hasn’t actually sold out, but even if you spotted the Nexus 4 on Google Play, chances are you ran into technical glitches which kept it out of your shopping cart. Tipster “Syko Pompos” told the Android Police blog how to get around this and place your order, but expect to wait months to receive it.


​Public relations nightmares


It hasn’t quite reached Antennagate levels yet, perhaps partly because the Nexus brand isn’t as well-known as the iPhone (the iPhone 4′s antenna problems were actually shared by many smartphones). But most of the press coverage of the Nexus 4 lately has been about how you can’t get one. Or else, how if you want one you’ll have to either buy it on contract or pay a lot more to get it unsubsidized from T-Mobile.


On the plus side (for the Nexus), this problem is only partly caused by the Google Play store’s technical errors. The biggest reason it’s taking so long to get out to people is, like with the iPhone 4, simply how popular it is.


Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Jon Bon Jovi Had 'No Idea' About His Daughter's Drug Trouble















12/03/2012 at 07:20 PM EST







Jon Bon Jovi and daughter Stephanie


Dave M. Benett/Getty


Jon Bon Jovi isn't just livin' on a prayer following the apparent heroin overdose that hospitalized his daughter Stephanie Rose Bongiovi last month.

Speaking out about the issue with his daughter, the legendary rocker, 50, says he's "confident" Bongiovi, 19, will be okay, telling the Associated Press, "You surround them with the best help and love and move on, and that's where we're at with it."

Although the musician and his family are getting past the Nov. 14 incident that occurred in Bongiovi's Hamilton College dorm room in Clinton, N.Y., the musician is still surprised it happened.

"I'm shocked as much as the next parent with this situation and had no idea," Bon Jovi explains. "Steph is a great kid. Great GPA. Cool school … everything about it is idyllic. She was doing great, then a sudden and steep decline."

Reflecting back, Bon Jovi says when he first became a father he wasn't sure how best to raise a little girl, but he and his wife provided a loving, stable home for their daughter.

"I didn't have any sisters," he says. "We bring home this girl the first day. Now what? Where's the manual? There was no manual. So you bring her up the best you can, you surround her with hugs and kisses and know that she may eventually fall down," he says. "I appreciate the outpouring of kindness in light of what happened in my household … No one knows the future. It is what it is."

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Fossil fuel subsidies in focus at climate talks

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump.

"Thank God that our country is an oil producer and the price of gasoline is one of the lowest," al-Kubaisi said, filling up his Toyota Land Cruiser at a gas station in Doha. "God has given us a blessing."

To those looking for a global response to climate change, it's more like a curse.

Qatar — the host of U.N. climate talks that entered their final week Monday — is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year. Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.

"We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution," said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.

His group presented research Monday showing that in addition to the fuel subsidies in developing countries, rich nations in 2011 gave more than $58 billion in tax breaks and other production subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. figure was $13 billion.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has calculated that removing fossil fuel subsidies could reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent by 2050.

Yet the argument is just recently gaining traction in climate negotiations, which in two decades have failed to halt the rising temperatures that are melting Arctic ice, raising sea levels and shifting weather patterns with impacts on droughts and floods.

In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion.

"I think it is manifestly clear ... that this is a massive missing piece of the climate change jigsaw puzzle," said Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for climate change.

He is spearheading an initiative backed by Scandinavian countries and some developing countries to put fuel subsidies on the agenda in various forums, citing the U.N. talks as a "natural home" for the debate.

The G-20 called for their elimination in 2009, and the issue also came up at the U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Frustrated that not much has happened since, European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Monday she planned to raise the issue with environment ministers on the sidelines of the talks in Doha.

Many developing countries are positive toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, not just to protect the climate but to balance budgets. Subsidies introduced as a form of welfare benefit decades ago have become an increasing burden to many countries as oil prices soar.

"We are reviewing the subsidy periodically in the context of the total economy for Qatar," the tiny Persian gulf country's energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told reporters Monday.

Qatar's National Development Strategy 2011-2016 states it more bluntly, saying fuel subsides are "at odds with the aspirations" and sustainability objectives of the wealthy emirate.

The problem is that getting rid of them comes with a heavy political price.

When Jordan raised fuel prices last month, angry crowds poured into the streets, torching police cars, government offices and private banks in the most sustained protests to hit the country since the start of the Arab unrest. One person was killed and 75 others were injured in the violence.

Nigeria, Indonesia, India and Sudan have also seen violent protests this year as governments tried to bring fuel prices closer to market rates.

Iran has used a phased approach to lift fuel subsidies over the past several years, but its pump prices remain among the cheapest in the world.

"People perceive it as something that the government is taking away from them," said Kretzmann. "The trick is we need to do it in a way that doesn't harm the poor."

The International Energy Agency found in 2010 that fuel subsidies are not an effective measure against poverty because only 8 percent of such subsidies reached the bottom 20 percent of income earners.

The IEA, which only looked at consumption subsidies, this year said they "remain most prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa, where momentum toward their reform appears to have been lost."

In the U.S., environmental groups say fossil fuel subsidies include tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels.

Industry groups, like the Independent Petroleum Association of America, are against removing such support, saying that would harm smaller companies, rather than the big oil giants.

In Doha, Mohammed Adow, a climate activist with Christian Aid, called all fuel subsidies "reckless and dangerous," but described removing subsidies on the production side as "low-hanging fruit" for governments if they are serious about dealing with climate change.

"It's going to oil and coal companies that don't need it in the first place," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Abdullah Rebhy in Doha, Qatar, and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report

____

Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter

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Fed officials laud stimulus, quibble over future plans

NEW YORK/LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Central bankers appear satisfied with the impact of their latest monetary stimulus, though there is some disagreement over how forcefully to continue purchasing bonds, remarks by two top policymakers on Monday showed.


Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren, one of the most vocal proponents of Fed asset purchases, said there was a "strong case" for the Fed to stay the course on accommodative policies next year and continue buying a total of $85 billion in bonds each month.


In September, the Fed announced an open-ended bond buying scheme that began with $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed securities.


That new effort to boost the economy comes on top of a separate program in which the Fed was buying $45 billion of longer-term Treasury securities per month with proceeds from sales of a like amount of shorter-term debt.


The latter plan, known as Operation Twist, is set to expire at the end of this month, and most analysts expect the central bank to substitute an equal amount of long-term Treasury buying.


However, James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, argued the central bank should not replace its expiring 'Operation Twist' program on a dollar-for-dollar basis. He said purchases that expand the Fed's $2.8 trillion balance sheet would have a bigger effect than Twist, which does not add to the balance sheet.


"If the goal is to keep policy on its present course, the replacement rate should be less than one-for-one," Bullard told the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, suggesting $25 billion as an adequate monthly amount.


THRESHOLDS


Whether to expand the Fed's balance sheet further will be a key topic of debate at Fed policymakers' next meeting on December 11-12. Also under consideration: tweaking Fed communications by adopting numerical thresholds for inflation and joblessness to signal when rates might rise.


Bullard on Monday said he supported the adoption of such thresholds as long as the Fed can address his concerns, especially his worry that the Fed is seen as trying to target unemployment. That approach was badly discredited in the 1970s, he said, when rates were kept low to boost jobs and inflation skyrocketed.


Bullard had previously sounded more skeptical on thresholds, saying they could rob the central bank of flexibility.


But the idea has recently gained traction, with Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen voicing strong support for the idea, first advocated by Chicago Fed President Charles Evans a year ago.


Evans wants the Fed to keep rates low until unemployment drops to at least 6.5 percent, as long as inflation does not threaten to rise above 2.5 percent. Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota and Boston Fed's Rosengren have also pitched specific proposals.


GROWTH


The U.S. economy grew at a 2.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter but is expected to have slowed in the final months of the year. Unemployment remains elevated at 7.9 percent.


Bullard said he expects the expansion to pick up steam in 2013, allowing gross domestic product to rise about 3.5 percent. But he added that estimate was predicated on a successful resolution of a year-end budget crunch, still a big "if".


William Dudley, head of the New York Fed, argued the Fed's mortgage-backed securities purchases have provided much-needed support to the economy, even if their benefits in easing financial conditions have not been fully passed through from financial institutions down to customers.


"Our policy has been and continues to be effective - though it is certainly not all-powerful in current circumstances," he said at a conference on mortgage finance at the New York Fed, at which his Boston Fed counterpart Rosengren was the keynote speaker.


The conference was aimed at exploring some of the blockages in the transmission of Fed policy to American consumers, Dudley said.


"We are focusing on ... the significant widening of the spread between yields on mortgage-backed securities and primary mortgage rates," he said.


In response to the financial crisis and deep recession of 2007-2009, the Fed had already slashed official rates to zero and bought some $2.3 trillion in government and mortgage-backed bonds prior to the launch of its latest stimulus.


(Writing by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)


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Here’s How to Turn Nicki Minaj into Jay-Z












We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:


RELATED: It’s Sort of Fun Watching Pippa Middleton Squirm












This is silly, but it’s Friday and a unicorn lair has been found in North Korea, rendering all other silliness moot. But the folks over at Reddit seem to dig the idea of slowing down Nicki Minaj’s songs so much that they sound like an over-enunciating Jay-Z. And well, it’s oddly relaxing: 


RELATED: ‘Roseanne’ Predicted Internet Addiction; A Weather Alert from Hell


RELATED: The Honey Boo Boo Nature Special; Everyone’s Favorite Sleepwalking Mom


Another week has passed by and we still haven’t figured out the Fiscal Cliff situation. Let’s fix it—and not just because we want to avoid getting downgraded (again). Because honestly, we just don’t think CNBC’s Rick Santelli can make it another two weeks: 


RELATED: Cookie Monster Takes a Bite Out of ‘Call Me Maybe’


RELATED: Paul Ryan Was In a Band Called Steak Baby


James Lipton, let’s hang out: 


Finally, it’s Friday. What are you still doing here?  Go enjoy the weekend or something or … watch this video of a husky which sort of sounds like Dame Edna at time imitating a baby until 6 p.m. rolls around: 


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Kellan Lutz, Hugh Jackman Take Bites and Swipes &#38; More Casting News















12/02/2012 at 07:00 PM EST







Kellan Lutz (left) and Hugh Jackman


Christopher Polk/Getty, Han Myung-Gu/WireImage


It's comeback time. Whether seeking revenge or reprising beloved roles, a fresh crop of movies shows that the best characters always come back for more.

Twilight's Kellan Lutz feasts on others as a vampire, but this time, he's utilizing his own body for powers, Zimbio reports.

The actor will star in Tatua as a tattooed assassin whose weapons are extracted from the ink on his body. The process is a strain on the hit man, but he must put that aside when his son is kidnapped by a dangerous foe.

Hugh Jackman is set to reprise his role as Wolverine in
X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Hollywood Reporter. Ian McKellen (Professor Xavier) and Patrick Stewart (Magneto, will also be joining Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Nicholas Hoult.

Charlize Theron will star in an adaptation of the final installment of a South Korean revenge trilogy, the Hollywood Reporter also says. The original movie revolves around a woman wrongfully imprisoned for 13 years who then sets out to seek her long-awaited revenge. Writer William Monahan says the English-language remake will be "very American – and very unexpected."

The made-for-TV Disney channel movie Life-Size is getting a sequel, Variety reports. Tyra Banks will reprise her role as Eve, the doll who comes to life, and also executive produce the movie. No word yet on whether Lindsay Lohan, who played Eve's owner, will be making a return.

Also coming soon:

Beyoncé won't be slowing down after her Super Bowl performance in February. Just a couple weeks later, she'll introduce her still untitled, feature-length documentary on HBO, Deadline reports. The documentary airs Feb. 16.

Bridesmaids' Rose Byrne will be going through the motions as a newlywed in I Give it a Year, Zimbio reports. As if being newly married wasn't tough enough, the "too perfect" ex Anna Faris will be shaking up an already teetering balance.

Cate Blanchett will be stirring up her wicked ways as the evil stepmother in a live-action adaptation of Disney's Cinderella, also according to Zimbio.

And George Clooney is sticking to his winning formula by joining forces with his Argo team to produce an untitled crime drama, Variety reports.

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Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

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Cliff fight may knock out December rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In normal times, next week's slew of U.S. economic data could be a springboard for a December rally in the stock market.


December is historically a strong month for markets. The S&P 500 has risen 16 times in the past 20 years during the month.


But the market hasn't been operating under normal circumstances since November 7 when a day after the U.S. election, investors' focus shifted squarely to the looming "fiscal cliff."


Investors are increasingly nervous about the ability of lawmakers to undo the $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin in January; those changes, if they go into effect, could send the U.S. economy into a recession.


A string of economic indicators next week, which includes a key reading of the manufacturing sector on Monday, culminates with the November jobs report on Friday.


But the impact of those economic reports could be muted. Distortions in the data caused by Superstorm Sandy are discounted.


The spotlight will be more firmly on signs from Washington that politicians can settle their differences on how to avoid the fiscal cliff.


"We have a week with a lot of economic data, and obviously most of the economic data is going to reflect the effects of Sandy, and that might be a little bit negative for the market next week, but most of that is already expected - the main focus remains the fiscal cliff," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.


Concerns about the cliff sent the S&P 500 <.spx> into a two-week decline after the elections, dropping as much as 5.3 percent, only to rally back nearly 4 percent as the initial tone of talks offered hope that a compromise could be reached and investors snapped up stocks that were viewed as undervalued.


On Wednesday, the S&P 500 gained more than 20 points from its intraday low after House Speaker John Boehner said he was optimistic that a budget deal to avoid big spending cuts and tax hikes could be worked out. The next day, more pessimistic comments from Boehner, an Ohio Republican, briefly wiped out the day's gains in stocks.


On Friday, the sharp divide between the Democrats and the Republicans on taxes and spending was evident in comments from President Barack Obama, who favors raising taxes on the wealthy, and Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, who said Obama's plan was the wrong approach and declared that the talks had reached a stalemate.


"It's unusual to end up with one variable in this industry, it's unusual to have a single bullet that is the causal factor effect, and you are sitting here for the next maybe two weeks or more, on that kind of condition," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago.


"And that is what is grabbing the markets."


BE CONTRARY AND MAKE MERRY


But investor attitudes and seasonality could also help spur a rally for the final month of the year.


The most recent survey by the American Association of Individual Investors reflected investor caution about the cliff. Although bullish sentiment rose above 40 percent for the first time since August 23, bearish sentiment remained above its historical average of 30.5 percent for the 14th straight week.


December is a critical month for retailers such as Target Corp and Macy's Inc . They saw monthly retail sales results dented by Sandy, although the start of the holiday shopping season fared better.


With consumer spending making up roughly 70 percent of the U.S. economy, a solid showing for retailers during the holiday season could help fuel any gains.


Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, believes the recent drop after the election could be a market bottom, with sentiment leaving stocks poised for a December rally.


"The concerns on the fiscal cliff - as valid as they might be - could be overblown. When you look at a lot of the overriding sentiment, that has gotten extremely negative," said Detrick.


"From that contrarian point of view with the historically bullish time frame of December, we once again could be setting ourselves up for a pretty nice end-of-year rally, based on lowered expectations."


SOME FEEL THE BIG CHILL


Others view the fiscal cliff as such an unusual event that any historical comparisons should be thrown out the window, with a rally unlikely because of a lack of confidence in Washington to reach an agreement and the economic hit caused by Sandy.


"History doesn't matter. You're dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances that could very well end up in the U.S. economy going into a recession," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York.


"And the likelihood of that is exclusively in the hands of our elected officials in Washington. They could absolutely drag us into a completely voluntary recession."


(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: charles.mikolajczak(at)thomsonreuters.com )


(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)


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