Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.

Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> has gained 5.4 percent this year and closed above 1,500 - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> is 2.2 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007. The Dow ended Friday's session at 13,895.98, its highest close since October 31, 2007.

The S&P has risen for four straight weeks and eight consecutive sessions, the longest streak of days since 2004. On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended at 1,502.96 - its first close above 1,500 in more than five years.

"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, New Jersey. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."

The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is 3.1 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on October 11, 2007.

The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.

That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.

MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS COME BACK

All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

Energy shares <.5sp10> lead the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials <.5sp20>, up 6.3 percent. Telecom <.5sp50>, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.

More than 350 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.

"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts , Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minnesota.

The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index <.spcy> has jumped 6.7 percent and the S&P mid-cap index <.mid> has shot up 7.5 percent so far this year.

Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.

"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.

The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.

JOBS DATA MAY TEST THE RALLY

In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.

Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.

The market's resilience could be tested next week with Friday's release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.

"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Alabama. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."

A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .

On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.

Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.

"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."

For the week, the Dow climbed 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Chinese Officials Fired Over Chongqing Sex Scandal

BEIJING — The young women met the officials for illicit trysts with video cameras hidden in their purses. Every detail of the encounters was recorded. Then a group of men confronted the officials with the video recordings and made demands.

China’s state news media reported on Friday details of a sex extortion ring that brazenly operated “honey traps” in the southwest metropolis of Chongqing for several years. The widening scandal, which first emerged late last year, has led to the dismissals of at least 11 officials of the Communist Party, government or state-owned companies for having sex with women in the ring and then being blackmailed by the men who had set up the snares.

Xi Jinping, China’s new top leader, has vowed to root out official corruption and said this week that “flies,” or relatively low-level bureaucrats, as well as top officials he referred to as “tigers,” must be brought down.

The most famous victim of the sex ring scandal has been Lei Zhengfu, a frog-eyed, middle-aged district party chief who was secretly filmed having sex in a hotel room in 2008 with a young woman. In late November, the leaked video of Mr. Lei began circulating on the Internet and he became the poster boy for a series of low-level or midlevel officials who have been brought down by scandals, often sexual in nature, across the nation. Mr. Lei was removed from his job and placed under investigation soon after the video appeared online. Now, according to Xinhua, the state news agency, 10 other officials have been removed as well for falling prey to the sex ring. Five of them were executives in state-owned companies.

The sex scandal might have come out earlier but Bo Xilai, the Chongqing party chief at the time, and Wang Lijun, his police chief, buried the results of an investigation into the ring. Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang were both felled last year by the fallout from the murder of a British business executive arranged by Mr. Bo’s wife; Mr. Bo is expected to be tried soon on a wide range of criminal charges. While the two scandals are unrelated, the airing of the blackmail ring at this time could reflect a decision by the Chinese leadership to highlight other problems in Chongqing under Mr. Bo’s rule.

The ring’s mastermind was a man named Xiao Ye, according to a report by Southern Metropolis Daily on Wednesday that was cited by Xinhua in its Friday article. Three women were used as bait. The state media reports did not say exactly what the officials gave the men in return for keeping their involvement secret, but one report said that a company run by Mr. Xiao was involved in a real estate development project in the district governed by Mr. Lei.

Mr. Xiao gave the women a list of Chongqing officials whom the women were to contact, Xinhua reported. The women sent text messages to the officials. They would tell the officials they worked for a local real estate company and had met the official at a banquet.

“Hope we can stay in touch a lot,” they wrote. If the officials said they had no memory of the meeting, the women would invoke the name of a chief executive and pretend to be angry that the official had forgotten the woman already. If the official bit, the woman would continue flirting by text or transmit seductive photos of themselves, Xinhua said.

A woman would then meet with the official in an upscale hotel to have tea, coffee or a snack. The official would hand her gifts, such as jewelry. Eventually, when the two were ready to have sex, the woman would make sure to show up at the hotel room with a hidden camera. The official would rarely stay the entire night, but the video caught all the action.

This happened over and over until the video was clear enough, Xinhua reported. Then at a later tryst, several men in the ring would show up while the official and the woman were in the middle of having sex. One of the men would pretend to be the woman’s boyfriend and throw a fit. Behind him would be another man pretending to be a private detective. A third man would then show up and say he was a member of a gang.

They would beat up the official and show him the video. Mr. Xiao entered the scene afterward to work out an agreement with the official and assure him that the video would remain buried, as long as the demands were met.

Of the victims, Mr. Lei was the one who tried to fight back most vigorously, one report said. He assumed the video would eventually come out, and so he went to senior Chongqing officials to explain his plight. Wang Lijun, who was then the police chief of Chongqing, took charge of the case. By 2009, the investigation was done and Mr. Wang and Mr. Bo had the results. But they decided to quash the case or ignored it, and the officials who were found to have been victims of the ring were eventually promoted.

The Xinhua article on Friday said people have been especially surprised that one district party chief in particular, Peng Zhiyong, who holds a doctorate, fell victim to the honey trap.

“He was spoken highly of by the people and enjoyed a reputation for being talented, smart, eloquent and outstanding in all ways,” Xinhua said. In addition, the report said, he “was widely regarded as having enormous political potential.”

Amy Qin contributed research.

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DUST 514, Online Shooter Set in EVE Online Universe, Enters Open Beta

First announced in 2009, CCP Games’ online first-person shooter tie-in to its popular sci-fi MMO, EVE Online, was finally released as an open beta on Tuesday. Called DUST 514, it allows PlayStation 3 owners to play in the same world as EVE Online, fighting ground battles while EVE Online pilots contest star systems. The results of DUST 514 matches affect worlds and in-game corporations in EVE Online, and EVE Online players can even use starship weaponry to bombard the planets DUST 514 matches take place on.

Introducing New Eden

EVE Online and DUST 514 take place in a distant star cluster called New Eden. In a scenario sort of like ” Stargate” meets ” Star Trek: Voyager,” human space explorers found themselves trapped in New Eden, impossibly far from Earth, after using a one-way portal. Many thousands of years later, their descendants have formed completely new nations and ethnicities, and fight each other in space and on the ground over resources or ideology.

The most difficult MMO ever?

Widely regarded as very difficult — a popular infographic depicts EVE’s learning curve as a sheer cliff littered with stick figure bodies — EVE Online is also known for its byzantine politics, which take place completely between players. Player-run alliances sink years into building enormous spacecraft, which can vanish in a single battle or thanks to one person’s treachery.

A study in contrasts

DUST 514 is only available on the PlayStation 3 console, whereas EVE Online is for Windows PCs and Macs. DUST 514 is free to play and has no monthly fee, while EVE costs money to start and up to $ 14.95 per month (although there’s an expensive in-game item which can be used to offset this fee). But perhaps the biggest contrast is the level of commitment required. Instead of managing a whole spacecraft and needing to keep track of where it’s docked, DUST 514 players can just jump into instant battles, and are rewarded with experience and in-game currency each time.

Since the two games were linked together just a few weeks ago, however, EVE Online politics are beginning to affect DUST 514, and groups of players are getting drawn into its conflicts — or being sent by EVE in-game alliances to fight for them.

A work in progress

DUST 514 still bears the “beta” tag, and the end-user license agreement reminds players of this, even pointing out that CCP Games may choose to reset players’ gear and experience points at some time in the future. It has a very limited number of planet environments and only two styles of play, which basically amount to capture the flag and team deathmatch. CCP continues to develop DUST, however, promising that even more content will be available in the future.

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.

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Newark Mayor Cory Booker Comes to Freezing Dog's Aid

People Pets

By Kiran Hefa

01/25/2013 at 12:55 PM EST

Have no fear, Cory Booker is here!

When Eyewitness News reporter Toni Yates spotted several dogs left outside in the cold in Newark, N.J., on Thursday afternoon, she Tweeted at Newark's mayor to let him know.

"Make pet owners get their dogs out of the cold. Saw 2 dogs freezing," Yates wrote – and Booker answered.

Less than four hours later, the mayor was on the scene, arriving with a police escort to help secure the shivering animal.

"This is brutal weather; this dog is shaking really bad and you just can't leave your dogs out here on a day like this," Booker told Eyewitness News. "Hypothermia on any animal including a human animal will set in pretty quickly. So this is very sad."

After loading the dog into a police car to warm it up, Booker contacted the dog's owner, who was reached on the phone and said he had no idea how his pet, named Cha Cha, had managed to get outside, but that he would be there soon to reclaim him.

The mayor's latest act of heroism comes less than a year after he rescued his neighbor from a house fire. Booker had come home to find the house ablaze, and despite protests from his security officers, ran into the home and carried the woman to safety from the second floor.

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Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.

The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.

For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration. But older smokers could face a heavy hit on their household budgets at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses tend to emerge.

Workers covered on the job would be able to avoid tobacco penalties by joining smoking cessation programs, because employer plans operate under different rules. But experts say that option is not guaranteed to smokers trying to purchase coverage individually.

Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don't come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung problems and cancer, contributing to nearly 450,000 deaths a year.

Insurers won't be allowed to charge more under the overhaul for people who are overweight, or have a health condition like a bad back or a heart that skips beats — but they can charge more if a person smokes.

Starting next Jan. 1, the federal health care law will make it possible for people who can't get coverage now to buy private policies, providing tax credits to keep the premiums affordable. Although the law prohibits insurance companies from turning away the sick, the penalties for smokers could have the same effect in many cases, keeping out potentially costly patients.

"We don't want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage," said California state Assemblyman Richard Pan, who is working on a law in his state that would limit insurers' ability to charge smokers more. The federal law allows states to limit or change the smoking penalty.

"We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment," added Pan, a pediatrician who represents the Sacramento area.

Obama administration officials declined to be interviewed for this article, but a former consumer protection regulator for the government is raising questions.

"If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don't want in your pool, the ones you really don't want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years," said Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "You would have the flexibility to discourage them."

Several provisions in the federal health care law work together to leave older smokers with a bleak set of financial options, said Pollitz, formerly deputy director of the Office of Consumer Support in the federal Health and Human Services Department.

First, the law allows insurers to charge older adults up to three times as much as their youngest customers.

Second, the law allows insurers to levy the full 50 percent penalty on older smokers while charging less to younger ones.

And finally, government tax credits that will be available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the cost of penalties for smokers.

Here's how the math would work:

Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama's law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can't be used to offset the penalty, the smoker's total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That's considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

"The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.

In today's world, insurers can simply turn down a smoker. Under Obama's overhaul, would they actually charge the full 50 percent? After all, workplace anti-smoking programs that use penalties usually charge far less, maybe $75 or $100 a month.

Robert Laszewski, a consultant who previously worked in the insurance industry, says there's a good reason to charge the maximum.

"If you don't charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers," said Laszewski. "They are going to have to play defense."

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Online:

Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator — http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

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Earnings lift Wall Street; S&P 500 advances for eighth day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday as strong Procter & Gamble Co's earnings trumped weak housing numbers and helped carry the Standard & Poor's 500 index higher toward its longest winning streak in more than eight years.

Procter & Gamble shares rose 3.9 percent to $73.15 and gave the biggest boost to both the Dow and S&P 500 after the world's top household products maker's quarterly profit soared past expectations. The company also raised its sales and earnings outlook for the fiscal year.

But the stock market's gains were curbed after economic data showed new U.S. single-family home sales fell in December, although expectations for a continued housing sector recovery remain intact. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> edged up 0.15 percent.

Apple Inc dropped 2.1 percent to $441.24. The stock of the iPhone maker has dropped more than 17 percent since the start of the year on growth concerns. Friday's decline knocked the tech giant from its perch as the most valuable U.S. company, making it No. 2 after ExxonMobil Corp .

Helping to lift the Nasdaq index, Starbucks Corp , rose 4.3 percent to $56.94 after the coffee retailer reported stronger-than-expected sales in the United States and Asia.

The benchmark S&P 500 index is up 5.2 percent so far in January. The equity market's strong start this year has been attributed to solid corporate results, an agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power, encouraging signs from the global economy and seasonal inflows into stocks.

Those factors helped the S&P 500 rally for a seventh day on Thursday to reach a five-year peak. But the index has struggled to convincingly climb above 1,500, a level it surpassed briefly on Thursday for the first time since December 2007.

"It looks like we are encountering a little short-term resistance. The market always likes whole numbers and 1,500 seems like as good as any," said Doug Foreman, co-chief investment officer at Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management in Los Angeles.

"The earnings are coming in pretty good overall. Expectations had been pretty low for the quarter given the 'fiscal cliff' concerns, etc., so some of the stocks are acting pretty well even with numbers that are a little bit better than people had feared."

If the S&P 500 rises for an eighth day on Friday, it will be its longest winning streak since late 2004, when it rallied for nine straight days.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 55.58 points, or 0.40 percent, to 13,880.91. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> climbed 5.81 points, or 0.39 percent, to 1,500.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 14.49 points, or 0.46 percent, to 3,144.88.

Honeywell International Inc posted fourth-quarter earnings just above Wall Street's estimates, reflecting the diversified U.S. manufacturer's campaign to boost profit margins in the face of sluggish sales growth. Honeywell's stock edged up 0.1 percent to $68.33.

The initial portion of earnings season has been encouraging relative to recent expectations. Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings growth is on track for a 2.9 percent rise, up from the forecast of a 1.9 percent gain at the start of the earnings season but well below the 9.9 percent increase in an October 1 forecast.

Thomson Reuters data through Friday showed that of the 147 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings, 68 percent exceeded expectations. Since 1994, 62 percent of companies have topped expectations, while the average over the past four quarters stands at 65 percent.

Halliburton Co shares jumped 5.1 percent to $39.72 after the world's second-largest oilfield services company reported higher-than-expected earnings and sales for the fourth quarter. Strong international drilling activity offset a slowdown in onshore North America work, Halliburton said.

(Editing by Jan Paschal and Kenneth Barry)

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American Mumbai Plotter Sentenced to 35 Years

CHICAGO (AP) — An American drug dealer who had faced life in prison was sentenced instead to 35 years Thursday for helping plan the deadly 2008 attacks on Mumbai, India — a punishment prosecutors said reflected his broad cooperation with U.S. investigators but that a victim's family member called "an appalling dishonor."

It was David Coleman Headley's meticulous scouting missions that facilitated the assault by 10 gunmen from a Pakistani-based militant group on multiple targets in Mumbai, including the landmark Taj Mahal Hotel. TV cameras captured much of the three-day rampage often called India's 9/11. More than 160 people, including children, were killed.

Glimpses of the horror came through the teary testimony of one of the victims who described the gory scene as she huddled under a restaurant table with her friends as gunmen sprayed the room with bullets, then walked around executing men, women and children one by one. Her own clothes soaked with blood.

"I know what a bullet can do to every part of the human body," said Linda Ragsdale, a Tennessee children's author, who was shot. "I know the sound of life leaving a 13-year-old child. These are things I never needed to know, never needed to experience."

Headley faced life in prison, and at 52 years old, even a 35-year term could mean he'll never walk free. But federal prosecutors had asked for a more lenient 30 to 35 years, citing his extraordinary cooperation including as the government's star witness at the 2011 trial of a Chicago businessman convicted in a failed attack on a Danish newspaper.

Former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald spoke in court calling Headley's cooperation within 30 minutes of his 2009 arrest "unusual".

However, Ragsdale and other victims called the 35 years unjust for the severity of the violence.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber said he considered the cooperation in imposing his sentence even though "the damage that was done was unfathomable." He cited a letter from Headley who vowed that he was a changed man, but Leinenweber said he didn't buy it.

"I don't have any faith in Mr. Headley when he says he's a changed person and believes in the American way of life," he said.

Headley, who did not address the court, showed no emotion when the sentence was announced. Security was tight at the packed hearing; dogs were walked through the lines of people waiting to get into the courtroom.

Prosecutors say Headley, who was born in the U.S. to a Pakistani father and American mother, was motivated in part by his hatred of India going back to his childhood. He changed his birth name from Daood Gilani in 2006 so he could travel to and from India more easily to do reconnaissance without raising suspicions.

He never pulled a trigger in the attack, but his contribution to the Pakistani-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, made the assault more deadly. He conducted meticulous scouting missions — videotaping and mapping targets — so the attackers who had never been to Mumbai adeptly found their way around.

One woman whose husband and daughter were killed in the attack said a lighter sentence would be "an appalling dishonor" to those killed.

"I feel that for the magnitude of the killings that took place, David Headley has lost his right to live as a free man," said Kia Scherr, who is currently in Mumbai. "This would be a moral outrage that is inexcusable."

Prosecutors also have praised Headley for testifying against Tahawwur Rana, the Chicago businessman convicted of providing aid to Lashkar and backing a failed plot to attack a Danish newspaper for publishing depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. Rana, sentenced last week to 14 years in prison, claimed his friend Headley duped him.

Testifying at Rana's trial in 2011, Headley spoke in a monotone voice, seemingly detached, even as he described one proposal for the never-carried-out Danish plot to behead newspaper staff and throw their heads onto a street.

In video excerpts of his interviews with the FBI after his arrest, Headley appears flippant, cool and calculating.

Prosecutors have recounted only in broad terms how Headley has shed light on the leadership, structure and possible targets of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was believed to have ties to the Pakistani intelligence agency known as ISI. Headley has said his ISI contact was a "Major Iqbal," who was named in the indictment that charged Headley.

The attackers arrived by boat on Nov. 26, 2008, carrying grenades and automatic weapons, and fanned out to hit multiple targets, crowded train station, a Jewish center and the hotel.

The attack heightened the strain in a historically antagonistic relationship between India and Pakistan, which have fought three major wars. Indian officials accuse Pakistani intelligence of helping to plan the assault — an allegation Pakistan denies.

For his cooperation and guilty plea, Headley secured both a promise that he would not face the death penalty and would not be extradited to India. Late last year, India secretly hanged the lone gunman who survived the Mumbai attack, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab.

The 12 counts Headley pleaded guilty to included conspiracy to commit murder in India and aiding and abetting in the murder of six Americans, who included Americans Alan Scherr and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi.

The Scherr family members were in India for a two-week spiritual retreat and were staying at the Oberoi Trident Hotel, one of the sites that came under assault.

After the attack, Scherr helped start an organization called the One Life Alliance, which seeks to work against terrorism by promoting understanding and respect for the sacredness of life.

"This is how I am surviving this event, which erased life as I knew it," she wrote in an email from Mumbai, where she continues to travel to for charity work.

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Kristen Bell's Birth Plan Involves Whiskey and a Baseball Bat

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

01/24/2013 at 11:00 AM ET

Kristen Bell is very much looking forward to childbirth — and all the drugs, alcohol and violence that go with it.

“I’ve got nothing to prove,” the House of Lies actress, 32, jokes about her birth plan — and whether she’ll go natural — in an interview airing Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

“I feel like when I arrive at the hospital, I want a glass of whiskey, I want the epidural in my back. And I want to get hit in the face with a baseball bat and wake me up when it’s over, because I’ve seen the videos and it looks terrifying.”

When the child does finally emerge, he or she will already have a favorite hobby: off-roading with dad Dax Shepard.

“He is [excited],” Bell says of her Parenthood actor fiancé. “In different ways than I am. He’s just thinking about all the off-roading he’ll have in this tiny partner.”

Michael Rozman

DeGeneres said that sounds like she’s having a boy but Bell wouldn’t confirm that, although she does know the sex of the baby, due in late spring.

“Do you have to be a boy off-road? Absolutely not,” she says. “I think he’s going to force [the baby], even if it’s a sloth, to off-road.”

As she mentioned a year ago on Ellen, Bell is actually quite obsessed with sloths. So this time, DeGeneres surprised her with a real sloth — named Lola.

– Tim Nudd

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CDC: New version of stomach bug causing US illness

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say a new strain of stomach bug that's sweeping the globe is taking over in the U.S.

In the last four months, more than 140 outbreaks in the U.S. have been caused by the new Sydney strain of norovirus. These kinds of contagious bugs cause bouts of diarrhea and vomiting.

The new strain may not be unusually dangerous; some scientists don't think it is. But it is different, and many people might not be able to fight off its gut-wrenching effects.

It often spreads in places like schools, cruise ships and nursing homes. The new strain was blamed for a recent outbreak on the Queen Mary 2.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on the new strain Thursday.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Wall Street edges up in face of Apple decline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 advanced on Thursday, with the benchmark S&P index on track for its first seven-day streak of gains in over six years as solid economic data managed to outweigh a steep decline in Apple shares.

Apple Inc dropped 10.4 percent to $460.69 after the technology giant missed Wall Street's revenue forecast for a third straight quarter as iPhone sales were poorer than expected, lending credence to recent concerns its days as the dominant player in consumer electronics may be on the wane.

The drop wiped out roughly $50 billion in Apple's market capitalization to $432 billion, leaving the company vulnerable to losing its status as the most valuable U.S. company to second place ExxonMobil Corp, at $417 billion.

A trio of economic reports helped buoy the market, with data showing a decline in weekly jobless claims and an increase in manufacturing, while a gauge of future economic activity climbed.

"The claims numbers are clearly a big surprise and were very good numbers - they imply we may have a good employment number for the month of January," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, New York.

"You have Apple and technology on the one side and the rest of the market on the other side."

The gains marked the first time the S&P 500 had risen above 1,500 since December 12, 2007 and put the index on pace for its seventh straight advance, its longest streak since October 2006.

The advance for the S&P, and muted declines in the Nasdaq in spite of the decline in Apple, were viewed as a positive sign, as investors take encouragement from an improving global economy and move into stocks more closely tied to economic fortunes, such as industrials.

General Electric rose 0.5 percent to $22.06 and United Parcel Service gained 2.4 percent to $82.30. Of the 10 major S&P sectors, only technology, off 1.5 percent, was lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 58.82 points, or 0.43 percent, to 13,838.15. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 1.78 points, or 0.12 percent, to 1,496.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 14.25 points, or 0.45 percent, to 3,139.42.

The domestic data meshed with those overseas showing growth in Chinese manufacturing accelerated to a two-year high this month and a buoyant Germany took the euro zone economy a step closer to recovery.

Apple's disappointing results drew a round of price-target cuts from brokerages. At least 14 brokerages, including Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, cut their price target on the stock by $142 on average. Morgan Stanley removed the stock from its 'best ideas' list.

In contrast to Apple, Netflix Inc surprised Wall Street Wednesday with a quarterly profit after the video subscription service added nearly 4 million customers in the U.S. and abroad. Shares surged 37.6 percent to $142.10, its biggest percentage jump ever.

Diversified U.S. manufacturer 3M Co reported a 3.9 percent rise in profit, meeting expectations, on solid growth in sales of its wide array of products, which range from Post-It notes to films used in television screens. The shares slipped 0.2 percent to $99.28.

Corporate earnings have helped drive the recent stock market rally. Thomson Reuters data through early Thursday showed that of the 133 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings, 66.9 percent have exceeded expectations, above the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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