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Monday, March 11, 2013

Stocks creep higher after record week

NEW YORK (AP) ? The stock market crept higher Monday, and the Dow Jones industrial average was on track for its seventh straight day of gains.

The Dow rose 34 points to 14,432, an increase of 0.2 percent. The blue-chip index blew past its all-time high last Tuesday, then kept climbing to end the week up 2 percent.

Boeing was the Dow's top stock on Monday, rising nearly 2 percent. A Boeing executive reportedly said he's confident the aircraft maker has figured out a fix for the battery problems that have grounded the 787 Dreamliner.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up four points, or 0.28 percent, to 1,555. The S&P 500 index, the most popular market measure for investment funds, is 10 points from its all-time closing high of 1,565 from October 2007.

Nine of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 rose, led by financial companies. That's a sign many investors believe the market and economy are on solid footing, said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial. When the economy picks up, financial firms and companies in other cyclical industries tend to lead in gains.

For the year, the Dow is up 10 percent and the S&P 500 up 9 percent.

The stock market's fast start has prompted some analysts to worry that the rally could quickly fizzle out. Although recent economic reports have painted a better picture, the U.S. economy is still in low gear, expanding at an annual rate of just 0.1 percent in the final three months of 2012. And Europe remains in a recession.

In other trading on Monday, the Nasdaq composite rose six points to 3,243.

In the Treasury market, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note edged up to 2.05 percent, up from 2.04 percent late Friday.

The 10-year Treasury yield began the year around 1.70 percent and has climbed steadily higher since then as worries about a recession have eased. Traders have shifted money out of the Treasury market, lifting yields up.

There were no major economic reports to drive trading on Monday. Later in the week, the government will release figures for the federal budget in February, as well as reports on consumer prices and industrial production

On Friday, the Labor Department said that U.S. employers added 236,000 workers to their payrolls in February, pushing the unemployment rate down to 7.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008.

Among other companies making moves Monday:

? Dick's Sporting Goods sank 9 percent to $45.90, after the retailer posted slightly weaker earnings and revenue than analysts had expected. The Pittsburgh-based company said it responded to a warm December by cutting its inventory of cold-weather clothes. But that move likely hampered sales when temperatures dropped in January.

? News that billionaire investor Carl Icahn will get access to Dell's financial records lifted shares in the computer maker. Icahn is fighting Michael Dell's plan to take the struggling company private for $24 billion, claiming the purchase price is too low. Dell's stock rose 1 percent to $14.33.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-creep-higher-record-week-190215215--finance.html

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Internet porn means birds 'n' bees talk comes earlier, says expert

Internet

Helen A.S. Popkin NBCNews.com

8 hours ago

Featurepics.com

A boy works on a laptop.

A father recently sat down to have "the talk" with his 10-year-old son. After he got through the basics on the birds and the bees, the boy asked, "Why do men wear masks when they're having sex?"

Though the father said he had parental controls engaged on his iPad, the son managed to find a fetish site depicting men in masks.

As the anecdote told by sex educator Cindy Gallop so plainly illustrates, kids look at porn. Kids look at porn on the Internet. And yes, let's go further: Your kids look at porn on the Internet. Gross? Probably, yes. But it's reality.

Keeping your kids from Internet porn is practically impossible, experts agree. Whether kids under 18 deliberately searched out sexually explicit sites, or stumbled upon them accidentally, approximately 40 percent see Internet porn every year, the study found. And yes, all that exposure does leave a mark: "Although research is scarce, investigators see links between young people who access Web porn and unhealthy attitudes toward sex," the American Psychological Association noted in 2007.

But parents don't have to be powerless. Explaining to your kids that difference between pornography and what goes on between consenting adults in real life is key, say some sex educators. You won't want to do it. Your kid won't want to hear it. And unfortunately, because of the Internet, that conversation has to come sooner rather than later. But it may make all the difference to kids when they're grown.

"This is not because 8-year-olds go looking for porn, it's a function of what they're shown on someone's cellphone on the playground, what happens when they go out to the neighbor's house," said Gallop, a fervent proponent of reality-based sex education. Preparing kids for a healthy sex life as adults was part of her message Saturday at "The Future of Porn" talk at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin.

Gallop is CEO and founder of Make Love Not Porn, a website dedicated to correcting sexual misconceptions picked up by viewers of professional for-profit pornography. The Internet venture does this, in part, by curating videos of "real sex" uploaded to the platform by "real people" ? not "porn stars." (Obviously, the video portion of the website is for adults only.) But as Gallop emphasized, the misconceptions picked up through pornography can start at a very young age.

"It doesn't matter what parental controls you put in place, kids live their lives in other places ... or an 8-year-old does something really cute and innocent. They discover a new naughty word and they Google it." Next thing you know, Gallop pointed out, that curious boy or girl is one or two clicks away from something he or she is too young to understand.

The exposure may result in relationships that lack scope and communication. "Too many young people start their sexual careers attempting to duplicate porn, not realizing that this model lacks so much," noted sex educator and author Dr. Marty Klein recently wrote in the Huffington Post.

"With valuable face-to-face communication increasingly replaced by brief digital syllables ... young adults' ability to simply talk about what goes on in bed ... is lagging further and further behind the needs of their sexual encounters ? whether hookup or more intimate."

Kids don't want to hear a lot of things. They don't want to hear that they shouldn't drive too fast or date the mean hot person or eat fast food all the time. But if the Internet is going to put your kids in the path of a virtual tsunami of porn, the least you can do is warn them about it.

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitterand/or Facebook.

Source: http://www.today.com/tech/internet-porn-means-birds-n-bees-talk-comes-earlier-says-1C8793602

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Jeb Bush: I'm 'in Sync' With Lindsey Graham on Immigration Reform

During an interview for "This Week," former Florida governor Jeb Bush told me that he was "in sync" with South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on the issue of immigration reform.

Graham, a key member of the bipartisan group of senators pushing for immigration reform, took Bush to task after the former Florida governor said Monday that he did not support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, which is a key component of the plan being pushed by the Senate group. Bush subsequently reversed course and said he could in fact support a plan that included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already living in the United States.

"Senator Graham and I talked. He was responding to concerns that were expressed before the book was actually published," Bush said. "I told him that I support his efforts and I applaud what he's doing. And he concluded, after he heard what the thesis of the book is that we're in sync. We're on the same - on the same path."

"The basic premise needs to be that coming to the country legally should be easier with less cost than coming to the country illegally. And if you can create a system like that as is being discussed in the Senate and in the House- through a path to citizenship, that's fine," Bush said. "But my guess is that will take a long, long time to achieve. In the interim, it's important to take people out from the shadows to allow them to have- the dignity of being- having legal status."

Florida governor Jeb Bush told me that he was "very encouraged" about the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform - a legislative achievement that has eluded lawmakers for more than a decade - becoming law by the end of the year.

"I'm very encouraged. There are some big sticking points about how do you deal with making sure that there's enough seasonal workers, temporary worker programs that have been quite successful in the past," Bush said. "There's a lot of work being done, really good work, courageous work, 'cause this is complex and may not be popular, but I think it's- it is possible that comprehensive reform can be done."

Turning to President Obama's new effort to reach out to his colleagues on right - which included inviting the GOP's 2012 vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to lunch - Bush complimented the president, comparing his actions to those of Ronald Reagan, an icon of the Republican Party.

"I'm very encouraged by the fact the president is trying to restore some personal connection with policymakers in Congress. I'm at the Reagan Library today and that's kind of what Ronald Reagan did. He didn't scorn his adversaries, he embraced them and got a lot done," Bush said. "This is very positive in my mind. It makes it harder to reach agreement when there's not trust. It's just human nature. And so this is maybe a good, positive first step."

Bush qualified his praise for the president, tweaking him for a lack of "seriousness" when it came to the president's efforts to reach a deal to reduce the national debt and specifically his willingness to embrace entitlement reform as part of a potential bargain with Republicans.

"I haven't seen the seriousness of the president's efforts. I'd love to see a specific plan that really did reform- bend the cost curve for Medicare and the entitlement system. I haven't seen it, so if there is through these talks, some kind of consensus that emerged, I don't think you should say, 'no, no, no' about anything'" Bush said.

"Frankly, there was already been one of the largest tax increases in American history a month ago. And frankly, we ought to be focused on sustained economic growth, which grows more revenue for people and for government than any tax increase that's been suggested, so there are a lot of things that could be done to create a real grand bargain. And let the process work. I'm hopeful that the president's sincere about this," Bush said.

Bush also insisted during out conversation that he is not positioning himself for a 2016 presidential run as he promotes his new book "Immigration Wars," even as speculation grows that he aims to be the third member of the Bush family to occupy the oval office.

"I'm not viewing this as a political reentry either. I just don't view it that way," Bush said. "Everything's viewed with a political lens in Washington and that's just the nature of the beast and it is what it is."

Finally Bush gave me an update on the health of his father, 88-year-old former president George H.W. Bush, who was released from the hospital earlier this year after a lengthy stay.

"He's doing better. You know, he's got his spectacular chief caregiver, Barbara Bush, taking care of him and he's regaining his strength day by day. And he's out more," Bush said. "He was at the University of Texas, A&M, at the Bush School- twice in the last two weeks, so- we're excited that he seems to be making great progress."

Like "This Week" on Facebook here . You can also follow the show on Twitter here .

Go here to find out when "This Week" is on in your area.

Heavy snow blankets Rocky Mountains

Brennan Linsley / AP

A man walk struggles to walk as blizzard conditions set in at the U.S. Air Force Academy, in southern Colorado on Saturday.

By F. Brinley Bruton, Staff Writer, NBC News

A powerful storm dumped snow on the Rocky Mountains on Sunday, after having forced the?cancellation?of hundreds of flights and the?postponement?of a Major League Soccer game.?

Winter Storm Triton was moving east across the Plains into the Midwest, and blizzard conditions were possible?in parts of Nebraska and northwest Kansas,?The Weather Channel reported.

Forecasters also said that parts of the region could expect wind gusts of up to 50-miles-an-hour and white out conditions.?

Snow pounded Denver, Colo., Saturday, falling at more than an inch per hour at times. Nearly 500 flights out of Denver International Airport had to be canceled. The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.

Triton dumped up to 10 inches of heavy, wet snow in?the Denver metropolitan area, The Weather Channel reported.

According to Reuters, more than 500 flights in and out of Denver International Airport were canceled on Saturday.?

"Many of the canceled flights are commuter flights that go to mountain towns," airport spokesman Heath Montgomery told Reuters, adding that the facility remained open.

Related:?How deep is it? Show us your snow photos #nbcnewspics

Looking ahead, passengers could expect delays of up to 30 minutes as crews de-iced departing aircraft, he said, according to Reuters.?

The Colorado Rapids postponed their Major League Soccer game against the Philadelphia Union until Sunday, the team said on its website.?

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/10/17257054-heavy-snow-blankets-colorado-prompts-flight-cancellations?lite

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Jeb Bush Calls Media 'Crack Addicts' for Politics

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called the media "crack addicts" Sunday after he was asked who is more likely to end up in the White House one day - him or Sen. Marco Rubio, his fellow Floridian for whom Bush served as political mentor.

"Man, you guys are crack addicts. You really are obsessed with all this politics. Marco Rubio's a great guy," Bush said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"You know, I've been called a lot of things," host David Gregory said.

"OK, heroin addict. Is that better?" Bush said. "Put aside the politics for a moment. We've got big challenges, and Marco Rubio, to his credit, is working on those. And he deserves a lot of credit for it, and I'm very proud of him."

The relationship between Bush and Rubio came to the spotlight earlier this week after the former Florida governor released a book that did not support a path to citizenship in immigration reform - a point Rubio is promoting in his Gang of 8 proposal. One day later, Bush changed direction and said he would endorse a path to citizenship.

Bush later pointed out Rubio did not support the measure when he was writing the book.

"When we were working on this, Marco Rubio wasn't for a path to citizenship," Bush told the Washington Post.

In an interview with Time Magazine last month, Rubio said his conversation with Bush regarding immigration reform while the former governor was writing the book amounted to a text message.

Bush told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Sunday that he is "in sync" with the bipartisan group of senators on immigration reform.

"Senator [Lindsey] Graham and I talked. He was responding to concerns that were expressed before the book was actually published," Bush said ABC News' "This Week." "I told him that I support his efforts and I applaud what he's doing. And he concluded, after he heard what the thesis of the book is, that we're in sync. We're on the same - on the same path."

Reporter faces life's toughest deadline with book

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? All the time-stamped rigors of daily journalism are behind her, but the pace of Susan Spencer-Wendel's life has only been hastened. She is dying. And dealt a diagnosis she knows she can't beat, the race is on to finish.

Her greatest story. Her toughest assignment. Her final deadline.

Spencer-Wendel's job as a court reporter at The Palm Beach Post made her a local fixture, reporting on everything from the 2000 recount to Rush Limbaugh's legal woes. But what was once a constant rush to be first with her courthouse scoops has become a dash to live her remaining days joyfully, complete a long goodbye to those she loves, and record it all in a book that has drummed huge interest and multimillion-dollar book and movie deals. The clock ticks forward as her body is betrayed by Lou Gehrig's disease and yet so much is left to do. Her life has been full of happiness and she sees no reason her last days should be much different.

"Life is full of chapters," she says, knowing full well this is her last.

___

Spencer-Wendel was on auto-pilot, locked in a time-worn routine of breaking news at the Post and "navigating the daily dance of sibling warfare" at home with her three children. That day in 2009 was just like every other, until she undressed for bed and noticed her left hand, scrawny and pale, starkly different from her right.

"You need to go to the doctor," her husband, John Wendel said.

She went through a year of medical appointments and tests and a subsequent year of denial. She sunk into depression and contemplated suicide. When the verdict was finally delivered, there was no surprise.

On the way back from the neurologist, she waited outside when her husband stopped in Burger King for a bite. And reflecting on the news she received, she was overcome with a strange feeling of gratitude, for the 44 years she had lived with nary a health problem to speak of, for the career, the family, the travels, for all she'd been blessed with. Before long, a roadmap was in place for her remaining time.

She would travel the places she wanted to go, surround herself with the people she loved, prepare her family for what's to come. She would live. Joyfully.

She went to California to find her birth mother; to New York, where her teenage daughter tried on wedding dresses for a glimpse of a day they'll never share; to Budapest, where she and her husband retraced footsteps of an earlier life; to the Yukon, in a vain attempt to see the Northern Lights with her lifelong best friend; to the Caribbean, to Cyprus, and on and on.

Along the way, she wrote stories about two of her trips for the Post that were so heartbreakingly recorded they caught the eye of HarperCollins, which gave her a $2.3 million deal, and Universal Pictures, which followed with a seven-figure offer of its own. She sprinted to continue her travels and to put them in writing, tapping out the vast majority of her book, "Until I Say Goodbye," on her iPhone using just her right thumb.

She believes it is the best thing she has ever written, this narrative in which her travels are documented alongside her own decline. Now 46, the woman who rushed to hearings and banged out stories in a flash no longer can walk or swallow a pill. But she offers a manuscript as likely to tug at the funny bone as the tear ducts.

"I did not want to write a maudlin book," she says in an interview, "I wanted people to laugh."

It is tinted by her life in journalism, easy-to-digest chapters with simple language, each of them like standalone stories buttressed by engaging starts and even stronger finishes. It was a conscious effort on her part, and that of her co-author Bret Witter, to focus so intently on each story's ending. And she's quick to see the parallels in her own life, her own search for a powerful ending.

As that day draws closer, she's comforted by the way her son Aubrey notices the sky's brushstrokes as the sun goes down, how Wesley talks of being a dolphin trainer and Marina dreams of living in New York. She thinks about her husband John and prays he finds love again, that he loses not a moment to guilt. She laughs and reads and writes. She lives the best she can, hoping to impart lessons with her parting choices.

"I am not gone," she writes. "I have today. I have more to give. I know the end is coming but do not despair."

___

Spencer-Wendel's body has withered and weakened. She must rely on her husband to do nearly everything for her, from lifting a Parliament to her lips for a drag to folding her hands on her lap and fixing her hair. As the book's March 12 release approached, though, her appearance was most notable for the wide smile she wore and the peace that she radiates.

She relaxes this average Tuesday afternoon, watching "Law & Order" in her den, enjoying a lick from her new French bulldog and laughing with glee when her sister pays a visit. The book is done, the travels are over, but Spencer-Wendel has found a measure of solace as her life draws to a close. Most ALS patients die within three to five years of diagnosis. She knows her days are few.

Though there are new challenges each day, Spencer-Wendel has also found new joy. Eating and swallowing keep getting harder, but she's thrilled by the interest in her book, by the new articles and clippings that keep arriving in her mailbox. Her voice becomes more and more garbled, yet she relishes the time her and her husband share even though it is her illness that forced him to quit his job. She constantly looks on the bright side.

"I listen often to one of my favorite rock songs, guitarist Eric Johnson's 'Cliffs of Dover,'" she recalled by email. "And I think 'Thank God I was not a guitarist!' I watch ballet and think 'Thank God I wasn't a dancer.'"

She tries not to wish for the things she knows she can't have. She tries not to wish for a cure.

She is comforted by the windfall her book has brought, the financial freedom it will bring to those around her. But she must prepare her children for what's next, must say everything that's left to be said. Some of it, she hopes has been communicated through her writing and her philosophies and her outlook.

To accept what comes. To relish the journey. To see fear as a waste of energy.

More than anything else, she wants to leave her family so well situated that they will thrive as much after the day comes as before. That they will live. Joyfully.

___

Follow Matt Sedensky on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sedensky.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reporter-faces-lifes-toughest-deadline-book-142718969.html

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Queen Elizabeth to Sign Commonwealth Charter Promoting Gay ...

Monday, on live television, Queen Elizabeth will sign a new Commonwealth Charter ?designed to stamp out discrimination against homosexual people and promote the ?empowerment? of women ? a key part of a new drive to boost human rights and living standards across the Commonwealth,? the Daily Mail reports.

Insiders say her decision to highlight the event is a ?watershed? moment ? the first time she has clearly signalled her support for gay rights in her 61-year reign.

The charter, dubbed a ?21st Century Commonwealth Magna Carta? declares: ?We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds.?

The ?other grounds? is intended to refer to sexuality ? but specific reference to ?gays and lesbians? was omitted in deference to Commonwealth countries with draconian anti-gay laws.

The potential reach of the Charter is vast. The Commonwealth of Nations, formerly known as the British Commonwealth, consists of 54 independent sovereign states (see map, right).? Daily Mail:

Homosexual acts are still illegal in 41 of the Commonwealth?s 54 nations. Penalties include the death sentence in parts of Nigeria and Pakistan; 25 years jail in Trinidad and Tobago; 20 years plus flogging in Malaysia; and life imprisonment in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh and Guyana.

Same-sex relationships are recognised in only five Commonwealth countries: UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

?

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay and lesbian rights group Stonewall, said the Queen ? who he called ?a feminist icon? ? had taken ?an historic step forward? on gay rights. He said: ?This is the first time that the Queen has publicly acknowledged the importance of the six per cent of her subjects who are gay. Some of the worst persecution of gay people in the world takes place in Commonwealth countries as a result of the British Empire.?

On Feb. 5 the House of Commons overwhelmingly approved the equal marriage bill by a vote of 400 to 175.? Expectations are that the bill will receive its final vote of approval from the Commons as early as this week, after which it will be sent to the House of Lords.

Update: Read The Commonwealth?s press release here.? The Charter of the Commonwealth, which Queen Elizabeth will be signing, can be read here.

Source: http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2013/03/09/queen-elizabeth-to-sign-commonwealth-charter-promoting-gay-rights-and-gender-equality/

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