"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.

Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.

That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.

Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.

In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.

"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.

Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.

U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.

Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.

"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.

REVENUE WORRIES

One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.

S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.

On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.

For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.

Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.

In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.

"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.

Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.

Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Plane Carrying Vittorio Missoni Lost Near Venezuela

MILAN — The Italian fashion designer Vittorio Missoni, the head of the prominent fashion house, was aboard a small plane that has disappeared off the coast of Venezuela, a company spokeswoman said on Saturday.

“The Missoni family has been informed by the Venezuelan Consulate that Vittorio Missoni and his wife are missing, but we don’t know any more,” the spokeswoman, Maddalena Aspes, said. “The authorities will resume their search for the plane in the morning.”

Italian media reported that the plane went missing on Friday morning after takeoff from the resort of Los Roques, an island off the coast of Venezuela. Also reported to have been aboard the plane with Mr. Missoni, 58, and his wife, Maurizia Castiglioni, were another couple and two Venezuelan crew members.

Mr. Missoni is the son of the founders of the family owned fashion house famous for its exuberantly colored knits, featuring bold stripes and zigzags. He owned the business with two siblings, Luca and Angela.

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Cricketer Herath alive and bowling despite death rumors

SYDNEY (Reuters) – As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath which spread like wildfire across social media late on Friday proved to be greatly exaggerated.

Far from lying in a Sydney morgue alongside former test bowler Chaminda Vaas after perishing in a car crash as the reports had suggested, Herath was very much alive when he pitched up for work at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday.

The most prolific wicket-taker in test cricket last year, the 34-year-old leg spinner claimed two Australian wickets to seal a haul of four for 95 and then contributed nine runs with the bat.

Team mate Dimuth Karunaratne told reporters at the conclusion of the day’s play that the team had been dumbfounded by the rumors.

“I heard about it when we having breakfast but I had no idea where that came from,” he said with a laugh.

“Guys from Sri Lanka were calling us asking ‘when is the funeral?’ and stuff like that.

“Rangana is alive,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

Herath’s efforts were not enough to prevent Australia taking an iron grip on the third test match on Saturday and move to the brink of a 3-0 series sweep.

That could all change, however, if he and Dinesh Chandimal, who finished the third day unbeaten on 22, are able to dig in on Sunday, inflate their lead beyond the current 87 and give Sri Lanka a decent target to bowl at.

The Sydney track has traditionally offered a lot of turn for spinners in the last couple of days of a test and, as Herath’s 60 wickets last year showed, there are few better spinners operating in test cricket at the moment.

“The wicket is turning a lot now and the Aussie guys are playing the fourth innings, so I think Rangana… can do something,” said Karunaratne.

Vaas has no position with the test team and remains, also unharmed, in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan reporters said.

(Editing by John O’Brien)

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Kelly Clarkson: 'I've Never Been Truly Loved' Until Now

By Aaron Parsley

01/04/2013 at 09:45 AM EST

As she prepares to walk down the aisle, Kelly Clarkson has no doubts about her groom-to-be, Nashville-based talent manager Brandon Blackstock.

"Brandon's totally the one," Clarkson, 30, tells Cosmopolitan for its February issue. "I've never been so happy."

After dating for a year, Blackstock, whose father Narvel Blackstock is Clarkson's manager (and Reba McEntire's husband), popped the question in December on what she called the "happiest night of my life."

But romance was a long time coming for the pair.

Julianne Hough covers the February issue of Cosmopolitan

Courtesy Cosmopolitan

"We've known each other for years, but we didn't start talking until the Super Bowl last February," Clarkson says in the issue, which hits newsstands Tuesday.

Though she's thrilled to be engaged, Clarkson wasn't sure when they first went out together. "This is the funniest/worst thing ever: One of my superhero idols is Whitney Houston, and the day she died was our first date," she says. "I was like 'This is a bad omen.' "

That turned out not to be true, but it seems that one thing is: love is worth waiting for: "Six years I was single before this," Clarkson says. "I've never been truly loved like I am right now."

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Indian court to rule on generic drug industry

NEW DELHI (AP) — From Africa's crowded AIDS clinics to the malarial jungles of Southeast Asia, the lives of millions of ill people in the developing world are hanging in the balance ahead of a legal ruling that will determine whether India's drug companies can continue to provide cheap versions of many life-saving medicines.

The case — involving Swiss drug maker Novartis AG's cancer drug Glivec — pits aid groups that argue India plays a vital role as the pharmacy to the poor against drug companies that insist they need strong patents to make drug development profitable. A ruling by India's Supreme Court is expected in early 2013.

"The implications of this case reach far beyond India, and far beyond this particular cancer drug," said Leena Menghaney, from the aid group Doctors Without Borders. "Across the world, there is a heavy dependence on India to supply affordable versions of expensive patented medicines."

With no costs for developing new drugs or conducting expensive trials, India's $26 billion generics industry is able to sell medicine for as little as one-tenth the price of the companies that developed them, making India the second-largest source of medicines distributed by UNICEF in its global programs.

Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Cipla, Cadila Laboratories and Lupin have emerged over the past decade as major sources of generic cancer, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS drugs for poor countries that can't afford to pay Western prices.

The 6-year-old case that just wrapped up in the Supreme Court revolves around a legal provision in India's 2005 patent law that is aimed at preventing companies from getting fresh patents for making only minor changes to existing medicines — a practice known as "evergreening."

Novartis' argued that a new version of Glivec — marketed in the U.S. as Gleevec — was a significant change from the earlier version because it was more easily absorbed by the body.

India's Patent Controller turned down the application, saying the change was an obvious development, and the new medicine was not sufficiently distinct from the earlier version to warrant a patent extension.

Patient advocacy groups hailed the decision as a blow to "evergreening."

But Western companies argued that India's generic manufacturers were cutting the incentive for major drug makers to invest in research and innovation if they were not going to be able to reap the exclusive profits that patents bring.

"This case is about safeguarding incentives for better medicines so that patients' needs will be met in the future," says Eric Althoff, a Novartis spokesman.

International drug companies have accused India of disregarding intellectual property rights, and have pushed for stronger patent protection that would weaken India's generics industry.

Earlier this year, an Indian manufacturer was allowed to produce a far cheaper version of the kidney and liver cancer treatment sorefinib, manufactured by Bayer Corp.

Bayer was selling the drug for about $5,600 a month. Natco, the Indian company, said its generic version would cost $175 a month, less than 1/30th as much. Natco was ordered to pay 6 percent in royalties to Bayer.

Novartis says the outcome of the new case will not affect the availability of generic versions of Glivec because it is covered by a grandfather clause in India's patent law. Only the more easily absorbed drug would be affected, Althoff said, adding that its own generic business, Sandoz, produces cheap versions of its drugs for millions across the globe.

Public health activists say the question goes beyond Glivec to whether drug companies should get special protection for minor tweaks to medicines that others could easily have uncovered.

"We're looking to the Supreme Court to tell Novartis it won't open the floodgates and allow abusive patenting practices," said Eldred Tellis, of the Sankalp Rehabilitation Centre, a private group working with HIV patients.

The court's decision is expected to be a landmark that will influence future drug accessibility and price across the developing world.

"We're already paying very high prices for some of the new drugs that are patented in India," said Petros Isaakidis, an epidemiologist with Doctors Without Borders. "If Novartis' wins, even older medicines could be subject to patenting again, and it will become much more difficult for us in future to provide medicines to our patients being treated for HIV, hepatitis and drug resistant TB."

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Wall Street opens a tad higher after jobs data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened slightly higher after a key U.S. jobs report showed the pace of hiring by employers had eased slightly in December but gave signals of some momentum in the labor market's recovery since the 2007-09 recession.

Though the data showed lackluster economic growth was unable to make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 17.12 points, or 0.13 percent, at 13,408.48. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.49 points, or 0.10 percent, at 1,460.86. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 0.75 points, or 0.02 percent, at 3,101.32.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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The Lede: Video of Pakistani Schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai Walking Out of Hospital

Video of Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani activist, leaving Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, on Thursday. The images were released without sound.

Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl who survived an assassination attempt by Taliban militants, was discharged from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, on Thursday.

Ms. Yousafzai “is well enough to be treated by the hospital as an outpatient for the next few weeks,” the hospital said in a statement. “She is still due to be readmitted in late January or early February to undergo cranial reconstructive surgery as part of her long-term recovery, and in the meantime she will visit the hospital regularly to attend clinical appointments.”

The complete text of the statement was posted on the hospital’s Web site, along with video of the girl walking out of her hospital room under her own power.

Dr. David Rosser, the hospital’s medical director said: “Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery.”

Ms. Yousafzai became an outspoken advocate for the education for girls in Pakistan at the age of 11, when the BBC’s Urdu-language service published her “Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl.” The blog chronicled life under Taliban rule, after her home in the Swat Valley was overrun by the Islamist militants in 2009. (Later that year, the girl and her father were featured in a documentary by my colleague Adam Ellick.)

She was shot in the head by a militant in October and airlifted to England for treatment the same month.

Her father, Ziauddin, has been appointed to a three-year term as Pakistan’s education attaché in Birmingham, ITV News reported on Wednesday.

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Acer and Asus to Stop Making Netbooks

The last two major netbook manufacturers, Acer and Asus, are closing the doors on these mini-laptops. According to Digitimes’ Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai, Acer “has no plans to release more netbook products” such as its Aspire One, while Asus has already ended its Eee PC line.

Other netbook manufacturers, such as Samsung, have long since abandoned the market.

Why netbooks failed to catch on

Netbooks were “still enjoying strong sales” as late as 2010, according to an optimistic report by ABI Research. But the growth trend which it predicted flattened out and declined, thanks to four factors pointed out by the Guardian’s Charles Arthur.

Not worth it for many, compared to notebooks

One is that the original, Linux-based netbooks failed to catch on, as they had trouble running Windows PC software. But Microsoft charged between $ 30 and $ 50 for each netbook’s Windows license, and insisted that the new crop of Windows netbooks be larger and more expensive than the original Linux-based models. This placed them in close competition with low-end laptops, the prices of which were going down instead of up.

The rise of the iPad

The other biggest factor is that the iPad and Android tablets took the place of netbooks for many buyers. While Apple‘s iPad was the price of a full-sized laptop, the company soon introduced discounted or refurbished versions … as well as the smaller, $ 329 iPad Mini, which doesn’t cost much more than most netbooks. Besides that, the whole iPad line was even lighter than netbooks and had longer battery life, besides being more responsive and having more popular apps.

Meanwhile, companies like Amazon and Barnes and Noble made $ 199 Kindle and Nook tablets, which beat out even the original $ 249 Linux-based Asus Eee’s price tag.

A little bit bigger, a lot better

During the netbook’s heyday, many called for Apple to make one of its own. As Apple tech expert John Gruber pointed out, however, netbooks were “cheaper, not better,” which contradicted Apple’s business model of selling high-margin, premium products.

When Apple did release a small laptop computer, it was the $ 999 11-inch MacBook Air, which went on to be a best-seller. Other PC manufacturers tried to follow in Apple’s footsteps with Intel’s “Ultrabook” specification, which is basically a recipe for MacBook Air clones that run Windows, but so far have failed to make a dent in the market.

Taking the place of netbooks

Besides Ultrabooks, the other notable netbook-like computers on the market right now are Chromebooks, ultralight laptops which start at $ 199 and run a slimmed-down OS based on Google’s Chrome web browser. Former netbook manufacturers Samsung and Acer are both making Chromebooks, while Asus manufactured Google’s popular Nexus 7 tablet.

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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Fourth Child on the Way for Amar'e Stoudemire

Amarestoudemire.com

It was certainly a big year for Amar’e Stoudemire and wife Alexis, but 2013 may just prove to be their slam dunk.

The couple, who were engaged in Paris in June and tied the knot on Dec. 12 (12-12-12) on their N.Y.C. apartment roof deck, reveal that they’re expecting their fourth child together late this spring.

“We’re blessed that we were able to extend our family,” the New York Knicks forward, 30, tells PEOPLE exclusively.

“We’re both huge on having a nice size family. It was something we’ve been talking about for a while. It happened naturally and at the right time so it all worked out.”

“It was just perfect timing,” adds Alexis, 29, who says she’s had some morning sickness but overall, “can’t complain!”

The duo, who already have three children together — Ar’e, 7, Amar’e Jr., 6, and Assata, 4 — say everyone is thrilled for the impending arrival.

“They’re very, very excited,” says Alexis. “They just keep guessing if it’s a boy or a girl.” And it won’t be long before the sex is revealed, “I can’t wait to know what it is,” says Amar’e.

“As soon as Amar’e walks into the door those kids are all over him,” says Alexis with a laugh. “He’s like a big kid. He’s a great dad.”

And as for mom, who mans the house while Amar’e is on the road, “she does it all,” says Amar’e. “She does such a phenomenal job with the kids. I’m just here to be the big teddy bear.”

After marrying in December, the couple will hold another wedding celebration this summer. “We’re planning a big, extravagant Cinderella wedding for Alexis!” says Amar’e.

“It was beautiful to have a private ceremony with close family and friends,” says the star of their December nuptials. “I planned it; I wanted to have something that was more spiritual where we could really understand what being married means. It was a great way to end 2012.”

And, says Alexis, “We included the children in our ceremony as well. That was very important to us. It’s something they’ll always remember.”

Amar’e will be honoring his brother Hazel, who passed away last year in a car accident, this weekend by inviting 30 kids from his Florida hometown to the upcoming Orlando Magic vs Knicks game. “I just want them to get away for a little bit and enjoy.”

Looking forward to the new year and a new baby, “Hopefully we’ll bring home a championship and we’ll celebrate with a wedding after that!” adds Amar’e.

– Jennifer Garcia

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Flu? Malaria? Disease forecasters look to the sky

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a 10 percent chance of showers today, but a 70 percent chance of flu next month.

That's the kind of forecasting health scientists are trying to move toward, as they increasingly include weather data in their attempts to predict disease outbreaks.

In one recent study, two scientists reported they could predict — more than seven weeks in advance — when flu season was going to peak in New York City. Theirs was just the latest in a growing wave of computer models that factor in rainfall, temperature or other weather conditions to forecast disease.

Health officials are excited by this kind of work and the idea that it could be used to fine-tune vaccination campaigns or other disease prevention efforts.

At the same time, experts note that outbreaks are influenced as much, or more, by human behavior and other factors as by the weather. Some argue weather-based outbreak predictions still have a long way to go. And when government health officials warned in early December that flu season seemed to be off to an early start, they said there was no evidence it was driven by the weather.

This disease-forecasting concept is not new: Scientists have been working on mathematical models to predict outbreaks for decades and have long factored in the weather. They have known, for example, that temperature and rainfall affect the breeding of mosquitoes that carry malaria, West Nile virus and other dangerous diseases.

Recent improvements in weather-tracking have helped, including satellite technology and more sophisticated computer data processing.

As a result, "in the last five years or so, there's been quite an improvement and acceleration" in weather-focused disease modeling, said Ira Longini, a University of Florida biostatistician who's worked on outbreak prediction projects.

Some models have been labeled successes.

In the United States, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of New Mexico tried to predict outbreaks of hantavirus in the late 1990s. They used rain and snow data and other information to study patterns of plant growth that attract rodents. People catch the disease from the droppings of infected rodents.

"We predicted what would happen later that year," said Gregory Glass, a Johns Hopkins researcher who worked on the project.

More recently, in east Africa, satellites have been used to predict rainfall by measuring sea-surface temperatures and cloud density. That's been used to generate "risk maps" for Rift Valley fever — a virus that spreads from animals to people and in severe cases can cause blindness or death. Researchers have said the system in some cases has given two to six weeks advance warning.

Last year, other researchers using satellite data in east Africa said they found that a small change in average temperature was a warning sign cholera cases would double within four months.

"We are getting very close to developing a viable forecasting system" against cholera that can help health officials in African countries ramp up emergency vaccinations and other efforts, said a statement by one of the authors, Rita Reyburn of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea.

Some diseases are hard to forecast, such as West Nile virus. Last year, the U.S. suffered one of its worst years since the virus arrived in 1999. There were more than 2,600 serious illnesses and nearly 240 deaths.

Officials said the mild winter, early spring and very hot summer helped spur mosquito breeding and the spread of the virus. But the danger wasn't spread uniformly. In Texas, the Dallas area was particularly hard-hit, while other places, including some with similar weather patterns and the same type of mosquitoes, were not as affected.

"Why Dallas, and not areas with similar ecological conditions? We don't really know," said Roger Nasci of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is chief of the CDC branch that tracks insect-borne viruses.

Some think flu lends itself to outbreak forecasting — there's already a predictability to the annual winter flu season. But that's been tricky, too.

Seasonal flu reports come from doctors' offices, but those show the disease when it's already spreading. Some researchers have studied tweets on Twitter and searches on Google, but their work has offered a jump of only a week or two on traditional methods.

In the study of New York City flu cases published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors said they could forecast, by up to seven weeks, the peak of flu season.

They designed a model based on weather and flu data from past years, 2003-09. In part, their design was based on earlier studies that found flu virus spreads better when the air is dry and turns colder. They made calculations based on humidity readings and on Google Flu Trends, which tracks how many people are searching each day for information on flu-related topics (often because they're beginning to feel ill).

Using that model, they hope to try real-time predictions as early as next year, said Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University, who led the work.

"It's certainly exciting," said Lyn Finelli, the CDC's flu surveillance chief. She said the CDC supports Shaman's work, but agency officials are eager to see follow-up studies showing the model can predict flu trends in places different from New York, like Miami.

Despite the optimism by some, Dr. Edward Ryan, a Harvard University professor of immunology and infectious diseases, is cautious about weather-based prediction models. "I'm not sure any of them are ready for prime time," he said.

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