Wall Street opens modestly higher after data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened slightly higher on Friday after a trio of positive economic data points, and further gains were expected to be modest with the benchmark S&P index near five-year highs.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 18.97 points, or 0.14 percent, at 13,963.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 3.05 points, or 0.20 percent, at 1,512.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 13.59 points, or 0.43 percent, at 3,178.72.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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India Ink: Calls Grow Louder for Politician Accused of Rape to Resign

KOCHI— Demands for a fresh investigation of an Indian politician accused of raping a teenager in 1996 gained momentum after the young woman’s mother urged the Congress Party’s leader to dismiss the lawmaker.

As a teenager, a woman from a small town called Suryanelli in Kerala was allegedly abducted and raped by 42 men over a period of 40 days in January and February of 1996. Among the suspects the girl identified was P.J. Kurien, then a member of Parliament and now the deputy chairman of the upper house of Parliament.

In an emotionally charged letter to Sonia Gandhi, the president of Congress Party, the woman’s mother called for Mr. Kurien, a Congress member, to be dismissed from his position in the Rajya Sabha.

“We believe that Mr. P.J. Kurien has exerted undue influence over the investigating officials in order to escape from the clutches of law, and he had succeeded in that,” she said in the letter, dated Thursday.

She also asked Mrs. Gandhi how Mr. Kurien could be allowed to preside over the legislative debate on criminal law amendments for tougher rape laws.

In a country outraged by the gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in Delhi and by the authorities’ failure to prevent and punish crimes against women, this latest rape case is being seen as yet another example of India’s slow justice system, where cases languish in courts for years. It has also focused attention on official corruption, which allows the wealthy and politically connected to influence police investigations.

For the last 17 years, the Kerala rape case has been winding its way through India’s judicial system. On Jan. 31, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial, overturning the acquittal of a majority of the 42 suspects in 2005 by the Kerala High Court, which said that the girl had not tried to escape.

The girl alleged that Mr. Kurien had raped her at a government guest house in the southern town of Kumily. But police failed to include him on the list of men she had accused, so she filed a private complaint before a magistrate in 1999, said Sureshbabu Thomas, a special prosecutor for the case against the rest of the men.

Mr. Kurien filed a petition to dismiss the case in the lower court, which rejected his request. He then filed his appeal with the Kerala High Court, which said there was insufficient evidence against Mr. Kurien. The state government of Kerala appealed to the Supreme Court, which sided with Mr. Kurien.

“All the others who were named by the victim had to appear in the court, but P.J. Kurien did not,” K.V. Bhadra Kumari, a women’s rights activist and a lawyer, said in a phone interview. “Let him also be tried and let the law take its course.”

The Kerala government has refused to investigate Mr. Kurien, saying that his case has been cleared by the Supreme Court, but that has only enraged those who want Mr. Kurien to stand trial.

Opposition leaders in Kerala, Mr. Kurien’s home state, disrupted state legislative assembly proceedings Friday, demanding that Mr. Kurien resign. Angry protests were also held in Kerala’s capital city of Thiruvananthapuram.

Mr. Kurien has refused to step down. “I have already offered myself for judicial scrutiny in 1990s. Why should I do so again?” Mr. Kurien told an Indian television channel NDTV. “Then the High Court and Supreme Court had exonerated me. A fresh investigation will be contempt of court.”

Kerala, one of the few states in India where women outnumber men, is considered one of India’s most progressive states because of its high literacy rates: 93.91 percent overall, and a female literacy rate of 91.98 percent. It also has a much higher rate of reported rapes than the national average and has one of the highest rates of reported crimes against women among India’s 26 states.

K. Ajitha, a former member of the Naxal movement who now serves as a director of Anweshi, a woman’s organization that fights gender-based violence, said that one of the crucial problems is that there is a well-connected criminal network in the state, which protects political leaders and influential people when they are accused of rape.

“The organized mafia traps young adolescent girls by spreading its tentacles to all fields — the political leadership, the police, the judiciary,” she said. “So a rape victim rarely receives justice.”

Two of Kerala’s most publicized cases of sexual assault, known in the media as the “Suryanelli” and the “Vithura” after the hometowns of the victims, have been pending for years.

The trial of the 45 men accused in the Vithura case, where a girl was allegedly gang raped in 1995, is still under way 18 years after the crime was first reported. The victim, now in her early 30s, has requested the courts to discontinue the trial, saying it was traumatic to relive the incidents over and over again. The Kerala High Court, however, has rejected the request.

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Ubuntu smartphones will begin launching in October

There are already smartphones powered by Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Bada and Tizen, and soon Ubuntu will be added to that long list. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder and CEO of Canonical, said that smartphones running the company’s Linux-based Ubuntu operating system will be available to customers starting in October 2013. He also said that application developers will be granted early access to a version of the operating system that has been optimized for the Galaxy Nexus later this month.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

One of the smartphone’s unique features will allow it to be docked to a larger display for use with a keyboard and mouse. The operating system can also support Windows-based applications streamed to devices from corporate servers, giving business users access to all corporate data through a single device.

[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface Pro review]

Shuttleworth said that Ubuntu devices will be available in two large geographic markets later this year. The executive failed to give specific details, however he said that North America is “absolutely a key market for Ubuntu,” and that the operating system has even drawn interest from certain carriers.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Scott Neeson Left Hollywood to Save Kids in Cambodia's Slums

Scott Neeson's life in Hollywood was dreamy – he had the million-dollar salary, the yacht, the A-list contacts and a packed social calendar.

But after he stepped into a nightmare in Cambodia's Steung Meanchey garbage dump in December 2003, he walked away from all his wealth to help some of the poorest children in the world.

At the dump in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh he saw a girl, dressed in rags, picking through syringes and broken glass. Her name, Neeson learned through an interpreter, was Srey Nich. She was 9 and lived in the dump with her mother and younger sister; there they collected scraps, which they sold for money to buy food.

"How could anyone survive here?" Neeson recalls thinking. "I couldn't look away."

So, Neeson, 53, gave up his Hollywood life and never looked back. Once president of 20th Century Fox International, overseeing films from Titanic to X-Men, the Scottish-born executive drove a Porsche and lived in ritzy Brentwood.

Today, he lives in a two-story home that doubles as office space for his nonprofit Cambodian Children's Fund. Since 2004, Neeson's charity has helped house, educate and provide health care for more than 1,450 children in the country's most desperate slums.

"Scott is a remarkable human being who put his life on the line to help children in Cambodia who had no hope," says Dr. Jay Winsten, associate dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. "Now they have a future."

Neeson says that his life is better now because of his decision.

"I miss a lot of things about Hollywood." he says, "but I wouldn't change this for the world."

Poverty To Riches

Neeson never imagined much of a future for himself. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Elizabeth, Australia, where his father worked for the Department of Defense and his mother as a cleaning lady, he was a frail kid, unhappy both at home and in school.

"A lot of teachers said I'd be unemployed, spend my life on welfare," he says.

He dropped out of high school and found work delivering movie posters to theaters, working his way up to projectionist and then assistant to the director of movie programming, eventually landing the position of managing director at an Australian film distributor that later merged with Sony. By 1993 he was vice president of international marketing for Fox and moved to America, ultimately being promoted to president in 2003.

"Scott was a major driving force," says former Fox colleague Gina Kilberg, now senior vice president of international media at Sony. "He was very motivated to be successful."

Scott Neeson at a fundraiser for his organization in 2012

Joe Scarnici / Getty

And along with success came lavish perks. "Cindy Crawford lived two doors down from me," he says, laughing. "For someone who'd been told over and over he'd never amount to anything, to earn a million dollars and have this great lifestyle was something I'd never dreamed of."

Life-Changing Trip

The excesses of that life came into sharp focus on his second trip to Phnom Penh just a few months after his first. He had returned to the dump and was trying to help three sick children when he got a call on his cell phone. It was an agent whose star client was having a meltdown before boarding his private jet because it wasn't properly stocked with his favorite amenities.

"The actor said, 'My life wasn't meant to be this difficult.' The kids I was with were very sick and here's this movie star yelling," says Neeson. "If I needed a sign, that was it."

These days Neeson (who's lived in Cambodia for the past 10 years) is as driven as he ever was, only about different things. He starts work at dawn with a cup of coffee from his espresso machine – his one luxury – and leaves the country only for fund-raising trips. He uses his formidable negotiating skills to persuade desperate and starving parents to enroll their kids in his school or bring a sick baby to his clinic.

"I guess I identify with [the kids] never believing they could do anything with their lives," he says. "They've been through so much, but they're so hugely energetic and joyful. I've got more love in my life than I ever thought existed. My fear is what would have happened to me if I was still living a life all about me."

For the road he did take, Neeson only need thank Srey Nich, that first little girl from the dump. Using his own money, Neeson got Srey Nich and her family out of the now-closed dump and into a house. She then became one of the original students at Neeson's CCF school. Today, 18 years old and planning for college next year, she says Neeson changed everything for her.

"The dump was a very bad, dirty place," she says. "Now my life has changed. I can speak English with you, I have the opportunity to go to school. Everything is different."

How He's Helping

• More than 1,450 students attend the school, which supplements public education – and nearly all stay on.

• After learning cooking and customer-service skills, about 100 students have landed jobs in restaurants and hotels.

• Three full-time doctors and seven nurses treat more than 3,000 patients a month at the free medical clinic.

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine

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New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

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Wall Street opens flat after claims, sales data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks opened flat on Thursday after a trend gauge in weekly jobless claims signaled modest economic improvement and retailers posted mixed monthly sales.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 11.06 points, or 0.08 percent, at 13,975.46. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.67 point, or 0.04 percent, at 1,511.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 1.68 points, or 0.05 percent, at 3,166.80.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Court Urged to Reverse a Ruling on Terror

The Obama administration on Wednesday urged a federal appeals court to overturn a sweeping ruling by a district judge that blocked the government from enforcing a statute related to the indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects.

Appearing before a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, Robert M. Loeb, a Justice Department lawyer, said a lawsuit challenging the statute should be dismissed because those who brought it — including a former reporter for The New York Times, Christopher Hedges, who interacts with terrorist groups for his reporting, and several supporters of the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks — had no real-world risk of being detained.

“The plaintiffs’ claims all fail at the outset,” Mr. Loeb said, asserting that the plaintiffs had failed to show an “objectively reasonable fear of being placed in long-term detention.”

But lawyers for the plaintiffs, Carl J. Mayer and Bruce Afran, insisted that their clients had legal standing to challenge the statute — a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 — because it interfered with their right to free speech by creating a basis to fear that they might be placed in military detention on the basis of their activities.

The provision authorizes the detention of people who are part of or “substantially supported” Al Qaeda or “associated forces.” When Congress enacted it, lawmakers said the statute merely reaffirmed, and did not expand, the existing detention powers granted a decade earlier in the authorization to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

But lawmakers did not specify whether Americans could be detained without trial and were vague about what kind of conduct was off limits. In September, Judge Katherine B. Forrest of Federal District Court ruled that Congress had expanded the government’s detention powers, saying the 2001 version did not cover mere supporters. A portion of her ruling suggested that the government could be held in contempt if it detained anyone under that theory.

The Obama administration appealed, arguing that her ruling was wrong and put a cloud over its existing detention authority for prisoners picked up in the Afghanistan war zone.

On Wednesday, Judge Raymond J. Lohier, an appellate court judge, pressed Mr. Loeb about whether there had been any authority before the 2011 statute that allowed the government to detain people based upon “substantial support” of a terrorist group.

“To my knowledge it has never been applied that way,” Mr. Loeb replied.

Another judge on the panel, Lewis Kaplan, questioned whether there could be any guarantee that the current policy limits on powers would always be in place.

“The executive branch has been known occasionally to change its mind, isn’t that true?” he asked.

David Rivkin, a lawyer representing three lawmakers, including Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, argued that the statute should be upheld because Congress, presidents of both parties and other judges had agreed that the government has, and should have, indefinite detention powers in the war against Al Qaeda.

“The political branches are speaking in unison,” Mr. Rivkin said.

Charlie Savage contributed reporting from Washington.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 7, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the fiscal year of the National Defense Authorization Act whose indefinite detention provision is being challenged. It is 2012.

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Monster Worldwide reports loss; exits Brazil, Mexico & Turkey

(Reuters) – Online recruitment company Monster Worldwide Inc, which is up for sale, reported a quarterly loss and said it had exited its businesses in Brazil, Mexico and Turkey.

The company also said it sold its China operations to Saongroup, a Dublin-based recruitment firm, and took a 10 percent stake in the combined business.

Monster said in November it would sell its money losing business in China to focus on its core North American and European businesses.

Monster has been hurt by weak job markets in the United States and Europe, which generate the lion’s share of its revenue, as well as growing competition from social networking sites.

The parent of Monster.com retained Stone Key Partners and Bank of America Merrill Lynch in March 2012 to review strategic alternatives including a sale of the company.

Monster reported a net loss of $ 73 million, or 66 cents per share, in the fourth quarter, from $ 10.9 million, or 9 cents per share, a year earlier.

The company recorded pre-tax charges of $ 23 million during the quarter ended December, and said it expects additional charges in the range of $ 27 million to $ 37 million in the first half of 2013.

Excluding items, the company earned 8 cents per share.

Revenue dropped 10 percent to $ 211.2 million.

Monster’s shares have dropped about a fourth since the company said it was reviewing strategic alternatives. They closed at $ 5.85 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore; Editing by Akshay Lodaya)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Snoop Dogg Gets the Party Started with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence

Caught in the Act

02/06/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence, inset: Snoop Lion (Dogg)

Valerie Goodloe/PictureGroup; Frederick M. Brown/Getty

Guess the "O" in "O.G." stands for Oscar.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence both attended the Hollywood Reporter's Nominees' Night 2013 at Spago in Beverly Hills on Monday.

It was a low-key affair at first, with Affleck holding court in a central area of the soiree, where he was animated while chatting with people and seemed excited and genuinely happy.

The Argo star and director, looking handsome in a suit, also obliged guests who approached him for photos.

Lawrence was spotted embracing her Silver Linings Playbook costar Julia Stiles. "You're so stunning!" Stiles told Lawrence just before taking a snapshot together.

As the evening continued, it was clear that Lawrence was the darling of event. Fellow guests were going up and telling her she is beautiful and they're so proud of her and Lawrence was ever the gracious guest, chatting with anyone who approached her.

But it wasn't until Snoop Lion (Dogg) arrived, who went by the deejay name Snoopadelic, that the party really went into full gear. After a lengthy intro that included a clip-filled video, Snoop emerged, gave an intro of his own – he praised Argo and shouted for Affleck to come take a photo with him before the night's end – and began playing an eclectic mix of songs, which included everything from Pat Benatar to 2 Chainz.

– Dahvi Shira

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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