Japan's industrial output rebounds 4 percent (AP)

TOKYO ? Japan's industrial production rebounded 4 percent in December from November and household spending increased, suggesting the still-weak economy is gaining some steam after last year's tsunami disaster and flooding in Thailand that disrupted manufacturers' supply chains.

Output of automobiles, cell phones and semiconductors drove the gains last month after production fell 2.7 percent in November. Manufacturers project further production increases in January and February, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Tuesday.

But Japan's unemployment rate edged up 0.1 point to 4.6 percent in December, and Junko Nishioka, economist at RBS Japan Securities, cautioned that the economic outlook was "mixed."

While she was heartened by the 0.5 percent uptick in family spending, Nishioka said prospects for Japan's vital manufacturing sector remained tentative amid weak export demand. The strong yen has battered exporters like Honda Motor Corp. and Toshiba Corp., and that's prompted more manufacturers to shift production overseas.

But one of those key export bases, Thailand, got hit by the worst floods there in five decades in October, damaging hundreds of factories and component-makers supplying Japanese manufacturers.

"The pace of recovery will be slow," Nishioka said. "So far, we're seeing some recovery in the auto sector and electronic components, but still it's still not enough to compensate for the gap recorded after the March disaster and the Thai flooding."

The industrial production data showed that shipments grew 4.5 percent and inventories fell 2.9 percent, both healthy indicators. Broadly speaking, production was led by strength in the electronics, automobile and general machinery sectors, the report showed.

Looking ahead, manufacturers predicted that industrial output would rise 2.5 percent in January and another 1.2 percent in February, according to a METI survey.

In an optimistic sign, Toyota Motor Corp. last week raised its global sales target for this year 21 percent to 8.58 million vehicles.

That's largely based on expectations that government incentives for ecological cars will prompt more consumers to buy more of its Prius hybrid ? Japan's top-selling vehicle the last three years ? and other environmentally friendly cars.

"Underlying domestic demand is still healthy, which will be supported by government stimulus measures," such as these incentives to buy energy-efficient automobiles, Nishioka said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_economy

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Three Demand Media executives leave (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Demand Media Inc said on Monday that three executives left the online media and advertising company to pursue other business opportunities.

Larry Fitzgibbon resigned as executive vice president of the company on January 27, according to a regulatory filing late Monday. Two other executives, Joe Perez and Steven Kydd, have also left, Kristen Moore, a Demand Media spokeswoman, told Reuters.

The three executives, who were among the co-founders of the company, are moving on to other ventures, she added, while noting that she didn't have specific information about their plans.

The departures will not change the strategy or priorities of Demand Media, Moore said.

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120131/media_nm/us_demandmedia_executives

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Santorum: Daughter with pneumonia recovering

FILE - In this June 6, 2011 file photo, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum holds his daughter Isabella before announcing he is entering the Republican presidential race, on the steps of the Somerset County Courthouse in Somerset, Pa. Santorum canceled his morning campaign events, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, and planned to spend time with his hospitalized daughter, Bella. Isabella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

FILE - In this June 6, 2011 file photo, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum holds his daughter Isabella before announcing he is entering the Republican presidential race, on the steps of the Somerset County Courthouse in Somerset, Pa. Santorum canceled his morning campaign events, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, and planned to spend time with his hospitalized daughter, Bella. Isabella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

Sharon Irwin, holds a sign during a prayer for Bella, daughter of Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum during a campaign rally in a hanger at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in Sarasota, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, where Santorum was scheduled to appear. Santorum is staying home in Philadelphia to be with 3-year-old Isabella, who is hospitalized. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Elizabeth Santorum, eldest daughter of Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, campaigns for her father in a hanger at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in Sarasota, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. Santorum is staying home in Philadelphia to be with his 3-year-old hospitalized daughter Isabella. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) ? Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Sunday his daughter Bella remains in the hospital with pneumonia but is recovering after a rough 36 hours.

Santorum spoke with Florida supporters by telephone from 3-year-old Bella's hospital room and said doctors hope she can go home in the next few days.

The former Pennsylvania senator also said, "We're going to get out on the campaign trail later tomorrow ... heading out to the Midwest, and start campaigning in the next states as we move this campaign forward."

Santorum scheduled a speech Monday in Missouri and another event in southwest Minnesota ? two states with early February contests. He then planned to head to Colorado and Nevada for events Tuesday.

"I feel very, very good about where we are and where the campaign is going," the candidate said.

But during the call with Florida voters, Santorum opened his remarks with his daughter, who has a genetic condition known as Trisomy 18. The condition typically proves fatal and Santorum often says his daughter wasn't expected to live past 12 months.

"She without a doubt has turned the corner," he said. But he cautioned she "isn't out of the woods yet."

Santorum called his daughter's improvement a "miraculous turnaround" after an unexpected detour from the campaign just days before Tuesday's Florida primary.

Santorum got to his home in Virginia around midnight Friday for a quick break to do his taxes, but found his daughter "was not doing well."

"I was up with her a lot of the night," he said. "By the end of the day, it was really, really clear she was struggling."

Saturday evening, Santorum aides announced Bella had been admitted to the hospital and they canceled his morning interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" and church services in Miami. His aides later canceled his trip to Florida and instead sent his 20-year-old daughter to campaign for him.

Santorum described the situation as a "very, very tough night last night" but said by late Sunday Bella was "alert and back to her own beautiful, happy girl."

"It's been a very hectic 36 hours," Santorum said. "Life in the Santorum family has dramatically improved since the late afternoon."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-29-Santorum-Daughter/id-8d95340927854d9f92df6d95e7a7135c

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Neeson's 'The Grey' tops box office with $20M

NEW YORK (AP) ? Beware the Liam in Winter. Liam Neeson's "The Grey" topped the weekend box office with $20 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, continuing the actor's success as an action star in the winter months.

The Alaskan survivalist thriller opened above expectations with a performance on par with previous Neeson thrillers "Taken" and "Unknown." Those films, both January-February releases, opened with $24.7 million and $21.9 million, respectively.

But the R-rated "The Grey," which has received good reviews, drove home the strong appeal of Neeson, action star. It's an unlikely turn for the 59-year-old Neeson, previously better known for his dramatic performances, like those in "Schindler's List" and "Kinsey."

"Liam is a true movie star, period," said Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Open Road Films. It's the second release for the newly formed distributor, created by theater chains AMC and Regal.

"My guess is that Liam Neeson in action thrillers would work just about any time of year."

January is often a dumping ground for less-stellar releases, a tradition held up by two badly reviewed new wide releases: "Man on a Ledge," with Sam Worthington, and "One for the Money" with Katherine Heigl.

"One for the Money" fared better, earning $11.8 million, while "Man on a Ledge" opened with $8.3 million.

Those were reasonably solid returns, and, in an unusual twist, were both ultimately for Lions Gate Entertainment. Its film studio, Lionsgate, released the romantic comedy "One for the Money." The action thriller "Man on a Ledge" was released by Summit Entertainment, which Lions Gate bought for $412.5 million earlier this month.

"One for the Money" was helped by a promotion with Groupon, the Internet discount site, with which Lionsgate previously partnered for "The Lincoln Lawyer." David Spitz, head of distribution for Lionsgate, said the large number of older, female subscribers of Groupon matched well with the audience of "One for the Money."

Groupon email blasts, he said, had a significant promotional effect.

Last week's box-office leader, "Underworld: Awakenings," Sony's Screen Gem's latest installment in its vampire series, came in second with $12.5 million, bringing its cumulative total to $45.1 million.

The unexpectedly large haul for "The Grey," strong holdovers (such as the George Lucas-produced World War II action film "Red Tails," which earned $10.4 million in its second week) and the bump for Oscar contending films following Tuesday's nominations added up to a good weekend for Hollywood. The box office was up about 15 percent on the corresponding weekend last year.

So far, every weekend this year has been an "up" weekend, after a somewhat dismal fourth quarter in 2011.

"'Mission: Impossible,' I think, really helped reinvigorate the marketplace, and that's carried over into the first part of the year," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "That's good news for Hollywood after the down-trending box office of 2011."

Oscar favorites "The Descendants," ''Hugo" and "The Artist" sought to capitalize on their recent Academy Awards nominations. Each expanded to more theaters and saw an uptick in business.

Fox Searchlight's "The Descendants," which is nominated for five Oscars including best picture, added 1,441 screens in its 11th week of release. It added $6.6 million and has now made $58.8 million, making it one of Fox Searchlight's most successful releases.

Sheila DeLoach, senior vice president of distribution for Fox Searchlight, said the film's nominations and its recent Golden Globes wins (for best drama and best actor, George Clooney) "played a big role" in its weekend box office.

Paramount's "Hugo," which led Oscar nominations with 11 including best picture, saw a 143 percent jump in business over its last weekend. In its tenth week of release, it earned $2.3 million, bringing its total to $58.7 million.

The Weinstein Co.'s "The Artist," with 10 Oscar nominations including best picture, expanded a modest 235 screens to bring it to a total of 897 screens in its 10th week of release. It earned $3.3 million, with a total of $16.7 million.

The Weinstein Co. is being careful with the black-and-white, largely silent film. Thus far, it has appealed particularly to older audiences.

"It's not the same type of picture as any other picture in the marketplace," said Erik Loomis, head of distribution for the Weinstein Co. "Now that the nominations are out, we're going to look to capitalize on it as best we can. ... We're being very, very meticulous with it. We're not throwing it out there and grabbing every theater we can. At some point, we'll open the floodgates on the movie, maybe closer to the awards."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Grey," $20 million.

2. "Underworld: Awakening," $12.5 million.

3. "One for the Money," $11.8 million.

4. "Red Tails," $10.4 million.

5. "Man on a Ledge," $8.3 million.

6. "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," $7.1 million.

7. "The Descendants," $6.6 million.

8. "Contraband," $6.5 million.

9. "Beauty and the Beast," $5.3 million.

10. "Haywire," $4 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-29-US-Box-Office/id-3a45dd8e69224f159d9850fb268e5b4f

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SAG Awards menu is months in the making (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? When your dinner party guests include Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Kate Winslet and Glenn Close, and the whole affair is televised live, it can take months to plan the menu. That's why the team behind the Screen Actors Guild Awards began putting together the plate for Sunday's ceremony months ago.

It was still summer when show producer Kathy Connell and executive producer and director Jeff Margolis first sat down with chef Suzanne Goins of Los Angeles eatery Lucques with a tall order: Create a meal that is delicious at room temperature, looks beautiful on TV, is easy to eat and appeals to Hollywood tastes. Oh, and no poppy seeds, soups, spicy dishes, or piles of onions or garlic.

"It can't drip, stick in their teeth or be too heavy," Connell said. "We have to appease all palates."

The chef put together a plate of possibilities: slow-roasted salmon with yellow beets, lamb with couscous and spiced cauliflower and roasted root vegetables with quinoa. There was also a chopped chicken salad and another chicken dish with black beans.

To ensure the dishes are both tasty and TV-ready, Connell and Margolis, along with the SAG Awards Committee and the show's florist and art director, dined together at this summertime lunch on tables set to replicate those that will be in the Shrine Exposition Center during the ceremony. The pewter, crushed-silk tablecloths and white lilies you'll see on TV Sunday were also chosen months ago.

The diners discussed the look of the plate, the size of the portions and the vegetarian possibilities.

"We'd like the portions a little larger," Connell told the chef.

"And a little more sauce on the salmon," Margolis added.

Come Sunday, it's up to Goins to prepare 1,200 of the long-planned meals for the A-list audience.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_en_mo/us_sag_awards_menu

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Now on Google Music: Download songs to computer

Google Music

Screenshot of the latest addition to album/song options on Google Music

By Athima Chansanchai

As much as we like having access to our own music in the cloud, it's also nice to have it on our computers (especially for syncing with standalone MP3 players). Now Google Music lets you download everything you've bought on the site, or re-download anything you might have lost.

Since it debuted as Music Beta in the spring of 2011, (launching formally as Google Music in November), I've been playing around with it, adding it to my online music options (along with Amazon's Cloud Player, Songza and Spotify). But I've always hated that the songs I bought (or got for free) on Google Music were trapped on the cloud. (With $2 album sales, Google Music is the first place I go to now when streaming isn't enough for me.)?

Lifehacker noticed the change, and we're grateful for it.

Just hover over the song you want and it'll pull up the arrow to the pull-down menu.

Each song can be downloaded twice from Google Music on the web, but if you have the Music Manager desktop application, you can circumvent the limit.?

Android Market gives you full instructions on how to do all this, too.

By the way, if you already use Amazon's Cloud Player (which bolted out of the cloud music gate before Google and Apple), the two-way exchange (uploading/downloading) has always been available.

More stories:

On Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/27/10251044-now-on-google-music-download-songs-to-your-computer

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Obama-Brewer friction on display on tarmac tiff (AP)

GLENDALE, Ariz. ? Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she meant no disrespect when she pointed a finger at President Barack Obama during an intense discussion on an airport tarmac. But the Republican governor says the Democratic president showed disrespect for her by abruptly ending their conversation.

Obama, in an interview Thursday with ABC News, said it's "a classic example of things getting blown out of proportion."

The brief encounter ? out of earshot of observers but captured on camera ? was a highly visible demonstration of the verbal and legal skirmishing that has regularly occurred between Brewer and Obama's administration over illegal immigration and other issues.

Airport arrivals for presidents normally involve mere pleasantries between those involved, but Brewer and Obama have a history. And part of that history is what apparently got things going, according to accounts provided by Brewer and the White House.

Brewer said that during their talk, she invited Obama to visit Arizona to hear about her administration's achievements and to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, which has been a point of friction between the two because of illegal immigration issue.

Obama then said Brewer's recently published book mischaracterized a 2011 White House meeting between them.

Brewer said in an interview Thursday, at another Phoenix-area airport, that she talks a lot with her hands and that her pointing a finger at Obama during their conversation wasn't disrespectful.

"I respect the office of the president," she said. "I was there to welcome him."

She said she was grateful for the visit and intended to talk to him about the state's accomplishments. But she said she was "taken aback by his comments" when he said he wasn't happy with how her book described their White House meeting.

Immediately after the meeting, Brewer had said it was cordial, but her book said Obama lectured Brewer in the Oval Office and that she felt he was condescending toward her.

"It is what it is. I proceeded to say that to him, and he chose to walk away from me," she said Thursday.

Asked whether she regarded that as disrespectful, she replied: "Well, I would never have walked away from anybody having a conversation. And, of course, that is what it is. It is disrespectful for me."

Their relationship covers disagreements on "most of his policies," she said. "That doesn't mean we can't be cordial to one another."

The encounter was notable because it was rare case of an unscripted and tense moment between the president and a public official in view of reporters.

"I think it's always good publicity for a Republican if they're in an argument with me," Obama said in the ABC interview. "But this was really not a big deal. She wanted to give me a letter, asking for a meeting. And I said, `We'd be happy to meet.'"

White House press secretary Jay Carney chided reporters Thursday, saying the encounter with Brewer was getting too much attention from the press corps. The media coverage was overshadowing Obama's message of the day on energy.

Carney was questioned about Brewer's statement that Obama cut her short by walking away.

"I really assume you guys have more important issues to cover than this," Carney said.

Brewer is among the Republican governors who oppose the federal health care overhaul, but the illegal immigration issue has been a particular sore point between Obama and Brewer.

The U.S. Justice Department has challenged Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration enforcement law in court, while the administration and Brewer are at odds over whether the federal government has done enough to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

On Thursday, Brewer drew support from callers to conservative-oriented talk shows, but the incident left others in the state shaking their heads.

The Arizona Republic, the state's largest newspaper, editorialized that the image of Brewer wagging a scolding finger at the visiting president "now pretty much defines this state's relationship with Washington, D.C., to the world."

Bruce Merrill, a longtime Arizona pollster and a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, said there are two sides to the encounter, so it's hard to fully analyze what happened and why.

But the incident follows past incidents in which Arizona for a time balked at declaring a state holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr., and Arizona State University refused to award Obama an honorary degree, Merrill noted.

"It reinforces the image of Arizona being kind of a cowboy state that doesn't show a lot of respect," he said of the airport encounter.

The two mayors who stood next to Brewer during the airport encounter were not available for interviews Thursday, their offices said.

"He doesn't want to get involved," said Melissa Randazzo, spokeswoman for Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a Republican.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton's office said his schedule had no time for an interview. Stanton is a Democrat.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report from aboard Air Force One.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_arizona_governor

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New Water-Repelling Surfaces Avoid the Deadly Perils of Icing [Video]

Web Exclusives | More Science

A nanostructure inspired by the natural world repels water droplets and could prevent icing on airplane wings and other structures

By Gary Stix ?| January 26, 2012

Image: Need Credit

Joanna Aizenberg's muse is the whole of the natural world. The Harvard University materials scientist takes her inspiration from creatures that suggest engineering of substances in unexpected ways. Ocean creatures in particular have proved inspirational. The brittle star, a relative of the starfish and the sea urchin, has a shell coated with lenses, which may furnish ideas for new types of optical communication systems. There is also the deep-sea sponge with a crown composed of optical fibers.

Aizenberg's early life in Russia and her brilliant, creative career as an engineer that followed at Harvard the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? are the focus of a question-and-answer feature in the February 2012 Scientific American.

Her laboratory has mustered a basic understanding of the physics of water to design a finely structured polymer coating that resists every attempt to accrete a layer of ice at temperatures as low as 30 degrees Celsius. The material, or some analogue thereof, might one day find its way into aircraft, power-transmission towers and building roofs.

Watch this incredible video of a droplet of water pinging off Aizenberg's no-icing, super-hydrophobic surface. For comparison, the video starts with two other surfaces?one hydrophilic and the other merely hydrophobic.

?

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Analysis: Romney is fiery, focused in Fla. Debate (AP)

ORLANDO, Fla. ? Mitt Romney, forced to prove his resilience after a stinging loss in South Carolina, is showing why the so-called Republican establishment thinks he has the best discipline, organization and campaign smarts to challenge President Barack Obama this fall.

The former Massachusetts governor turned in his best debate performance yet Thursday night, putting chief rival Newt Gingrich on the defensive from the opening minutes in Jacksonville, Fla., and never letting up for two hours. It was a striking change after two South Carolina debates in which Gingrich revived his own campaign with fiery populist and media-bashing zingers that made Romney appear pallid in comparison.

Romney hired a new debate coach after those events. He was considerably more aggressive in a debate Monday in Tampa.

Then on Thursday, he urged his supporters to pack the hall in Jacksonville for the debate aired by CNN. As soon as it started, he appeared more prepared, polished and focused than Gingrich, who curiously dropped the fire-breathing aggressiveness he had shown only hours earlier at a morning tea party rally.

In contrast to the rousing ovations that Gingrich, the former House speaker, had received in the two South Carolina debates, the Jacksonville audience seemed mostly on Romney's side.

"When I'm shot at, I'll return fire," Romney said moments after the debate ended. "I'm certainly no shrinking violet."

Many Republicans expect Tuesday's Florida primary to be close. And debate performances are only one part of the GOP presidential campaign. It also features millions of dollars in TV, radio and mail ads and heavy coverage of candidates' events by local news outlets.

This cycle's presidential debates, however, have drawn big audiences and played an unusually large role in shaping the campaign. Gingrich's feisty performances after his near-fatal finish in Iowa helped put him into strong contention with Romney.

Romney's performance Thursday will doubtlessly reassure many mainstream party members who see Gingrich as too mercurial and burdened by past political battles to make the strongest case against Obama.

"Romney took the right lesson from South Carolina: Keep your opponent down, don't let him back up," New Hampshire political scientist Dante Scala, who follows the contest closely, said on Twitter before the debate was half over.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas congressman Ron Paul also participated in the forum, although Paul is not actively campaigning in Florida. Santorum scored strong points by noting that both Gingrich and Romney have supported mandatory health insurance for individuals.

Santorum says that history weakens the two men's ability to challenge Obama on mandated health coverage. Santorum is struggling to compete in sprawling, expensive Florida, however, and he planned to return for a while to Pennsylvania on Friday.

Romney's performance in Jacksonville was by no means perfect. He said he didn't remember a Spanish-language radio ad that his campaign is airing against Gingrich. CNN's Wolf Blitzer assured him the ad was his, and Gingrich needled him about it.

Romney also spent long segments explaining that his millions of dollars in personal wealth are invested by a trustee who keeps the details private to avoid conflicts of interest. Such sound bites might hurt Romney in a general election, which draws independent and Democratic voters who are likely to be more skeptical of a millionaire's hired accountants and complex investing than are some Republican activists.

On balance, however, Gingrich's supporters are likely to look back on the CNN debate and wonder what happened to the fire that boiled inside their champion Thursday morning, when he accused Romney of lies and gross hypocrisy.

One moment was especially telling. Blitzer asked Gingrich to explain his criticism of Romney's investments in, among other places, Swiss banks and Cayman Island accounts. Those locations sometimes are used to avoid U.S. taxes.

Gingrich, who often delights conservative crowds by lecturing or berating reporters, said the question was inappropriate for a presidential debate. Blitzer pressed on, saying Gingrich had made serious allegations about the investments, which Romney defends as above-board.

In what seemed a peace offering, Gingrich turned to Romney and said, "You want to try again?"

Romney answered with a verbal smack. "Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't make accusations somewhere else that they weren't willing to defend here?" he said coldly.

The moment was reminiscent of Tim Pawlenty's refusal in an August debate to repeat a sharp criticism he had recently made of Romney. Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, soon dropped out and endorsed Romney.

Romney seemed determined to attack Gingrich at the first opportunity, even at the risk of strained indignation. He pounced when Gingrich, pressed on whether Romney is "the most anti-immigrant candidate," said blandly, "I think, of the four of us, yes."

"That's simply inexcusable," Romney retorted.

Immigration is a sensitive issue among Florida's Hispanic voters. Gingrich recently dropped an ad that called Romney anti-immigrant, at the request of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., whose parents are from Cuba.

Romney said Gingrich's comments were "the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized American politics too long." He said Gingrich should apologize.

Gingrich regained some of his populist groove late in the debate.

"One of the reasons I am running is, there has been an increasingly aggressive war against religion, and in particular against Christianity in this country, largely by a secular elite and the academic, news media and judicial areas," he said. "It's important to have some leadership that stands up and says, `Enough.'"

The campaign question for Gingrich is: Did he do enough in his two debate opportunities in Florida to maintain his eye-popping momentum from South Carolina?

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? Charles Babington covers politics for The Associated Press.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_an/us_gop_campaign_analysis

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Ex-aides to Wisconsin governor charged with misconduct (Reuters)

MADISON, Wis (Reuters) ? Two former aides to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker were charged on Thursday with political fundraising on public time in a development that could give fresh ammunition to critics seeking to toss the Republican out of office over a law he championed last year curbing the rights of public sector unions.

The charges against the women, both aides to Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive, stemmed from a probe into allegations of misconduct in public office as well as political solicitation by public officials and employees, according to the criminal complaint.

The investigation found that a private e-mail network had been set up and run out of Walker's office in 2010 to communicate campaign and government-related information to "select individuals," Milwaukee County district attorney John Chisholm's office said in a statement.

The charges, against former deputy chief of staff Kelly Rindfleisch and former executive assistant Darlene Wink, are the latest to involve former staffers close to the first-term Republican governor.

Earlier this month, another former deputy chief of staff to Walker was charged with fraud, accused of embezzling thousands of dollars from a fund for families of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The charges against the former aides follow a fierce partisan battle in the state last year in which Republican lawmakers successfully pushed through controversial measures to curb the collective bargaining power of public sector workers.

A spokeswoman for a Walker campaign group, Friends of Scott Walker, said the policy at the county executive's office under Walker was that employees could not use county "time or resources to conduct any political activity."

"Scott Walker expected everyone to follow the law and made that clear publicly and privately," the spokeswoman, Ciara Matthews, said. Walker's office did not immediately respond to a voicemail and e-mail requesting comment.

The charges come as opponents of Walker who are seeking to unseat him submitted petitions with more than a million signatures last week to force a recall election, far more than needed. Democrats have yet to settle on an opponent to face Walker in any recall, and he retains a strong base.

Organizers are also seeking to recall four Republican state senators, including Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch.

Officials at the state's Government Accountability Board are working to verify the petitions, which could trigger special elections in the late spring or early summer.

The illegal fundraising charges stem from the execution of a search warrant at Walker's Milwaukee offices on November 1, 2010 - just a day before Walker beat Democrat Tom Barrett in the race to replace outgoing Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle.

On the laptop of Rindfleisch, Walker's then-deputy chief of staff, authorities found what they said were hundreds of e-mails and instant messages showing Rindfleisch raising money for Brett Davis, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor favored by the Walker campaign, while she was being paid by Milwaukee taxpayers, the criminal complaint said.

In one instant message chat with a friend in January 2010, Rindfleisch confides that "really half of what I'm doing" on the clock was related to the Davis campaign.

Rindfleisch, 43, has been charged with four felony counts of misconduct in public office. Each charge carries a maximum term of 3-1/2 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

Wink, a former executive assistant in the county executive's office, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of political solicitation for engaging in fundraising for Walker while in a county building and using county equipment, prosecutors said.

The charges against Wink, 62, carry a maximum six months in prison and up to a $1,000 fine.

(Reporting by Jeff Mayers, Brendan O'Brien, David Bailey and James B. Kelleher; Writing by James B. Kelleher and David Bailey; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Will Dunham)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/us_nm/us_crime_wisconsin_walker_aides

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AntiCrop (for iPhone)

AntiCrop is one of the more limited iPhone photo apps, but what it does is pretty cool: It extends your photos beyond their original edges. The technique used is similar to content-aware filling features you find in Adobe Photoshop Elements, which can fill in missing areas of panorama shots. It's not perfect, but for 99 cents, it?s a pretty fun feature to add to your iPhone photography kit.

A video, linked to from the app's home page, gives you a quick primer on how to use the app. To get started AntiCropping, you either open a photo from any of your iPhone's existing galleries or shoot a new picture?the choices are clear as can be from the app's home screen. (Other less useful prominent choices include rating in the App Store and Tell a Friend).

Once you've picked or shot an image, you have to choose the output size, from original down to Low?768x1024. The larger sizes will take longer to process, but I didn't find using the largest, original size on my iPhone 4S excessively time consuming.

Next, you see a smaller than usual view of the photo, surrounded by the typical cropping handles. But in this case, these are for "un-cropping." You drag them out, and magically, the added area is filled with content extended from what was at the original edge of the picture. So, the typical example is a beach, in which the water and sky are extended in the right places. You can choose from six portrait and landscape preset aspect ratios, like square, 4:3, or 16:9, or just freehand it. A preview button lets you easily compare your original with the new anticropped image. You can only extend a photo about a quarter of the image's original dimensions?it's not infinite. And by the way, AntiCrop lets you crop conventionally, as well, cutting off edges of the image.

AntiCrop's App Store page warns, "However please do not use AntiCrop to complete unpredictable picture areas?human face, buildings or other objects since the application was not designed for these kinds of tasks." Good advice. You might just fool some viewers with extending building textures, and I was surprised at how convincing some of my test results with backgrounds far less regular than beaches came out. But the key is that if it's an area that can be described as a "texture," rather than as an "object," it's probably fair game for AntiCrop. When you think about it, though, how often is a face right at the edge of a photo?

Sharing
After you've recomposed your iPhone photo in a pleasing way, AntiCrop lets you save it to your photo library, e-mail it to a friend, or share it directly to Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter (after the usual sign-in and permission granting). My test photo duly appeared on Flickr, with a plug for the app, but when I tried posting to Facebook I got an SSL error. When I tried posting to Twitter, the app shut down unexpectedly.?

The Antidote to Photo Boredom
AntiCrop is an impressive tool, especially given that it performs its magic on a handheld, rather than on a powerhouse desktop. While it's not perfect?I encountered a few crashes during testing, as noted?the app sports a clear, pleasant, usable interface, and for the most part yielded remarkable results. For 99 cents, AntiCrop delivers on its astonishing promise of adding content that wasn't previously there to your photos.

[App Store link: AntiCrop]

Read more iPhone app reviews:

??? AntiCrop (for iPhone)
??? Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 (for iPhone)
??? CameraBag 1.93 (for iPhone)
??? Camera+ 2.4VS (for iPhone)
??? Camera Genius 4.2 (for iPhone)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/cUn-KTa7tds/0,2817,2399203,00.asp

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Video: Fight night dawns in Florida

Tablets, e-readers in 1 of every 4 hands now

Get an iPad, Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet over the holidays? You're not alone: Tablet and e-reader ownership increased by nearly double over the holidays, and more than 1 out of every 4 Americans now has one of the devices, according to a new study.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46106670#46106670

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Purported Bonnie and Clyde guns sells for $210K (AP)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. ? Two guns thought to have been used by bank-robbing fugitives Bonnie and Clyde have snatched $210,000 at an auction in Kansas City, Mo.

The Joplin Globe (http://bit.ly/A9BRHg) reported an online bidder from the East Coast on Saturday bought the weapons believed to have been seized from the outlaw couple's Joplin hideout in 1933.

Sold were a .45-caliber, fully automatic Thompson submachine gun ? better known as a Tommy gun ? and a 1897 Winchester 12-gauge shotgun. Mayo Auction, of Kansas City, was not given permission to release the name of the buyer.

Two law enforcement officers died during a shootout at the Joplin apartment where the couple and members of their gang were holed up, but all the members of the Clyde Barrow gang escaped.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_re_us/us_bonnie_and_clyde_guns

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Dutch court rejects Apple appeal, says Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is legal

A court in the Hague has just cleared the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for sale in the Netherlands, rejecting Apple's requests for a nationwide ban. As NU.nl reports, a different Dutch court had already issued a similar ruling in October, which Cupertino promptly appealed, claiming that Sammy's slate was too similar to its own iPad 2. Today, though, the Court of the Hague shot down Apple's arguments, determining that there are enough differences between the two products to legally justify their coexistence. Granted, this is only one of many patent battles that the two companies are currently waging, but for today, at least, it looks like Samsung has come out on top.

[Thanks, Rolfski]

Dutch court rejects Apple appeal, says Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is legal originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/24/dutch-court-rejects-apple-appeal-says-samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-i/

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Greek debt hopes shore up markets despite delay

LONDON (AP) ? Hopes that Greece will eventually reach a deal with private creditors on lowering its debt supported markets on Monday, as investors looked past delays in reaching an agreement that would further ease Europe's debt crisis.

The country's private creditors are being asked to accept longer maturities and lower interest rates on new bonds swapped for their existing ones.

Greece, which is negotiating alongside fellow eurozone nations and the International Monetary Fund ? its bailout rescuers ? wants interest rates as low as 3 percent on the new bonds. But the private creditors believe that is too low and are aiming for about 4.5 percent.

Both sides say a deal is nevertheless very close, heartening investors. The euro was the main beneficiary, climbing a further 0.9 percent to $1.2995.

Greek officials say negotiations on the private debt writedown are continuing over the phone, while no appointment has been set yet for new face-to-face talks this week.

An agreement is necessary if Greece is to get the next batch of bailout cash that would prevent a devastating debt default ? Greece does not have enough money to cover a euro14.5 billion ($18.7 billion) bond repayment in March. A deal would allow the country to receive a second bailout package from other European governments and the IMF, and cut Greece's debt from an estimated 160 percent of its annual economic output to 120 percent by 2020.

Greece will likely be the main topic of discussion at a meeting later of the 17 eurozone finance ministers in Brussels.

"Hopes are high that today's meeting in Brussels will produce some positive plans to tackle the ongoing debt issues and balance out some of the frustration felt by the inability of Greece to come to an agreement with its lenders," said David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index.

Those hopes have helped shore up markets at the start of a week, which will also feature the annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland and the U.S. Federal Reserve's first rate-setting meeting of the year.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.5 percent at 5,759 while Germany's DAX rose 0.2 percent to 6.414. The CAC-40 in France was 0.3 percent higher at 3,332.

Wall Street was poised for a steady, if unspectacular, opening with little economic news on the calendar ? Dow futures were unchanged at 12,658 while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 futures rose 0.1 percent at 1,310.

Optimism that Greece will clinch a deal as well as a run of successful European bond auctions and solid economic and corporate news, not least from the U.S. and China, have brightened market sentiment this year. Many stock indexes have risen to five-month highs, while the euro has clambered off 17-month dollar lows to head back towards the $1.30 mark.

Later in the week, investors will be monitoring the meeting at the Fed.

Though the Fed is expected to keep its super-loose monetary policy unchanged, there will be great interest in the outcome of the meeting. It will be the first time the Fed will be publishing its interest rate forecasts out to 2016, part of a strategy to enchance communication with financial markets.

Investors will be particularly interested to see how long it expects interest rates to remain low ? previously the Fed said it expected to keep them low until the middle of 2013.

"Most, ourselves included, expect the projections to suggest the Fed sees rates on hold well into 2014," said Adam Cole, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

In the oil markets, traders are watching developments in the Persian Gulf, too. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. and other countries impose more sanctions on it because of its nuclear program. Many analysts doubt that Iran could set up a blockade for long, but any supply shortages would cause supplies to tighten.

As a result, prices have remained well-supported ? benchmark crude was up 30 cents at $98.63 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-23-World-Markets/id-27209bc98dc04361a09cd8b503485883

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Movie Scores: How the critics rated the new movies (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Mixed martial arts superstar Gina Carano is knocking out the critics, with her film debut, "Haywire," earning strong reviews in its opening weekend.

Carano stars in director Steven Soderbergh's action thriller as a special-ops agent trying to figure out who double-crossed her after a secret mission in Barcelona. AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire gave it three stars out of four, calling Soderbergh's film: "zippy, hugely entertaining and well-crafted as always (since he once again serves as his own cinematographer and editor), but not one of his more important films in the broad scheme of things."

Also opening nationwide this weekend is "Red Tails" from executive producer George Lucas, about the nation's first black fighter pilots who served during World War II. AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle gave the movie two stars out of four, writing: "In `Red Tails,' the famed Tuskegee Airmen get the John Wayne-style heroic rendering they very much deserve, but in a hackneyed and weirdly context-less story that does them a disservice."

Opening to strong reviews in New York and Los Angeles is the Mexican thriller "Miss Bala," about a pageant queen who becomes a captive pawn in the gang wars along the United States-Mexico border. Lemire gave it three stars, saying: "With long, fluid takes that create a mesmerizing tension, (director and writer Gerardo Naranjo) initially draws us into a world of youthful optimism, one which ends up being wildly unpredictable and increasingly desperate."

Here's a look at how these movies fared on the top review websites as of Friday afternoon. Each score is the percentage of positive reviews for the film:

? "Miss Bala": Metacritic, 82; Movie Review Intelligence: 87.8; Rotten Tomatoes, 89. Average: 86.3.

? "Haywire": Metacritic, 67; Movie Review Intelligence, 69.8; Rotten Tomatoes, 83. Average: 73.3.

? "Underworld Awakening": Metacritic, 59; Movie Review Intelligence: 40.4; Rotten Tomatoes, 40; Average: 46.5.

? "Red Tails": Metacritic, 45; Movie Review Intelligence: 47.8; Rotten Tomatoes, 33. Average: 41.9.

___

Online:

http://www.metacritic.com/

http://moviereviewintelligence.com/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_en_mo/us_movie_scores

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Groupon buys Mertado.com - Consumer - Crain's Chicago Business

January 20, 2012

(Reuters) ? Groupon Inc said Friday that it bought social-shopping start-up Mertado.com, the latest in a string of acquisitions by the largest daily deal company.

Mertado, based in Silicon Valley, lets consumers find and buy products through social networks, including Facebook.

Mertado founders Mehul Shah, Rajiv Bhat and Vijay Chittoor will join Groupon, the Chicago-based company said.

"Mertado has shown a great level of innovation in the social commerce space - for example, the launch of Mertado TV, combining lifestyle video content and product selection," a Groupon spokeswoman said. "We're looking forward to leveraging the team's expertise."

The deal comes soon after Groupon launched a new business called Groupon Goods, which sells discounted products such as speakers, cameras, earrings and mats to its subscribers.

"Groupon has been a pioneer in social commerce in many ways, and when we started talking with them, it became extremely clear that they shared the same set of values as us," Mertado said in a statement on its website.

The company included a link to the Groupon Goods site in its statement.

A purchase price for Mertado was not disclosed.

? ?

(Note: Your first name and last initial will appear with your remarks.)

Source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120120/NEWS07/120129973/groupon-buys-mertado-com

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UK Muslims convicted in landmark gay hatred case (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Three British Muslim men were found guilty on Friday of stirring up hatred by distributing leaflets calling for the death of homosexuals in what prosecutors said was a landmark case.

The men, from Derby, had posted and handed out pamphlets near their local mosque with the title "Death Penalty?" featuring a mannequin hanging from a noose and saying gay people would to go to hell.

The leaflets were part of a protest by a group of Muslim men against a forthcoming Gay Pride parade in the city.

Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed became the first people in Britain to be found guilty under a law introduced in 2010 making it an offence to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The jury at Derby Crown Court heard how one witness had felt he was being targeted and feared he would be burned, said Sue Hemming from the Crown Prosecution Service.

"While people are entitled to hold extreme opinions which others may find unpleasant and obnoxious, they are not entitled to distribute those opinions in a threatening manner intending to stir up hatred against gay people," she said in a statement.

"This case was not about curtailing people's religious views or preventing them from educating others about those views; it was that any such views should be expressed in a lawful manner and not incite others to hatred."

Gay rights group Stonewall said the case vindicated their call for specific legislation to protect homosexuals.

"We're satisfied to see these extremists convicted for distributing offensive and inflammatory leaflets that suggested gay people should be burnt or stoned to death," said Ben Summerskill, Stonewall Chief Executive.

The men will be sentenced on February 10.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/lf_nm_life/us_britain_muslims_gays

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EBay reports higher 4Q earnings, revenue

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? EBay says its net income grew in the fourth quarter, helped by a gain on the sale of its remaining investment in Skype and higher revenue.

The e-commerce and online payments company said Wednesday that it earned $1.98 billion, or $1.51 per share in the October-December quarter. That's up from $559 million, or 42 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue grew 35 percent to $3.38 billion from $2.5 billion.

Excluding special items, eBay Inc. says it earned 60 cents per share.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of 57 cents per share on revenue of $3.32 billion.

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay is forecasting adjusted earnings of 50 cents to 51 cents per share in the first quarter. That's below Wall Street's expectations of 54 cents.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-01-18-US-Earns-EBay/id-c2ed10381c2a4bb9bada3990dddc5961

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Video: Take a look at TODAY?s new graphics

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/46025409#46025409

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Al Qaeda-linked magazine delivered to Guantanamo (Reuters)

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Jan 18 (Reuters) ? A copy of an al Qaeda-linked magazine was delivered to the Guantanamo detention camp for suspected terrorists, a military prosecutor revealed on Wednesday during a courtroom discussion of mail security.

The camp commander, Rear Admiral David Woods, issued orders last month tightening the screening of mail sent by lawyers to their clients at the camp that holds 171 captives on the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba.

In a pretrial hearing for suspected al Qaeda bomber Abd al Rahim al Nashiri at the Guantanamo war crimes court on Tuesday, Woods testified that the new rules were necessary to prevent contraband from entering the camp, but he gave no specifics.

One of the prosecutors in Nashiri's case said in court on Wednesday that the old system had not worked.

"There was material getting in like Inspire magazine that should not have been getting in," said the prosecutor, Navy Commander Andrea Lockhart.

Inspire magazine bills itself as the publication of Yemeni-based group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and famously published an article titled, "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom." The United States considers it a propaganda and recruitment vehicle for the group, and killed its editor in a drone strike in Yemen in September.

A Pentagon spokesman could not immediately provide details concerning the copy that wound up in Guantanamo.

Lockhart indicated it was sent by a civilian lawyer representing a detainee challenging his Guantanamo detention in the U.S. District Court in Washington. Those civilian "habeas corpus" cases are separate from the war crimes tribunals taking place in fits and starts at Guantanamo.

FAIR TRIAL RIGHTS?

Nashiri is the only prisoner currently facing charges in a tribunal, and his lawyer said he was not the one who received the Inspire magazine.

The 47-year-old Saudi citizen is accused of orchestrating the October 2000 attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured dozens more aboard the USS Cole. Suicide bombers rammed a boat full of explosives into the side of the American warship while it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden, blowing a huge hole in its side.

He could be executed if he is convicted of charges that include murder, attempted murder, conspiring with al Qaeda and attacking civilians.

Two days of pretrial hearings in his case this week focused partly on the mail restrictions that Woods imposed for the other 170 prisoners. Woods said teams of Pentagon contractors, who included lawyers, translators and former intelligence officers, reviewed the mail to ensure it did not contain physical or informational contraband. Under his rules, the screeners divided mail into three categories.

Nashiri's lawyers argued that in order to carry out that task, the screeners had to read confidential legal mail. They said submitting case-related documents under that system would force them to illegally disclose trial strategy, violating Nashiri's right to a fair trial. They said it was also an ethical violation that potentially could put their own law licenses in jeopardy.

The judge in the case, Army Colonel James Pohl, heard arguments from both sides and said he would issue an order in a couple of weeks outlining procedures for the handling of Nashiri's legal mail.

Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002 and held in secret CIA custody until his transfer to Guantanamo in 2006. Prosecutors hope to start his trial by March 2013 at the latest. The defense said it would not be ready before March 2015, in part because it hopes to receive about 570,000 pages of evidence, some of which must be translated and some of which requires special handling because it is secret.

The long wait for the start of the trial and the focus on Nashiri's rights was frustrating for families of the sailors killed aboard the Cole more than 11 years ago. Two sailors who survived the attack traveled to Guantanamo to attend the hearing, as did relatives of three sailors killed on the ship.

"Justice is slow, very slow," said 68-year-old Jesse Nieto, whose son Marc Nieto died in the blast. "I just hope that I'll be able to see and be alive when the outcome resolves itself."

Oliva Rux, whose husband Kevin Rux died aboard the Cole, said, "I have nothing but time to wait, to wait until that detainee takes his last breath."

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Paul Simao)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/ts_nm/us_usa_guantanamo

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Kraft to Leave Tarrytown, Move Jobs to Chicago

Kraft Foods is moving out of its Tarrytown location.

Photo credit: Meredith Shamburger

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. ? The Kraft Foods Company will be closing its Tarrytown offices and moving most of its local employees to Chicago by the end of the the year.?

About 225 employees of Kraft's beverages business unit will be transferred from the company's Tarrytown location to Chicago by December 2012 as part of a major company restructuring,??Kraft spokesperson Mike Mitchell said. That number includes some in the research and development area of desserts.

Mitchell said about 140 research and development staff would be staying in the New York-New Jersey area at a site yet to be determined. The fate of the remaining 75 employees is still up in the air, Mitchell said.

?We anticipate by the middle of the year people will have a good sense of where they'll be,? Mitchell said, noting that employees have already begun to meet with the Human Resources division to discuss the changes.

Kraft announced Tuesday that it would be realigning its workforce and consolidating management centers in the United States throughout 2012 as it splits into two public companies, one for groceries and one for snacks.

Kraft said approximately 1,600 positions in North America would be eliminated from its sales, corporate and business unit areas. About 20 percent of those jobs are open positions, the company said.

"Consolidating our management locations is a sound business move," said?Tony Vernon, Executive Vice President and President,?Kraft Foods North America?and CEO of the future grocery company. "Having the majority of our business units together in one location will provide greater development opportunities for our people and will help us continue building our brands more efficiently and collaboratively."

Source: http://www.thedailyportchester.com/neighbors/kraft-leave-tarrytown-move-jobs-chicago

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Natural gas price plunge aids families, businesses (AP)

NEW YORK ? The price of natural gas is plummeting at a pace that has caught even the experts off guard.

A 35 percent collapse in the futures price over the past year has been a boon to homeowners who use natural gas for heat and appliances and to manufacturers who power their factories and make chemicals and materials with it.

The country is flush with natural gas as a result of new drilling techniques that have enabled energy companies to tap vast supplies that were out of reach not so long ago. The country's natural gas surplus has been growing even as the country burns record amounts.

This winter's warm weather slowed the growth in demand, however, and created a glut. In the Northeast, December was the fourth warmest in the last 117 years. Winter supplies are 17 percent above their five-year average.

The natural gas futures price fell 13 percent last week, to $2.67 per 1,000 cubic feet. That's the lowest winter-time level in a decade.

"The market has been overwhelmed with gas," says Anthony Yuen, a commodities analyst at Citibank.

He and other analysts expect the price to average near $3 for all of 2012. If the weather stays mild, the price could even dip below $2, a level not seen since 2002.

Cheap natural gas is mainly a good thing for the economy:

? More than half of U.S. households use natural gas for heat, and a quarter of the nation's electricity is made from it. Falling heating and electric costs are offsetting the impact of high gasoline prices and enabling families and small businesses to spend on other things. Residential gas and electric customers are saving roughly $200 a year, according to a study by Navigant Consulting.

? For companies that make plastics, fertilizer and other chemicals derived from natural gas, the falling prices are nothing short of a windfall. The same goes for makers of products from steel to bricks to beer. All use a lot of natural gas to heat their furnaces. U.S. manufacturers are becoming more competitive globally as a result of the country's cheap natural gas, industry officials say.

Some industries aren't cheering, though.

With electricity prices falling, the profits of all electric power producers ? whether they rely on coal, nuclear or wind ? are shrinking.

Companies that drill solely for natural gas are earning less these days, too. That's prompting some to hunt instead for oil, whose price is near $100 a barrel.

Still, drillers aren't reducing natural gas production as much as they would have during previous periods of low prices. They've found ways to produce the fuel at much lower cost so they can be profitable at much lower prices. And, in many cases, natural gas is a byproduct of oil drilling, which is so profitable that companies are going after every barrel they can find.

Analysts say in some oil and gas fields, drillers could give the gas away and still be hugely profitable just from selling the oil.

The benefit of falling natural gas prices to homeowners is not as big as a major drop in oil and gasoline prices would provide. The average household's annual gasoline bill is about $4,000, roughly double the average annual gas and electric bill.

Also, the fuel cost is only half of a customer's bill. The rest is transmission and delivery charges, which don't change along with fuel prices. Homeowners are paying $10.18 per 1,000 cubic feet of gas on average, including transmission and delivery charges, according to the Energy Information Administration. Over a year, a customer will burn an average of 75,000 cubic feet, or about $760 worth.

The multi-year drop in natural gas prices caught most industry experts by surprise.

In the middle of the last decade, natural gas looked to be in short supply. Production in the U.S. was slowing, imports from Canada were rising and plans for importing liquefied natural gas from the Middle East and elsewhere were drawn up.

Natural gas futures hit nearly $15 in 2005. Chemical and metals manufacturers were shutting U.S. factories and moving overseas, where gas was abundant and cheaper. Farmers in need of fertilizer were turning to inexpensive imports from Canada, Trinidad and Asia.

But over the next few years, drillers perfected methods first tried in 1981 that now allow them to profitably extract gas trapped in shale formations ? layers of fine-grained rock that in some cases have trapped ancient organic matter that has cooked into oil and natural gas.

Engineers combined the ability to drill horizontally into shale with a technique called hydraulic fracturing. Millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pumped into wells to break rock and create escape routes for the gas. In doing so they unlocked natural gas deposits deep underground across the East, South and Midwest that are large enough to supply the U.S. for decades.

This eventually turned the shortage into a glut, and reversed the fortunes of some industries.

An ammonia plant owned by CF Industries in Donaldsville, La., that was shuttered by its former owner in 2004 is running again. Steel maker Nucor Corp. is building a factory in Louisiana; Shell Oil Co. is planning a petrochemical plant in Appalachia; and Dow Chemical is building a type of chemical feedstock plant it hasn't built in the U.S. since 1995.

"A whole slice of American industry is benefiting," says Steve Wilson, the CEO of CF Industries, which makes ammonia and other fertilizer ingredients. CF Industries, which is based in Deerfield, Ill., has seen its daily natural gas costs fall from $6 million to $2 million over the past few years. The company is planning to spend more than $1 billion expanding its U.S. plants.

While industrial customers are betting on low prices for years to come, things could change if demand increases sharply because of extreme weather or faster-than-expected economic growth, or if the U.S. begins exporting gas. It's also possible that natural gas drilling could be curtailed by environmental regulations designed to protect drinking water from hydraulic fracturing.

Legislators in New York and New Jersey have banned hydraulic fracturing temporarily, and the Environmental Protection Agency is studying it and may propose national regulations.

The most likely near-term scenario is that prices keep falling, according to Rusty Braziel, an analyst at Bentek Energy.

"This ain't the bottom," he says.

___(equals)

Jonathan Fahey can be reached at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120115/ap_on_bi_ge/us_natural_gas_plunge

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China GDP growth at 2-1/2 year low but tops forecast (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? China's economy grew at its weakest pace in 2-1/2 years in the latest quarter and it appeared headed for an even sharper slowdown in the coming months as export demand fades and the housing market falters.

The fourth-quarter year-on-year growth of 8.9 percent, although slightly stronger than the 8.7 percent that economists polled by Reuters had predicted, may give Beijing yet another reason to gently ease monetary policy, most likely by reducing the amount of reserves that large banks must hold.

The data released on Tuesday may not satisfy investors, who were looking for figures that were either weak enough to provide a clear-cut case for policy easing or strong enough to allay fears that the world's second-biggest economy might unravel.

"The slowdown is not scary, so we are not going to get massive policy easing," said Kevin Lai, an economist with Daiwa in Hong Kong.

Shanghai stocks pared gains in low-volume, volatile trading after the data was released. The euro and Australian dollar both extended gains against the U.S. dollar as investors took some solace in the fact that China's growth rate was a bit faster than expected.

With Europe in danger of slipping into a recession and U.S. growth looking lackluster, China's role in the global economy is magnified.

Although economists widely expect China's 2012 growth will be the weakest in a decade, a more pronounced slowdown would put a major drag on already shaky global growth.

The fourth-quarter growth rate was the slowest pace since the second quarter of 2009, when the global economy stumbled out of a deep recession.

Ma Jiantang, the head of China's statistics agency, said China's growth was likely to slow further as Beijing tries to restructure the economy away from exports and towards domestic consumption -- something the United States and other trading partners have long pressed China to do.

Tuesday's data showed net exports subtracted from 2011 growth while consumption contributed more than half.

Some analysts think China's first-quarter growth will be below 8 percent threshold seen as the minimum for assuring sufficient job creation.

"Further weakness lies ahead," Mark Williams, an analyst at Capital Economics, said before the fourth-quarter data was released.

"European demand for Chinese products has already slowed and is likely to remain subdued. The outlook for real estate construction -- a 10th of GDP -- is potentially an even greater concern."

Europe is China's top export market, and all signs point to much of the continent falling into recession in coming months, with no end in sight as governments push austerity programs.

Mass ratings downgrades in the euro zone over the weekend and a breakdown in Greek bailout talks have added to financial market jitters.

NEW YEAR SKEW

An early Lunar New Year holiday on January 23-24 probably skewed the fourth-quarter data and the effect will likely linger through the first three months of the year. Factories typically step up production to clear orders before the festive period, and then temporarily shut down as workers head home to visit family.

That means fourth-quarter growth probably benefited from the surge in manufacturing, while first-quarter activity will be even slower.

"We are in a period where the early Chinese New Year is boosting activity ahead of the holiday, which is setting us up for a disappointment after," Ken Peng, an economist at BNP Paribas, said before the data release.

Peng sees China's annual economic growth slipping to 7.9 percent in the first quarter, the worst in three years.

A BOTTOM IN Q1?

Other Chinese data painted a mixed picture of the economy.

Retail sales grew 18.1 percent from a year earlier in December, faster than the consensus of a Reuters poll of 17.2 percent. Industrial output also exceeded expectations, up 12.8 percent year on year.

But housing investment dropped precipitously in December, and many property developers have warned that 2012 looks grim.

A booming housing market helped drive China's explosive growth in recent years, but Beijing has tried to cool prices in hopes of avoiding a devastating bubble and bust.

A modest housing market slowdown would be a welcome development, but a crash would be catastrophic, both for China and its trading partners around the world.

Some analysts think a more pronounced economic slowdown in the first quarter could be a blessing in disguise of sorts.

It may compel stability-obsessed Beijing to unveil more stimulus measures this year, giving the Chinese and world economy the lift that many investors are hoping for.

Possible stimulus could include further cuts in the levels of reserves that banks need to set aside at the central bank, and more aggressive state investment aimed at providing more public housing for low-income households.

"When growth dips to below 8 percent, the political consensus for protecting growth will be stronger. That helps to bring back activity," Peng from BNP Paribas said.

(Corrects company affiliation for Kevin Lai in paragraph 4)

($1=6.3066 yuan)

(Additional reporting by China economics team, Clement Tan in HONG KONG, Anthony Slodkowski in TOKYO; Writing by Emily Kaiser: Editing by Kim Coghill and Neil Fullick)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120117/bs_nm/us_china_economy_gdp

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