Wall Street flat amid stalemate in fiscal talks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Thursday as investors fretted that a deal on the U.S. budget wouldn't come as soon as they had hoped after President Barack Obama threatened to veto a controversial Republican plan.

NYSE Euronext was the star of the day, surging more than 30 percent as the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, after IntercontinentalExchange Inc said it would buy the operator of the New York Stock Exchange for $8.2 billion.

NYSE was up 31.9 percent at $31.72, while ICE shares gave up earlier gains to fall 2 percent to $125.77.

The market barely reacted to a round of strong data, including an upward revision of gross domestic product growth and stronger-than-expected home sales, suggesting talks to avert the "fiscal cliff," steep tax hikes and spending cuts due in 2013, remain the primary focus for markets.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives pushed ahead with their own fiscal plan in a move that muddles negotiations with the White House. Obama has vowed to veto the plan.

While investors have hoped for an agreement to come soon between policy makers, this seems unlikely as wrangling continues over the details.

"At least in the posturing it looks as if there are ultimatums put on the table, which tends to box either side in," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

Still, the absence of a significant sell-off shows "the market still believes that there will be an announcement of some sort. But as the clock is ticking, the most you're going to get is a stop-gap measure," said Krosby.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 13.70 points, or 0.10 percent, to 13,238.27. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> edged up 0.15 points, or 0.01 percent, at 1,435.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> eased 6.17 points, or 0.20 percent, to 3,038.20.

Stocks rallied earlier in the week on signs of progress in the negotiations, led by banking and energy shares, which tend to outperform in times of economic expansion. On signs of complications, however, many have turned to hedging their bets through options and exchange-traded funds.

The U.S. economy grew 3.1 percent in the third quarter, faster than previously estimated, while the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected in the latest week.

"It is great to see this kind of growth, but investors know it could all disappear if there's no deal on the cliff," said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital in New York. "Macro data may be on the back burner for a while."

Existing home sales jumped 5.9 percent in November, more than expected, and by the fastest monthly place in three years. Housing shares <.hgx> gained 0.5 percent.

Herbalife fell 4.2 percent to $35.78 in the wake of news that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was betting against the company as part of his big end-of-the-year short.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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BBC Inquiry Blames Rigid Management for Mishandling Sex Abuse Scandal

LONDON — A report published Wednesday examining the sexual abuse crisis that has shaken the British Broadcasting Corporation strongly criticized the editorial and management decisions that led to the cancellation of a broadcast last year that would have exposed decades of sexual abuse, some of it on BBC premises, by Jimmy Savile, a network fixture who had been one of Britain’s best-known television personalities.

The 200-page report by Nick Pollard, a former head of the Sky News channel who began his broadcast career as a BBC reporter, traced in detail what it described as “a chain of events that was to prove disastrous for the BBC.” Among other things, Mr. Pollard blamed a rigid management system that had “proved completely incapable” of dealing with the crisis that followed the cancellation.

While much of the report centered on the interplay between journalists and their superiors as the allegations against Mr. Savile were investigated, its central conclusion appeared to be that confusion and mismanagement, not a cover-up, lay at the heart of the decision to drop the Savile segment, which would have been broadcast on “Newsnight,” an investigative program. Mr. Savile died at 84 in October 2011, weeks before the segment was scheduled to run.

“The efforts to get to the truth behind the Savile story proved beyond the combined efforts of the senior management, legal department, corporate communications team and anyone else for well over a month” after ITV, Britain’s leading commercial station, broadcast a documentary detailing five women’s claims that they had been sexually abused as teenagers by Mr. Savile. “Leadership and organization seemed to be in short supply.”

Mr. Pollard dismissed a widely circulated theory that BBC News executives or their superiors, reluctant to have the BBC reveal a dark passage in its past, pressured the “Newsnight” team to cancel the Savile segment. Peter Rippon, the program’s editor, said he had considered the team’s conclusions about Mr. Savile not adequately substantiated.

“While there clearly were discussions about the Savile story between Mr. Rippon and his managers,” Mr. Pollard said, he does not believe that they exerted “undue pressure” on him.

After the publication of the report, Tim Davie, the BBC’s acting director general, said that Stephen Mitchell, the deputy head of news, had resigned and that Mr. Rippon would be moved to another job. “Newsnight” will also gain a new deputy editor.

In a statement, the BBC Trust, which oversees the broadcaster, cited Mr. Pollard’s conclusion that no “inappropriate managerial pressure or consideration” factored into the decision to cancel the Savile segment. Still, the trust said the report would require major changes in the operation of the BBC. It said top executives must take initiative and responsibility, share information and embrace criticism, and persuade all employees to rid the company of the insularity and distrust that was revealed in the report.

“The BBC portrayed by the Pollard review is not fundamentally flawed, but has been chaotic,” it said. “That now needs to change.”

The report was strongly critical of several news executives who were directly involved in the decision to cancel the Savile exposé, including Mr. Rippon and the two top executives in the BBC’s news division to whom he reported, Helen Boaden and Stephen Mitchell, all three of whom were suspended from their posts during the nine-week Pollard inquiry.

But it paid scant attention to the role of Mark Thompson, who was director general of the BBC when the Savile segment was dropped and is now the president and chief executive of The New York Times Company. It did not dispute Mr. Thompson’s public statements that he did not know about the Savile investigation until it had been killed and that he did not know of the allegations against Mr. Savile until he left the BBC in mid-September.

After Mr. Thompson was told about the scuttled segment by a reporter at a reception in late December 2011, he asked his news executives about it. According to his testimony to the Pollard inquiry, he “received reassurances” that it had been killed for “editorial or journalistic reasons” and “crossed it off my list and went off to worry about something else.”

Matthew Purdy contributed reporting from New York.

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Facebook CEO Zuckerberg donating $500M in stock

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is donating nearly $ 500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.

Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $ 498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.

This is Zuckerberg’s largest donation to date. He pledged $ 100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, N.J., public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he’s “proud of the work” done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.

With the latest contribution, he added, “we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next.” He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.

“Mark’s generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place,” said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Kim Kardashian Debuts New Bangs

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/19/2012 at 10:30 AM ET

XPosure

Guess who has another new look?

Kim Kardashian touched down at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday night sporting freshly cut fringe. The reality starlet — who’d been in New York City for a photo shoot — also had a sleeker, shorter ‘do, courtesy of celebrity hairstylist Chris McMillan.

“Fun shoot today @chrismcmillan He just can’t control his scissor hands! #bangs,” she Tweeted to fans, along with an Instagram collage of the hair-cutting process.

McMillan — best known for giving Jennifer Aniston the famed “Rachel” hairstyle — Tweeted his own pic and mentioned his love of Kardashian’s new look. “BANGS!!! @kimkardashian #love #fringe #photoshoot #sexy.”

Interestingly, it was about exactly one year ago when Kardashian tried bangs (presumably clip-ins) for a New Year’s Eve party in Las Vegas. At the time, her tresses were longer and darker, making the look a bit more severe than her newer, softer style.

The woman definitely changes hairstyles a lot, but we’re liking this new look — are you? Tell us: What do you think of Kardashian’s new ‘do? 

PHOTOS: SHOP THE SEVEN HAIR PRODUCTS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.

Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?

For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.

"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.

"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.

Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.

Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.

There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.

Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.

Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.

In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.

Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.

But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.

Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.

To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.

Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.

When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.

Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.

Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.

Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

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Wall Street little changed after two-day rally, GM jumps

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Wednesday as investors found scant reason to continue buying following the best two-day rally for the S&P in a month.

General Motors bucked the overall weakness to surge more than 8 percent after the company said it will buy back 200 million of its shares from the U.S. Treasury, which plans to sell the rest of its GM stake over the next 15 months. GM was up 8.6 percent at $27.68.

There was optimism that politicians were getting closer to an agreement to avert the "fiscal cliff" - steep tax hikes and spending cuts that will come into effect in the new year - but that was not enough to push the market higher.

"The question has shifted to what a deal will look like and entail, and markets are taking a pause as we consider that," said Scott Eldridge, director of portfolio management at Caprin Asset Management in Richmond, Virginia.

"It seems like all the parties at the table have made steady progress, but it continues to drown out all the other noise in markets."

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives could vote on Thursday on a "Plan B" tax bill that would extend low tax rates, except on income of $1 million and above, though the White House said President Barack Obama would veto the proposal.

Investors are concerned the fiscal cliff could send the economy back into recession, though most expect a deal will be reached eventually.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 11.80 points, or 0.09 percent, to 13,339.16. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> eased 2.12 points, or 0.15 percent, to 1,444.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 0.36 points, or 0.01 percent, to 3,054.89.

Markets have been buoyed in recent weeks by any signs that an agreement between policy makers over the budget may be reached, with banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - leading gains.

The S&P added 2.3 percent over the past two sessions, the first time it has notched two straight days of 1 percent gains since late July. Still, trading has been light ahead of the holidays, and with investors' focus on the budget talks.

Defensive sectors led the downside on Wednesday, with the utilities sector <.gspu> slipping 0.7 percent.

Gains in technology shares boosted the Nasdaq after Oracle reported earnings that beat expectations on strong software sales growth. Oracle jumped 3.4 percent to $34.00, while the tech sector <.gspt> was up 0.1 percent.

Knight Capital Group Inc climbed 6.9 percent to $3.56 after it agreed to be bought by Getco Holdings in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The stock, which nearly collapsed after a trading error in August, remains down about 76 percent so far this year.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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E1 on West Bank is Empty but Full of Meaning

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Khaled al-Saidi, right, said his family bought land in E1, between East Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, in the 1990s. The Israelis have told him to leave.

AL ZAYYEM, West Bank — They buried Rabi al-Essawy 14 months ago on land his family owns not far from this village, between East Jerusalem and the large Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. Mr. Essawy, 65, was a member of an important clan, and thousands attended his funeral.

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accelerated planning for housing units inside E1, but so far the only significant building is a police station.

But Mr. Essawy’s grave is in a parcel of land known as E1, a largely empty patch of the West Bank that is among the most sensitive pieces of real estate in an intractable conflict that is fundamentally about the land. The Israelis mean to annex E1 — short for East 1 — and they do not want Muslim graves to complicate future plans to build more settlements here.

Israeli authorities have ordered the family to remove Mr. Essawy’s remains and bury him in the village cemetery, just outside E1.

The fight over Mr. Essawy’s grave is a tiny skirmish in the long, intensifying battle over this parcel of land, a fight that speaks to the seemingly insurmountable differences, hostility and distrust between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It also stands as a symbol of the failure of negotiations as each side tries to outmaneuver the other with unilateral actions, and the international community is left on the sidelines to do little more than express discontent.

“It’s a big deal because for both sides, it looks like it’s in the heart of their dreams,” the columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “Nobody’s innocent here. Everybody’s trying to force his will on the other side.”

Israel sees E1, only 4.6 square miles and largely rocky desert, as the stone in the arch that connects East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed, to Maale Adumim, one of the biggest of the so-called settlement blocs, with a population of 40,000. Israel says it intends to keep Maale Adumim in any peace settlement, hoping to swap land with any future Palestinian state. In fact, it was Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor Party who in 1994 attached E1 to the municipality of Maale Adumim.

For the Palestinians, E1 is seen as essential if they are ever to achieve a viable independent state with East Jerusalem as their capital. Palestinians say they need the land to preserve a workable, practical connection between East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and to build housing for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. As important, the Palestinians contend, E1 is central to a crucial north-south route through the West Bank from Ramallah to Bethlehem.

Israeli officials argue that a system of protected roads and tunnels through E1 could allow Palestinians passage. Palestinians say that Israelis could instead use such roads to travel between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem, where many of the settlers work. Israeli officials also argue that the West Bank is not obstructed farther to the east, and that Palestinians can drive north-south closer to the Jordan River; Palestinians say that the Jordan Valley is too far out of their way and that Israel has said it will demand a security presence there in any case.

And of course the Palestinians, like the United States and most other nations, regard all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 boundaries, including in East Jerusalem itself, as illegal or as “obstacles to peace.” They regard Israeli assertions of “consensus” on keeping three main settlement blocs in the West Bank as self-delusion. Washington, however, does accept the principle of land swaps to accommodate demographic changes on the ground, but always subject to final agreement between the parties.

E1 has been contentious for years, with Washington warning various Israeli governments not to start building there. But E1 burst back into the forefront recently after Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, won United Nations General Assembly approval to recognize Palestine as a nonmember observer state. Mr. Abbas pressed ahead despite warnings from the United States and Israel that such an action would be a unilateral step in violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords that set up the supposedly interim Palestinian Authority.

Mr. Abbas won handily in the General Assembly on Nov. 29, in a 138 to 9 vote. Even Germany, a strong Israeli ally, abstained. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded with a three-part riposte. He withheld taxes collected on behalf of the Palestinians to pay down their electricity debt to Israel. He announced final approval for the construction of 3,000 more housing units in East Jerusalem and existing settlement blocs — beyond the 1967 borders, but within current settlement lines. And finally, he accelerated planning for the construction of up to 3,400 housing units inside E1.

Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

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Xbox SmartGlass updated with second-screen ESPN and NBA Game Time app experiences

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Adam Lanza's Mom 'Didn't Like to Leave Him Alone'

12/18/2012 at 11:30 AM EST

As divorces go, the one between Peter and Nancy Lanza appeared to be as amicable as possible under the circumstances, with agreement on generous alimony and custody.

But when the Lanzas finalized their split in 2009, they did have concerns about the care of their then-17-year-old son Adam, according to the pair's divorce mediator.

"The only two things I remember them saying is that she really didn't like to leave him alone and I know they went out of their way to accommodate him," their divorce mediator, Paula Levy, tells the Associated Press.

According to Levy, the Lanzas said their son had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder.

"They worked together about it," Levy adds. "The mom, Nancy, pretty much said she was going to take care of him and be there as much as he needed her, even long-term."

The issue of whether Adam has Asperger's is a heated one, with many mental-health experts suggesting there is no connection between autism and a propensity for violence – even though Adam, three years after the divorce, killed his mother and shot 26 others during the school massacre in Connecticut.

Many experts say the idea that people on the autism spectrum are incapable of empathy is oversimplified and often flat-out false. They are said to be no more likely to commit violent crime than other people, and in fact are vastly more likely to be the victims of violent crime than others.

The divorce papers came to light as police continued to search for a motive. New information from investigators reveals that Adam smashed the hard drive of at least one of his computers at home before he set off on his rampage. It is not clear if information could be retrieved

According to court papers, Nancy Lanza filed for divorce on Dec. 9, 2008, in Stamford, Conn., with the legal boilerplate reason that "the marriage has broken down irretrievably and there is no possibility of getting back together."

Nancy and Peter Lanza had been married for more than 27 years and had two sons. Adam's older brother Ryan was born in 1988.

The action was finalized on Sept. 23, 2009, with Peter, an executive making $8,556 a week, agreeing to pay $240,000 a year in alimony, with built-in increases yearly.

Nancy would have primary custody of Adam in their Sandy Hook home, but Peter would get "liberal visitation and vacations" and pay the college costs of both his sons, the papers say. Peter has since remarried.

Peter said in a statement over the weekend after the shooting, "No words can truly express how heartbroken we are. We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can."

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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