LONDON (Reuters) ? World stocks fell from a 5-1/2 month high on Friday as gains spurred by the Federal Reserve's pledge of low interest rates gave way to concerns about Portugal, seen as the next domino in the euro zone crisis, and uncertainty over Greek debt talks.
Portuguese five- and 10-year government bond yields were set to remain under pressure after hitting euro-era highs on Thursday as fears grow that the country may follow Greece in requiring another bailout or seeking to restructure its debt.
Athens is locked in tough negotiations with its private creditors on a restructuring it needs quickly to avert a disorderly default when a major bond redemption falls due in March. Greece's bondholders are demanding the European Central Bank contribute to a deal to put the country's messy finances back on track.
"With all the focus on Greece, attention has also started to shift to Portugal, whose own bond yields are continuing to rise sharply, with 10-year yields pushing on towards 15 percent, as fears rise that it could well need a second bailout," said Michael Hewson, market analyst at CMC Markets in London.
The MSCI world equity index fell a quarter percent, after hitting its highest since August on Thursday after the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates near zero for the next three years.
European stocks lost 0.4 percent while emerging stocks rose 0.3 percent.
U.S. crude oil fell 0.1 percent to $99.56 a barrel.
Bund futures rose 30 ticks.
The dollar rose slightly against a basket of major currencies. The euro fell 0.1 percent to $1.3091.
After weeks of wrangling over the coupon that Greece will pay on new bonds it will swap for existing debt, the focus has shifted to whether the ECB and other public creditors will follow private bondholders in swallowing losses.
Euro zone members may have to increase their financial support for Greece if Athens and the private sector do their part to address the country's debt crisis, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker told a newspaper.
Italy, on the other hand, has enjoyed a recent rapid decline in yields, mostly driven by demand from domestic banks awash with three-year loans taken out from the European Central Bank. Italy will sell 8 billion euros of six-month bills and 3 billion euros of 11-month bills on Friday after a successful short-term bond auction on Thursday and before a key sale of longer-dated debt next week.
NEW YORK ? The son of New York City's police commissioner has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman who told authorities she got pregnant from the encounter and had an abortion, people familiar with the investigation said Thursday.
Greg Kelly, 43, was absent Thursday morning from his job as anchor of the popular local morning show "Good Day New York" and through a lawyer denied the allegations.
The woman told authorities she met Kelly for drinks on Oct. 8, then went back to her law office in lower Manhattan, where she was assaulted, one person familiar with the case told The Associated Press. She told authorities she was not capable of consenting to sex, the person said.
She said she became pregnant and had an abortion, according to a law enforcement official. Neither the person nor the law enforcement official were authorized to speak publicly and talked to the AP on condition of anonymity.
It wasn't clear whether the woman supplied any medical evidence to authorities to support her claim.
Police spoke to the woman but quickly turned the case over to the Manhattan district attorney's office because of the potential conflict of interest in investigating the son of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Kelly, a former Fox News correspondent, is cooperating with the investigation, his lawyer, Andrew Lankler, said in an emailed statement.
Greg Kelly "strenuously denies any wrongdoing of any kind," Lankler said. "We know that the district attorney's investigation will prove Mr. Kelly's innocence." The lawyer didn't respond to questions about the focus of the investigation.
Lew Leone, the general manager of the local Fox station, said, "Greg Kelly has requested some time off." He did not elaborate.
At some point, the woman's boyfriend learned the story and became enraged, the person said.
The woman's boyfriend confronted the elder Kelly at a recent public event, police spokesman Paul Browne said.
"He said, `Your son ruined my girlfriend's life,'" Browne said. "The commissioner said, `Well, what do you mean?' He said he didn't want to talk about it here, so the commissioner told him to send a letter."
Browne said that, to his knowledge, no letter was sent. He said he could not comment on the investigation because of the potential conflict of interest.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg Thursday that he "thought the police department did exactly what they should do" by turning the matter over to the district attorney.
"Keep in mind: Everyone has a right to have their complaints investigated," the mayor said, noting that Greg Kelly hasn't been charged with any crime.
It wasn't immediately clear how much time elapsed between the man's remarks to the commissioner and the woman's decision to go to a police station Tuesday, nor why she had waited for nearly three months after the alleged attack to make a report.
It's also unclear how long the woman and Kelly knew each other before the alleged encounter at her office. But they apparently were in touch afterward, according to the person familiar with the investigation.
The identity of the woman has not been released, and the AP does not name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified or come forward publicly.
Kelly joined Fox News in 2002. He covered the Iraq War, including four assignments in Baghdad, and was the White House correspondent from 2005-2007, according to his biography on WNYW's website.
In 2007, the television show "Extra" identified him as the most eligible anchorman on TV. The show's website said Kelly "has enough heart and courage to make any woman swoon."
He's been involved in an ongoing feud with Joel McHale, host of "The Soup" on E! Entertainment. The show plays clips from television shows to poke fun at people, and McHale has frequently targeted Kelly and "Good Day New York."
One clip noted his sullen response to partner Rosanna Scotto the morning after a loss by the NFL's New York Jets, another showed Kelly playing disco music on his laptop coming off a commercial.
Kelly struck back last Halloween by showing up on "Good Day New York" in a McHale costume and making fun of "The Soup."
Earlier in his career, Kelly covered politics for local cable news channel New York 1 and was an anchor and reporter for NewsChannel 34, an ABC and NBC affiliate in Binghamton, N.Y., his biography said.
He also served for nearly a decade in the Marine Corps and is now a lieutenant colonel in its reserves.
Raymond Kelly has been police commissioner since 2002. He also served as commissioner in the 1990s.
The allegations about Kelly's son are the latest potential public relations challenge. Also Thursday, about 20 activists held a news conference on the steps of City Hall and criticized Ray Kelly for giving an interview to the producers of the movie "The Third Jihad." They said the film encourages Americans to be suspicious of all Muslims. Kelly has apologized for the interview.
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Associated Press writer Tom Hays and AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON -- In a State of the Union speech focused tightly on jobs and the economy, President Barack Obama outlined his ideas for getting long-term unemployed workers back to work and closing the "skills gap" separating jobless Americans from employers who have positions to fill.
In a speech setting his presidential agenda for 2012 -- as well his burgeoning re-election campaign -- Obama put forth policies that he said would "restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot," calling for more job training for young or unemployed workers as well as reforms to the unemployment insurance system.
"We will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt and phony financial profits," the president said. "I want to speak about how we move forward and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last -- an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers and a renewal of American values."
To aid the unemployed, Obama proposed a new initiative to train and place 2 million workers in jobs through partnerships with businesses and community colleges, based on existing programs in cities like Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Orlando and Louisville, Ky. Senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told HuffPost that Steve Jobs, the legendary and recently deceased figurehead of Apple, urged Obama to put forth such proposals in a past meeting of the two men. Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, was a guest of First Lady Michelle Obama at the speech.
In his speech, Obama cited the experience of Jackie Bray, a single mom in North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. "Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College," Obama said. "The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie's tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant. I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did."
Additionally, Obama said he'd simplify government-sponsored training programs -- something that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has also proposed. "I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website and one place to go for all the information and help they need," the president said. "It's time to turn our unemployment system into a re-employment system that puts people to work."
The president also proposed "eligibility assessments" for long-jobless workers applying for emergency federal unemployment insurance. He did not mention the Bridge to Work program he had proposed during an address to a joint session of Congress last September.
During the lasting jobs crisis, long-term unemployed workers have been hit particularly hard, with many still unable to find jobs even after exhausting their unemployment benefits. More than 13.1 million people were unemployed in December, according to the Labor Department, and an unprecedented 42.5 percent of them had been out of work for six months or longer. Nearly 2 million people have been unemployed longer than 99 weeks, beyond the reach of unemployment insurance. But the president pointed to more positive numbers.
"In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs," Obama said. "Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s."
Economists and worker advocates say people out of work for an extended period have a harder time landing new jobs, and they may ultimately wind up burdening another part of the safety net once their unemployment insurance runs out. "The long-term unemployed are concerned that they're less employable because they've been out of the workplace a couple of years," says Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO union federation. "People do need to be trained, and we need to make sure that long-term unemployment doesn't mean never being employed again."
The White House said in a December report that applications for Social Security disability payments increased among people older than 50 who would soon exhaust their unemployment insurance.
Obama mentioned the anxiety of older workers who lose their jobs -- while touting the renewable energy industry. "When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance," Obama said. "But he found work at Energetx, a wind-turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it's hiring workers like Bryan, who said, 'I'm proud to be working in the industry of the future.'"
In recent years economists have been debating how best to address the American "skills gap," discussing the idea that many Americans simply don't have the advanced manufacturing and technological skills required for the better-paying working-class jobs that remain in the United States. Although not everyone agrees that this wide gap exists -- economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, notably, has deemed "structural unemployment" a "fake problem" -- some employers and their allies have insisted that they have skilled positions they'd like to fill but simply can't find the right American workers for them. Many of those same employers would surely like to see government step in and provide some of the necessary training.
In his speech, the president said he hears "from many business leaders who want to hire in the United States but can?t find workers with the right skills. Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that -- openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work."
If nothing else, Obama's speech Tuesday could help make job training part of the mainstream dialogue, says Andy Van Kleunen, executive director of the National Skills Coalition, a nonprofit group that advocates for publicly funded job training.
"President Obama has tried several times over the past couple of years to increase our investments and training for workers," says Van Kleunen. "Finally, we're going to get a clear national debate about where the skills gap is, and how to deal with unemployment together with it."
NEW YORK?? Macy's Inc is suing Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc, accusing the company of breach of contract for entering into an agreement to sell certain products to J.C. Penney Company Inc.
Macy's says Martha Stewart Living granted it the exclusive right to make and sell certain products under a 2006 agreement, according to a New York state Supreme Court filing Monday.
Macy's is seeking a preliminary injunction stopping Martha Stewart from violating the contract. It also is seeking an order sealing the lawsuit and motion, saying it is prohibited from disclosing certain information.
The court filing does not detail the products in question.
Martha Stewart Living agreed "to grant Macy's the exclusive right to manufacture and sell Martha Stewart branded products in certain exclusive product categories," Robert Micheletto, a partner at Jones Day who represents Macy's, wrote in court papers.
"In direct violation of the terms of the agreement, MSLO recently announced it has entered into an agreement with" J.C. Penney Company Inc to sell Martha Stewart products that fall into Macy's exclusive product categories, the papers claim.
Martha Stewart Living did not immediately return a call for comment. Neither did JC Penney or Macy's.
The case is Macy's Inc. v. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., 650197/2012, New York state Supreme Court.
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
TAMPA, Fla. ? Rocked in South Carolina over the weekend, an increasingly aggressive Mitt Romney looked to take the fight to Newt Gingrich in debate Monday night as the combative Republican presidential contest shifted farther south to Florida.
The fireworks began before they walked onto the debate stage.
Romney began running an ad that said Gingrich "cashed in" with home-loan giant Freddie Mac while Floridians were being crushed in the housing crisis.
Gingrich mocked Romney as someone campaigning on openness "who has released none of his business records."
Gingrich, the former House speaker, has suddenly seized the nomination momentum, following weak finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire with the solid victory over Romney Saturday in South Carolina. And recent Florida polls suggest he may have erased Romney's lead here.
While the fight has largely become a two-man contest, they will share the stage with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
The GOP rivals were clashing at the University of Southern Florida Monday night and will meet again Thursday night in the run-up to the Florida primary on Tuesday, Jan. 31. The winner of the nomination will face Democratic President Barack Obama in November.
Before the Tampa debate started, Romney went after Gingrich in person and on the Florida airwaves.
At a campaign stop, Romney likened Gingrich to a pinball machine and suggested the former House speaker engaged in "potentially wrongful activity" in his consulting work over the past decade.
Romney then released his first negative ad of the campaign.
"While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in," the TV ad says, noting that the former speaker made more than $1.6 million working for Freddie Mac. "Gingrich resigned from Congress in disgrace and then cashed in as a D.C. insider."
Gingrich never registered as a lobbyist, but said he was a consultant for Freddie Mac, the federally backed mortgage company that played a significant role in the housing crisis.
It remains to be seen if Romney can effectively use his newly aggressive stance on the debate stage, a forum in which Gingrich has excelled so far. Underfunded and overmatched by Romney's massive ground game across the country, Gingrich has relied upon strong debate performances to build support.
It appears Romney has brought in outside help to improve his debate technique.
Veteran debate coach Brett O'Donnell was spotted at a Romney campaign stop on Monday. He previously advised President George W. Bush and GOP nominee John McCain and was a senior adviser and speech writer for Michele Bachmann's abbreviated campaign.
Gingrich, meanwhile, is showing no signs of backing down.
During an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America," he referred to Romney as "somebody who has released none of his business records, who has decided to make a stand on transparency without being transparent." After initially balking, Romney is set to release personal tax records on Tuesday.
MEXICO CITY ? A magnitude-6.2 earthquake hit off the coast of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas on Saturday, shaking the state from the capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez to Tapachula on the border with Guatemala. There were no immediate reports of injury or major damage.
The quake, which hit at 12:47 p.m. local time (1:47 p.m. EST; 18:47 GMT), broke windows in Tuxtla Gutierrez and sent frightened residents into the streets in cities across Chiapas.
The temblor, which felt like waves in Tuxtla Gutierrez, caused a panic but came with no early reports of major damage or injuries, said Jose Manuel Aragon, spokesman for the state Civil Protection agency.
He said the quake was felt strongly in the state capital, in Tapachula and in Comitan.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter was in the Pacific Ocean about 35 miles (57 kilometers) southwest of the city of Mapastepec, on the coast near the border with Guatemala. It had a depth of 41 miles (66 kilometers.)
LONDON ? Hopes that Greece will reach a deal with private creditors on lowering its debt ? despite a delay in talks between Athens and banks' representatives ? supported European markets on Monday and sent the euro up to three-week highs above $1.30.
The deal being thrashed out would see private creditors swapping their old Greek bonds for ones with a 50 percent lower face value. The new bonds would also have much longer maturities, pushing repayments decades into the future, and a much lower interest rate than Greece would currently have to pay on the market.
Issues over the interest rates on the bonds lie behind the delay. However, the Greek government and representatives for the private creditors insist that the talks have not broken down and that they are moving closer to a final deal.
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, which include banks and other investors, believe that is too low and are aiming for about 4.5 percent.
French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said a deal "seems to be emerging" after meeting with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble ahead of the eurozone finance ministers' meeting in Brussels later Monday.
Expectations of a breakthrough have heartened investors and boosted assets that are considered riskier. The euro was the main beneficiary, climbing a further 1.3 percent to $1.3039, its highest level since Jan. 4.
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.
"Given that any debt swap deal will involve a lot of lawyers, it is estimated that around 5 weeks are needed between agreement and the bond maturing to prevent default," said Louise Cooper, markets analyst at BGC Partners. "This does not leave much wriggle room, although such pressure must focus the minds of all at the negotiating table."
Even though time appears to be running out, investors appear relatively hopeful that a deal will be thrashed out and that's helped shore up markets at the start of a week that also will 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 closed up 0.9 percent at 5,782.56, while Germany's DAX rose 0.5 percent to 6.436.62. The CAC-40 in France ended 0.5 percent higher at 3,338.42.
In the U.S., trading was more subdued with the Dow Jones industrial average down 0.1 percent at 12,706 and the broader Standard & Poor's 0.1 percent lower at 1,314.
Optimism that Greece will secure 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.
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 enhance 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 Gulf, too, after the European Union formally adopted an oil embargo against Iran to pressure it to resume talks on its nuclear program.
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 $1.01 at $99.34 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"We now wait to see whether the Iranians will indeed retaliate with a closure of the straits, and all the consequences that might result from such an action," said Chris Beauchamp, a market analyst at IG Index.
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Nish, who needs to replace his voicemail to SMS/email system due to Ribbit Mobile's forthcoming closure. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
"Hi there, I've been using Ribbit Mobile for the past few years for voicemail -- the voicemail to SMS/email function is brilliant. However, the beta trial is ending on the 31st January with no immediate plans to go live. Do you know of any UK-based alternatives for voicemail to SMS/email systems I can switch to? Thanks!"
So guys, come help out a brother from the motherland with your suggestions for digital telephony transcription, any Brits out there find Google Voice to be the answer? Is there something only a few of you know about that'll change the world? If you're in an animal home, sat down on your own, why not share your knowledge in the comments below.
A faint "satellite galaxy" 10 billion light years from Earth is the lowest-mass object ever detected at such a distance, says University of California, Davis, physics professor Chris Fassnacht, who aided in the satellite's discovery.
The find, described in a paper published online in the journal Nature, could help astronomers find similar objects and confirm or reject theories about the structure of the cosmos.
Theory predicts that galaxies should be surrounded by halos of smaller, satellite blobs of mass, according to Fassnacht. Astronomers have detected such satellites around our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and nearby.
But they had not previously detected the predicted satellites of more distant galaxies.
Because most of the mass of galaxies is made up, not of stars, but of "dark matter," which does not absorb or emit light, these distant objects may be very faint or even completely dark.
The team looked for faint or dark satellites of distant galaxies using a method called gravitational lensing. Using the Keck II telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, with "adaptive optics," they found two galaxies aligned with each other, as viewed from Earth.
The nearer object's gravitational field deflects the light from the more distant object as the light passes through or near the other object's gravitational field, creating a distorted image as if passed through a lens. By analyzing these distorted images, the researchers could determine if there were any satellite galaxies clustered around the "lens" galaxy.
Adaptive optics make constant, tiny adjustments to the telescope mirror to compensate for the effects of the Earth's atmosphere. As a result, the Keck telescopes can achieve higher resolution than the Hubble Space Telescope.
The technique can now be applied to many more galaxies, Fassnacht said. "As we collect more objects, we can do more precise tests of our simulations and make predictions about the structure of the universe," he said.
First author Simona Vegetti, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: "Now we have one dark satellite, but suppose that we don't find enough of them ? then we will have to change the properties of dark matter.
"Or, we might find as many satellites as we see in the simulations, and that will tell us that dark matter has the properties we think it has."
Fassnacht and Vegetti worked with Leon Koopmans of the University of Groningen, Netherlands; David Lagattuta, now at the Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Matthew Auger, UC Santa Barbara; and John McKean of the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy. Lagattuta and Auger are former graduate students in Fassnacht's lab, and McKean was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis.
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University of California - Davis: http://www.ucdavis.edu
Thanks to University of California - Davis for this article.
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The wheels of justice grind slowly ? it?s well over a year since Jeff Horwitz?s stunning report on the force-placed insurance scandal, and only now does it seem like the other shoe might be beginning to drop, with the enormous monetary settlements that probably implies.
In his latest update, Horwitz fills us in on what?s going on: there?s not only a big investigation by New York State?s Department of Financial Services, but there?s also a separate investigation by the broad coalition of state attorneys general, as part of the mortgage-servicing settlement which never seems to get anywhere. On top of that, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might be getting involved as well.
And then there?s private litigation, led by a four-firm, ten-lawyer class action effort in Florida. As Horwitz writes, it?s too early to know how all these suits will turn out, but what precedent we have is not looking good for the banks:
The suits are generally in their early stages. But the only one to have advanced past class certification, Hofstetter v. Chase Home Finance LLC, suggests serious trouble for banks.
In depositions made public following the defense?s failure to properly request confidentiality from the court, Chase employees described a system in which Chase collects hefty commissions on force-placed insurance ? yet does no work in relation to the policies.
?What function does Chase Insurance Agency, Inc. perform with respect to flood insurance?? the plaintiffs? attorney asked in a deposition.
?I would say no function,? Chase?s employee responded?
One Chase employee testified that, despite Chase Insurance Agency Inc.?s name, the division employs absolutely no insurance agents.
Chase settled that one case for an eight-figure sum; there will certainly be more where that came from. I only wonder whether the banks might not be hoping that a big umbrella deal with the state attorneys general might give them some kind of immunity against these class actions.
In many ways, the banks don?t want to settle: they?d rather fight, and keep their money while doing so, even if fighting ends up costing them more over the long term. Better to push off losses onto your successor than be responsible for them yourself. And probably the expected losses on class actions related to force-placed insurance won?t make the difference between the banks making or rejecting any proposed offer. But Horwitz?s story is an important reminder that banks? contingent litigation liabilities are enormous, and largely unknown. Which is one reason, surely, why they?re all trading at such low ratios these days.
Multiple partners not the only way for corals to stay cool Public release date: 20-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Emily Howells em.howells@gmail.com 61-747-534-203 ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies
Recent experiments conducted at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) produced striking results, showing for the first time that corals hosting a single type of "zooxanthellae" can have different levels of thermal tolerance a feature that was only known previously for corals with a mix of zooxanthellae.
Zooxanthellae are algal cells that live within the tissue of living coral and provide the coral host with energy; the relationship is crucial for the coral's survival. Rising ocean temperatures can lead to the loss of zooxanthellae from the coral host, as a consequence the coral loses its tissue colour and its primary source of energy, a process known as 'coral bleaching'. Globally, coral bleaching has led to significant loss of coral, and with rising ocean temperatures, poses a major threat to coral reefs.
It was previously known that corals hosting more than one type of zooxanthellae could better cope with temperature changes by favouring types of zooxanthellae that have greater thermal tolerance. However, until now it was not known if corals hosting a single type of zooxanthellae could have different levels of thermal tolerance.
Results recently published in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature Climate Change, showed corals that only host a single type of zooxanthellae may in fact differ in their thermal tolerance. This finding is important because many species of coral are dominated by a single type of zooxanthellae.
PhD student, Ms Emily Howells from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) at James Cook University, Townsville, together with scientists from AIMS and CoECRS, collected two populations of a single type of zooxanthellae (known as C1) from two locations on the Great Barrier Reef. The population collected from Magnetic Island near Townsville experiences average ocean temperatures 2C higher than the population collected from the Whitsunday Islands. In experiments at AIMS, young corals were treated with one or other of the two different populations of zooxanthellae, and exposed to elevated water temperatures, as might occur during bleaching events.
The results were striking. Corals with zooxanthellae from the warmer region coped well with higher temperatures, staying healthy and growing rapidly, whilst corals with zooxanthellae from the cooler region suffered severe bleaching (loss of the zooxanthellae) and actually reduced in size as they partly died off.
Madeleine van Oppen, ARC Future Fellow at AIMS, says the research results will likely have a major impact on the field, as until now corals associating with the same type of zooxanthellae have been viewed as physiologically similar, irrespective of their geographical location.
"Our research suggests that populations of a single type of zooxanthellae have adapted to local conditions as can be seen from the remarkably different results of the two populations used in this study. If zooxanthellae populations are able to further adapt to increases in temperature at the pace at which oceans warm, they may assist corals to increase their thermal tolerance and survive into the future." says Emily Howells.
"However, we do not yet know how fast zooxanthellae can adapt, highlighting an important area of future research", says Bette Willis, Professor from the CoECRS at James Cook University.
Research at AIMS is therefore currently assessing whether zooxanthellae can continue to adapt to increasing temperatures and at what rate. This work in progress will provide insights into the capacity of zooxanthellae to adapt to future climate change.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.
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Multiple partners not the only way for corals to stay cool Public release date: 20-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Emily Howells em.howells@gmail.com 61-747-534-203 ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies
Recent experiments conducted at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) produced striking results, showing for the first time that corals hosting a single type of "zooxanthellae" can have different levels of thermal tolerance a feature that was only known previously for corals with a mix of zooxanthellae.
Zooxanthellae are algal cells that live within the tissue of living coral and provide the coral host with energy; the relationship is crucial for the coral's survival. Rising ocean temperatures can lead to the loss of zooxanthellae from the coral host, as a consequence the coral loses its tissue colour and its primary source of energy, a process known as 'coral bleaching'. Globally, coral bleaching has led to significant loss of coral, and with rising ocean temperatures, poses a major threat to coral reefs.
It was previously known that corals hosting more than one type of zooxanthellae could better cope with temperature changes by favouring types of zooxanthellae that have greater thermal tolerance. However, until now it was not known if corals hosting a single type of zooxanthellae could have different levels of thermal tolerance.
Results recently published in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature Climate Change, showed corals that only host a single type of zooxanthellae may in fact differ in their thermal tolerance. This finding is important because many species of coral are dominated by a single type of zooxanthellae.
PhD student, Ms Emily Howells from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) at James Cook University, Townsville, together with scientists from AIMS and CoECRS, collected two populations of a single type of zooxanthellae (known as C1) from two locations on the Great Barrier Reef. The population collected from Magnetic Island near Townsville experiences average ocean temperatures 2C higher than the population collected from the Whitsunday Islands. In experiments at AIMS, young corals were treated with one or other of the two different populations of zooxanthellae, and exposed to elevated water temperatures, as might occur during bleaching events.
The results were striking. Corals with zooxanthellae from the warmer region coped well with higher temperatures, staying healthy and growing rapidly, whilst corals with zooxanthellae from the cooler region suffered severe bleaching (loss of the zooxanthellae) and actually reduced in size as they partly died off.
Madeleine van Oppen, ARC Future Fellow at AIMS, says the research results will likely have a major impact on the field, as until now corals associating with the same type of zooxanthellae have been viewed as physiologically similar, irrespective of their geographical location.
"Our research suggests that populations of a single type of zooxanthellae have adapted to local conditions as can be seen from the remarkably different results of the two populations used in this study. If zooxanthellae populations are able to further adapt to increases in temperature at the pace at which oceans warm, they may assist corals to increase their thermal tolerance and survive into the future." says Emily Howells.
"However, we do not yet know how fast zooxanthellae can adapt, highlighting an important area of future research", says Bette Willis, Professor from the CoECRS at James Cook University.
Research at AIMS is therefore currently assessing whether zooxanthellae can continue to adapt to increasing temperatures and at what rate. This work in progress will provide insights into the capacity of zooxanthellae to adapt to future climate change.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.
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Ever find yourself shredding the gnar and wishing you could share the breathtaking rush of scenery with others? Well, now you can, courtesy of Zeal Optics. Not content to sit on its GPS-laden laurels, the company's added a new twist to the 'ol polarized ski googles, embedding the iON with an HD camera for 170-degree wide angle recording. The inbuilt module, centered up top, pulls in video and audio at full 1080p and can be controlled using an array of buttons alongside the mask or via the bundled PC / Mac software. If you're not interested in reliving your downhill trek one swoosh at a time, there's always the 8 megapixel cam for photo-taking. Unfortunately, this high-tech eyewear can't wirelessly transmit your captured media -- at least, not this version -- so you'll have to make due with the included microSD card. Sound like a neat proposition? Good, then be prepared to cough up $399 for this high-def slope accessory. Official presser awaits you after the break.
CAIRO ? It's not clear which came first ? the rumors or the fuel shortages ? but for several days this week drivers had to wait in long lines only to find key grades of gasoline sold out across Cairo, a bustling city of some 18 million people.
Gas stations rationed their fuel, while gas station assistants seized the opportunity to demand 20 percent tips in some areas of the city. As motorists stocked up, supplies ran down, and before nightfall, dozens of stations were turning cars away.
Similar scenes were played out in other major Egyptian cities.
Yet nothing actually happened. Egypt's heavily subsidized gasoline, selling for about $1.20 a gallon, was still available at the same price as before. It wasn't even clear that there was a shortage.
The panic could reflect a repressed realization that Egypt cannot go on as it has for decades, deeply subsidizing fuel and other basic commodities to make up for low wages, bringing the subsidy bill to fully 40 percent of the nation's overstrained budget. Propping up the currency and pay out subsidies contributed to Egypt's losing half its foreign currency reservers over the past year.
The lines formed shortly after word spread that the country's interim government had approved a plan to cut energy subsidies for some industries. The news was widely interpreted by the public as a move to cut subsidies for gasoline and fuel for cooking and heating, on which millions of Egyptians depend, and the run on the gas stations began.
Popular conspiracy theories about the sudden fuel crisis did not directly address the subsidy issue. In a country schooled by its leaders for decades to attribute problems to dark plots and unknown foreign saboteurs, there was a feeling that something underhanded was afoot. That turned a mini-crisis into a politically charged rumor mill.
Cairo taxi driver Ahmed el-Sheikh was sure the fuel shortage was orchestrated as an attempt by the country's military rulers to make people long for the days when ousted President Hosni Mubarak was in power.
"Since this fuel crisis started, people started to say that under Mubarak, this never happened, and that he was a good president," el-Sheikh said.
"Maybe the military is doing this to soften people's hearts toward him," he said as a picture of Egyptian protesters killed in last year's uprising flapped back and forth from his rearview mirror. Mubarak is on trial, charged with complicity for the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the uprising that deposed him.
Some Egyptians charged that the military was keeping large amounts of gasoline for itself, as it plans an air show to commemorate this year's first anniversary of the start of the Jan. 25 uprising against Mubarak.
Another taxi driver, Abu-Peter Saleeb, blamed the petroleum companies for the fuel shortages.
"How do we know there's no gasoline? For all we know the gas stations were keeping gasoline underground to hike up prices later," Saleeb said.
The state-run radio weighed in by blaming "unknown" schemers, ranging from traders to street criminals, for hoarding gasoline in order to sell it later at higher prices.
Roqaya Shafie, one of many motorists who waited in line this week, blamed "spies" for trying to destabilize the country. However, she also said Egyptians, maybe even herself included, were partly to blame for the mad dash to gas stations around the country.
"We're a society that likes to stock up on things," she said.
The crisis blew over as quickly was it started. By Wednesday, most gas stations were operating normally and lines had nearly disappeared.
TRENTON, N.J. ? A man deported from the New Jersey shore for fathering two children with a 15-year-old girl can probably try to overturn his conviction by calling in to court from a pay phone in Mexico.
Whether or not he should be allowed to is a decision the New Jersey Supreme Court will make soon.
The justices heard arguments Wednesday on the efforts of Juan Pablo Santos, who wants to overturn his 2008 conviction for child endangerment. He asserts his previous lawyer didn't inform him that by pleading guilty to the crime, he would automatically be deported.
Now the 29-year-old Santos is asking the high court to let him testify from a pay phone in an unspecified Mexican community. Because of his criminal conviction, the former Lakewood resident is not eligible to return to the United States to appear in court to try to overturn the conviction on the grounds that he received inadequate legal advice, according to his attorney, Ubel Velez.
"He was not illegal," she told the high court. "This conviction forced this defendant to be deported. We want this court to establish procedure for a defendant in Mexico, in Haiti, in Tanzania to testify from a pay phone from remote places."
But the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office opposes the request, saying it needs the defendant to be physically present in court in order for the judge and prosecutors to evaluate his credibility. That includes looking him in the eye, observing his body language and overall demeanor ? all things that are impossible to do over the telephone. It would also be impossible to verify that the person speaking is actually Santos, prosecutors argue.
"Someone on this end would have to identify him as the defendant," Justice Barry Albin said. "Take that as a given."
Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Samuel Marzarella told the justices Santos can try to get a federal court to give him special permission to return to the U.S. to appear in court. But the prosecutor's office will not agree to telephone testimony because it would undermine long-established legal norms, and deprive the victim of their right to confront the witness in court.
"There's a reason we go to the symphony in person rather than watching it on TV or listening to the CD," Marzarella said. "We get more data. It's a different experience."
He also said that just because a particular technology exists, that doesn't mean the courts are obligated to use it.
Santos first ran afoul of the law in 2005 when police went to his home in Lakewood and found him in bed with a teenage girl. His lawyer said Santos was 22 at the time. The girl, who Santos describes as his common-law wife, was 15.
"That sounds outrageous, but it is customary for Latinos to marry young," Velez told the justices.
Albin replied, "We have something called statutory rape. A person under the age of 16, and a person four years older than that who has sex with that person is guilty of a crime."
Velez said after court that the couple had two children together, and that the family was broken apart by Santos' deportation.
"They were in love," she said.
Several of the justices appeared disinclined to allow telephone testimony, suggesting instead that Santos testify via video link from a U.S. Embassy or a Mexican governmental office. Deputy Attorney General Michael Williams said that would be a better option than taking testimony by phone, which a lower court judge in Ocean County said last year would be OK. Williams also suggested Santos be allowed to testify over the Internet using the Skype online phone service.
But that would lead to a whole new array of questions that are not easily answered: Who would administer the oath to the witness? How would the oath to testify truthfully be enforced if the defendant is already out of the country and beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement? Who would pay for all this?
Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said much more legal argument is needed before the court can resolve the case, and ordered both sides to submit additional briefs.
In the meantime, Velez said she would contact Santos to see if he has access to a law office in Mexico. She said having him travel to a distant city to appear at a consulate or governmental office would be an extreme financial burden.
That may be, Albin replied, but it might be a small price to pay for someone trying to overturn a conviction they maintain was wrongly imposed.
___
Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC
GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? A stricken Italian cruise liner shifted on its rocky resting place on Monday as worsening weather disrupted an increasingly despairing hunt for any survivors among some 16 people still missing.
As the Costa Concordia's owners blamed their captain for veering shorewards on Friday in a bravura "salute" to residents of a Tuscan island, the giant ship slid a little, threatening to plunge all its gigantic carcass and 2,300 tonnes of fuel below the Mediterranean waters of the surrounding nature reserve.
The slippage caused a few hours suspension in efforts to find anyone still alive after three days in the capsized hull, resting on jagged slope outside a picturesque harbor on the island of Giglio. Six bodies have already been found. Most of the 4,200 passengers and crew survived, despite hours of chaos.
The 114,500-tonne ship, one of the biggest passenger vessels ever to be wrecked, foundered after striking a rock, just as dinner was being served on Friday night. It quickly rolled on its side, revealing a long gouge below the waterline.
Firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari said there were still small movements of the vessel but they were not considered dangerous. However, night-time searches would be suspended.
Another senior firefighter, Luciano Roncalli, told Reuters that all the unsubmerged areas of the liner had been searched, indicating faint hopes of finding more survivors in the flooded and upturned maze of luxurious state rooms and tennis courts, bars and spas that are now lolling beneath the sea.
Environment Minister Corrado Clini said he would declare a state of emergency because of the risk that the ship's fuel would leak into the pristine Tuscan Archipelago National Park. No major spillage has so far been detected.
Should rougher seas dislodge the wreck and cause it to sink or break up, that could scupper any hopes for the owners, a unit of Florida's Carnival Corp., of salvaging a liner which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build just six years ago.
"SALUTE" TO SHORE
Investigators say the ship was far too close to the shore and its owners, Costa Cruises, said the captain, who has been arrested, had carried out the rash maneuver to "make a bow" to people on the island, who included a retired Italian admiral.
The skipper denies charges of manslaughter and his lawyer has said his actions had saved many lives.
The father of the ship's head waiter told Reuters that his son had telephoned him before the accident to say the crew would salute him by blowing the ship's whistle as they passed close by Giglio, where both the waiter, Antonello Tievoli, and his 82-year-old father Giuseppe live.
"The ship obviously came too close," the elder Tievoli said.
"I don't know if Antonello asked the captain to come near, but the responsibility is always the captain's."
The captain, Francesco Schettino, was arrested on Saturday. He is accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all those on board were evacuated. Prosecutors say he also refused to go back on board when requested by the coastguard.
Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi on Monday blamed errors by Schettino for the disaster. He told a news conference the company would provide its captain with any assistance he required. "But we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," he added.
"These ships are ultra-safe. It is an exceptional event, which was unforeseeable," he said, fighting back tears.
He said the ship deviated from its correct route and Schettino had contravened safety procedures. "The company disavows such behavior, which caused the accident," he said.
Foschi said company vessels were forbidden to come closer than 500 meters to the Giglio coast. Investigators say the liner, designed as a floating pleasure palace for over 3,000 paying customers, was about 150 meters (yards) offshore when it hit the rocks that tore a long gash in its thousand-foot hull.
Schettino denies being too close to the coast and says the rock he hit was not marked on charts.
His lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, issued a statement saying Schettino was "broken-up, troubled and saddened by the loss of life." But he believed he had saved many lives by carrying out a difficult emergency maneuver with anchors after the accident, which turned the ship closer to the shore.
CHAOS AND PANIC
Foschi denied allegations passengers had not been trained how to evacuate the ship, where there were scenes of chaos and panic after the collision. There were around 1,020 crew from 38 nations on board but many were entertainers or catering staff rather than seasoned mariners.
Foschi called the crew "heroes" and said they had responded properly.
"We had to evacuate over 4,200 people in difficult circumstances so the entire operation took more than two hours. The reason for this is the listing of the ship which did not enable us to use both sides to evacuate people."
The calm weather which since Friday has aided the search of the wreck, by some estimates the biggest passenger vessel ever to founder, took a turn for the worse with rougher seas and a light drizzle falling. Forecasters said it would get worse.
A salvage expert on Giglio, who asked not to be named, told Reuters the ship was clearly moving after being held in place by sharp points of rock that had pierced the hull. Rougher seas could break it free, which would be a "big problem," he said.
The ship is resting in about 20 meters (60 feet) of water but could go down by up to 130 meters if it becomes detached from the rocks.
Cari of the fire brigade said the rescuers could hear no noises from possible survivors inside the half-submerged ship.
"Obviously the more time passes, the less possibility there is of finding anyone alive," he said.
MEMORIES OF TITANIC
The United Nations' shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization, said it was important not to pre-judge the outcome of an inquiry but said it would examine changes to regulations if these were shown to be necessary.
Recalling the sinking of the 46,000-tonne Titanic in April 1912, IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu said: "In the centenary year of the Titanic, we have once again been reminded of the risks involved in maritime activities."
The disaster occurred as passengers were sitting down to dinner on Friday night, triggering panic with thousands jostling to get on lifeboats and some leaping into the icy sea.
Passengers say there were long delays in sending an SOS and organizing the evacuation of those on board and this had resulted in chaos. More than 60 people were hurt.
Italian passengers told newspapers they used their mobile phones to call the Carabinieri police in the city of Grosseto on the mainland to raise the alarm, while the crew were still insisting to them that there was only an electrical fault.
Three people, a South Korean honeymoon couple and a crewman, were rescued on Sunday and police divers also found the bodies of two elderly men, still wearing life vests. The bodies of two French tourists and a Peruvian crewman were found on Saturday.
Carnival Corp, the ship's Miami-based parent company, said it estimated the impact on its 2012 earnings for loss of use alone to be around $90 million. Its share price was down around 16 percent on the London market.
Industry experts said the disaster could seriously hit cruise bookings in at a key time of the year but the sector would eventually recover.
There was deep anger in Italy about the accident.
In a frontpage editorial for the respected daily Corriere della Sera, Pierluigi Battista wrote: "Italy owes the world, international public opinion, the families of those who lost their lives, those who were injured and those who fortunately remained unhurt, a convincing explanation and the toughest possible sanctions against those responsible for this tragedy."
(Additional reporting by Silvia Ognibene, Silvia Aloisi and Kate Hudson; Writing by Barry Moody, Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
With one simple experiment, University of Illinois chemists have debunked a widely held misconception about an often-prescribed drug.
Led by chemistry professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute early career scientist Martin Burke, the researchers demonstrated that the top drug for treating systemic fungal infections works by simply binding to a lipid molecule essential to yeast's physiology, a finding that could change the direction of drug development endeavors and could lead to better treatment not only for microbial infections but also for diseases caused by ion channel deficiencies.
"Dr. Burke's elegant approach to synthesizing amphotericin B, which has been used extensively as an antifungal for more than 50 years, has now allowed him to expose its elusive mode of action," said Miles Fabian, who oversees medicinal chemistry research grants at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The institute is part of the National Institutes of Health, which supported the work. "This work opens up avenues for improving upon current antifungals and developing novel approaches for the discovery of new agents."
Systemic fungal infections are a problem worldwide and affect patients whose immune systems have been compromised, such as the elderly, patients treated with chemotherapy or dialysis, and those with HIV or other immune disorders. A drug called amphotericin (pronounced AM-foe-TARE-uh-sin) has been medicine's best defense against fungal infections since its discovery in the 1950s. It effectively kills a broad spectrum of pathogenic fungi and yeast, and has eluded the resistance that has dogged other antibiotics despite its long history of use.
The downside? Amphotericin is highly toxic.
"When I was in my medical rotations, we called it 'ampho-terrible,' because it's an awful medicine for patients," said Burke, who has an M.D. in addition to a Ph.D. "But its capacity to form ion channels is fascinating. So my group asked, could we make it a better drug by making a derivative that's less toxic but still powerful? And what could it teach us about avoiding resistance in clinical medicine and possibly even replacing missing ion channels with small molecules? All of this depends upon understanding how it works, but up until now, it's been very enigmatic."
While amphotericin's efficacy is clear, the reasons for its remarkable infection-fighting ability remained uncertain. Doctors and researchers do know that amphotericin creates ion channels that permeate the cell membrane. Physicians have long assumed that this was the mechanism that killed the infection, and possibly the patient's cells as well. This widely accepted dogma appears in many scientific publications and textbooks.
However, several studies have shown that channel formation alone may not be the killing stroke. In fact, as Burke's group discovered, the mechanism is much simpler.
Amphotericin binds to a lipid molecule called ergosterol, prevalent in fungus and yeast cells, as the first step in forming the complexes that make ion channels. But Burke's group found that, to kill a cell, the drug doesn't need to create ion channels at all ? it simply needs to bind up the cell's ergosterol.
Burke's group produced a derivative of amphotericin using a molecule synthesis method Burke pioneered called iterative cross-coupling (ICC), a way of building designer molecules using simple chemical "building blocks" called MIDA boronates joined together by one simple reaction. They created a derivative that could bind ergosterol but could not form ion channels, and tested it against the original amphotericin.
If the widely accepted model was true, and ion channel formation was the drug's primary antifungal action, then the derivative would not be able to wipe out a yeast colony. But the ergosterol-binding, non-channel-forming derivative was almost equally potent to natural amphotericin against both of the yeast cell lines the researchers tested, once of which is highly pathogenic in humans. The researchers detailed their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The results are all consistent with the same conclusion: In contrast to half a century of prior study and the textbook-classic model, amphotericin kills yeast by simply binding ergosterol," Burke said.
"The beauty is, because we now know this is the key mechanism, we can focus squarely on that goal. Now we can start to think about drug discovery programs targeting lipid binding."
The researchers currently are working to synthesize a derivative that will bind to ergosterol in yeast cells, but will not bind to cholesterol in human cells, to see if that could kill an infection without harming the patient. They also hope to explore other derivatives that would target lipids in fungi, bacteria and other microbes that are not present in human cells. Attacking these lipids could be a therapeutic strategy that may defy resistance.
In addition to exploiting amphotericin's lipid-binding properties for antimicrobial drugs, Burke and his group hope to harness its channel-creating ability to develop treatments for conditions caused by ion-channel deficiencies; for example, cystic fibrosis. These new findings suggest that the ion-channel mechanism could be decoupled from the cell-killing mechanism, thus enabling development of derivatives that could serve as "molecular prosthetics," replacing missing proteins in cell membranes with small-molecule surrogates.
"Now we have a road map to take ampho-terrible and turn it into ampho-terrific," Burke said.
###
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://www.uiuc.edu
Thanks to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for this article.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) ? U.S. stock investors will return to a tug of war between signs of domestic strength and overseas concerns this week as a batch of critical earnings reports look to add credence to the idea the economy is improving, while credit rating downgrades in Europe will keep that region's difficulties in view.
Bank stocks will probably once again be a primary focus, as not only will European issues call the group's profit outlook into question, but many key names report results.
Equities have recently undergone a decoupling with respect to Europe's sovereign debt crisis as signs of progress in the euro zone, along with improving U.S. data, have pushed Wall Street higher on improved growth prospects. Financials have been a beneficiary of that rising tide, with Bank of America up about 20 percent since the start of the year.
So far this month, the S&P 500 (.SPX) is up 2.5 percent, while the Dow (.DJI) is up 1.7 percent and the Nasdaq (.IXIC) is up 4.1 percent.
"We're going to see more volatility in the weeks ahead with tension between earnings and Europe," said Christopher Sheldon, the Boston-based director of investment strategy at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, which oversees $171 billion globally.
"We want to see Europe resolved, but there will continue to be ups and downs, and while earnings will continue to be relatively good, we do expect slowing compared with 2011."
However, the uncertainty about Europe returned in a big way on Friday after Standard & Poor's downgraded the ratings of nine of the 17 euro-zone countries, including France, Italy and Spain after the market closed. Talk of the downgrades spurred a selloff that erased most of the gains for the week, when the S&P rose for four straight sessions.
The downgrades could exacerbate the euro zone's difficulties and bring concerns about how they might affect U.S. banks' profits back to the forefront.
Still, market participants looking for signs of strength don't have to look far. Data has been bullish lately, including Friday's consumer sentiment reading at an eight-month high that sharply exceeded what was anticipated.
"The prospect of a downgrade has been around for a while, so despite today's reaction, everyone was aware of the potential, and I don't think it will be as impactful, especially as corporate business trends remain strong," said Hank Herrmann, chief executive of Waddell & Reed Financial Inc in Overland Park, Kansas.
HINTS OF BETTER TIMES AHEAD
Earnings reports from numerous bellwethers could reinforce the growth story. Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), General Electric Co (GE.N), Intel Corp (INTC.O), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) are among the names set to report.
Early reads have supported the idea that better times lie ahead. JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) said the domestic economy was strengthening even as its profit fell 23 percent, while Alcoa Inc (AA.N) rallied earlier in the week after giving a bullish outlook for the aluminum sector.
"Banks will be an important part of the story, especially with Europe in the picture, and investors will also be looking at names like GE, which have global exposure, to see what insights can be gleaned from that," said Herrman, who helps oversee $90 billion in assets.
The U.S. stock market will be closed on Monday in observance of the U.S. holiday honoring the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leader.
When trading resumes on Tuesday, Wall Street will watch a number of economic indicators to gauge the strength of the recovery. Data scheduled for release in the abbreviated week includes the New York Fed's Empire State Index on January manufacturing, the December readings on the U.S. Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, as well as December housing starts and December existing home sales.
For the past week, the Dow rose 0.5 percent while the S&P 500 gained 0.9 percent and the Nasdaq added 1.4 percent.
(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Sunday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: ryan.vlastelica(at)thomsonreuters.com)
(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Jan Paschal; Multimedia versions of Reuters Top News are now available for: * 3000 Xtra: visit http://topnews.session.rservices.com * BridgeStation: view story .134 For more information on Top News: http://topnews.reuters.com; For London stock market outlook please click on <.L/O>; Pan-European stock market outlook <.EU/O>; Tokyo stock market outlook <.T/O>)
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Public release date: 20-Jan-2012
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