Assad Says Syria ‘Accepts Advice but Not Orders’





BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, sounding defiant, confident and, to critics, out of touch with the magnitude of his people’s grievances, proposed Sunday what he called a plan to resolve the country’s 21-month uprising with a new constitution and cabinet.




But he offered no new acknowledgment of the gains by the rebels fighting against him, the excesses of his government or the aspirations of the Syrian people. Mr. Assad also ruled out talks with the armed opposition and pointedly ignored its central demand that he step down, instead using much of a nearly hourlong speech to justify his harsh military crackdown.


Mr. Assad waved to a cheering, chanting crowd as he strode to the stage of the Damascus Opera House in the central Umayyad Square — where residents said security forces had been deployed heavily the night before. In his first public speech since June 2012, he repeated his longstanding assertions that the movement against him was driven by “murderous criminals” and terrorists receiving financing from abroad, and he appeared to push back hard against recent international efforts to broker a compromise.


“Everyone who comes to Syria knows that Syria accepts advice but not orders,” he said.


His speech came a week after the United Nations and Arab League envoy on Syria, the senior Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, visited Damascus, the capital, in a push for a negotiated solution.


“Who should we negotiate with? Terrorists?” Mr. Assad asked. “We will negotiate with their masters.”


Mr. Assad’s speech was a disappointment for international mediators and many Syrians who say they believe that without a negotiated settlement, Syria’s conflict will descend into an even bloodier stage. The United Nations estimates that more than 60,000 people have died in what began as a peaceful protest movement and transformed into armed struggle after security forces fired on demonstrators.


Rebels have made gains in the north and east of Syria and in the Damascus suburbs, but Mr. Assad’s government has pushed back with devastating airstrikes and artillery bombardments and appears confident that it can hold the capital. Neither side appears ready to give up the prospect of a military victory.


The tenor of Mr. Assad’s speech is likely to raise the question of whether Mr. Brahimi’s mission serves any purpose; there was no immediate comment from him or his staff.


Mr. Assad’s opponents rejected the proposal as meaningless, sticking to their longstanding demand that the president resign as a precondition to negotiations.


“We can’t deal with this murderous regime at all,” George Sabra, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said in a brief interview. “This regime has killed 60,000 people, so no one could possibly think that working with this regime is a possibility. It is out of the question.”


Mr. Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years, said Sunday that he was open to dialogue with “those who have not betrayed Syria,” apparently a reference to tolerated opposition groups that reject armed revolution, like the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change, whose members have been floated by Syria’s allies China and Russia as possible compromise brokers.


Yet Mr. Assad’s speech appeared unlikely to satisfy even those among his opponents who reject the armed rebellion, since it made no apology for the arrests of peaceful activists or for airstrikes that have destroyed neighborhoods. Mr. Assad gave no sign of acknowledging that the movement against him was anything more than a foreign plot or had any goals other than to inflict suffering and destroy the country.


“They killed the intellectuals in order to afflict ignorance on us,” Mr. Assad said. “They attacked the infrastructure in order to make our life difficult, they deprived children from school in order to bring the country backward.”


He added, “The enemies of the people are the enemies of God, and the enemies of God will burn in hell.”


Mr. Assad has framed the uprising as an attack by the West and its allies, and the members of the exile opposition leadership as puppets of their foreign supporters, including Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States, which has offered what it calls nonlethal support and recognized the main opposition body, now known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.


Some armed rebel groups have used techniques that randomly target civilians, like car bombs, and there are foreign fighters among the rebels. But most of the armed movement is made up of Syrians who took up arms during the uprising or defected from the armed forces.


In his speech, Mr. Assad thanked officers and conscripts and vowed that he would stay by their side, apparently seeking to dispel speculation that he will flee the country. He spoke against a backdrop of snapshots that was reminiscent of montages that the opposition shows of people killed by the government.


When he finished the crowd chanted, “With our souls, with our blood, we defend you, Assad,” and vowed to be his “shabiha,” the term that has come to designate pro-government militias that have attacked demonstrators.


Scores of people then rushed toward him with an almost aggressive frenzy. Bodyguards pushed them back to form a phalanx that slowly escorted Mr. Assad through the crowd.


Many observers wryly noted on social media that the opera house was a fitting setting for the speech.


“It was operatic in its otherworldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building,” Rami G. Khouri, of the Beirut-based newspaper The Daily Star, wrote on Twitter.


Mr. Assad said the first step in his plan would be for foreign countries to stop financing the rebels; then his government would put down its weapons, he said — although he reserved the right to continue to fight terrorism, which his government has defined as nearly any opponent.


Next would come national dialogue, but only with groups Mr. Assad termed acceptable; then a constitution approved by referendum; then a coalition government. There was no mention of holding elections before Mr. Assad’s term expires in 2014.


Hania Mourtada contributed reporting.



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10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes






Photo courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution.


Click here to view this gallery.






[More from Mashable: 5 YouTube Videos to Help Winterize Your Home]


If for some reason you didn’t believe no two snowflakes were alike, here’s your proof.


In 1885, Wilson A. Bentley successfully photographed over 5,000 snowflakes by attaching a camera to a microscope (and in turn honing the field of Photomicrography). His photographs supported his and others’ beliefs that all snowflakes were unique.


[More from Mashable: 20+ Online Resources for Planning a Winter Getaway]


Bentley become fascinated with snow as a child on a Vermont farm. He later spent time experimenting with ways to view individual snowflakes and their crystalline structure, which eventually came in handy when he had to be quick enough to capture a flake in a picture before it melted.


These photographs quickly became popular with dozens of scientists who studied Bentley’s work and published the images in several scientific magazines. In 1903, Bentley sent about 500 of his photographs to the Smithsonian, hoping they would be of interest to Secretary Samuel P. Langley.


The Smithsonian now has his vintage pics on display, undeniably proveing that snow is just so, so pretty.


Gallery photos courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution. Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr, AMagill.


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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Jodi Arias Trial: Six Revelations from Week One















01/06/2013 at 01:00 PM EST







Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias


Courtesy MySpace


There was no shortage of drama in the first week of the Phoenix murder trial for Jodi Arias, a photographer whose calm and defiant behavior after her lover's violent murder in 2008 has drawn media comparisons to Casey Anthony.

Charged with stabbing Travis Alexander before slitting his throat and shooting him in the head, Arias, 32, could become the fourth woman on Arizona's death row if convicted.

Here are six revelations from the opening statements and the initial witnesses:

•After stabbing Alexander 27 times and slitting his throat from ear-to-ear, Arias allegedly shot him with a .25-caliber gun – the same caliber weapon that Arias and her grandparents reported stolen from their Northern California home just days before the killing.

•The defense portrayed the victim – a Mormon motivational speaker – as an abusive, sex-crazed deviant who treated Arias as a sex slave, asked her to wear a French maid outfit and a t-shirt reading "Travis Alexander's."

•The victim called Arias a "slut" and a "whore" in e-mails – yet he told her his passwords for social media sites, according to attorneys.

• When she called Mesa police a day after Alexander's body was found, offering to "help," Arias calmly told a detective she hadn't seen Alexander since two months earlier, when she moved back to California (she'd change her story twice, eventually claiming she killed Alexander in self-defense). Arias also inquired if there was a lot of blood at the crime scene.

• Police recovered a bloody handprint that contained a mixture of Arias' blood and Alexander's.

• At the end of his opening statements, the prosecutor played an excerpt from Arias' September 2008 interview, where she emphatically stated, "No jury will convict me, mark my words, no jury will convict me, because I'm innocent."

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes


CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.


Wait, what?


If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.


Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.


Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.


"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.


He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.


It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.


Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.


Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."


She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.


Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.


She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.


Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."


Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.


A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.


Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.


"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.


NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.


Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.


Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."


Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.


___


Online:


Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


REVENUE WORRIES


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Greece Tax Scandal Shifts Focus From Collection Problem





The tax scandal that reignited in Greece over the holidays had all the makings of a grade-B drama. A former finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, was accused of scrubbing his relatives’ names from a CD containing the identities of thousands of possible Greek tax dodgers. Within hours, his chief political rival tossed him from their party.







Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press

George Papaconstantinou, a former finance minister, was accused of scrubbing relatives’ names from a CD with the identities of possible tax dodgers.






Mr. Papaconstantinou, in turn, hinted darkly that he was the victim of a plot masking malfeasance at higher levels.


While the firestorm may have made for political theater of a sort, it has diverted attention from a much bigger problem: Greece, its foreign lenders say, has fallen woefully short of its tax collection targets and is still not moving hard enough to tackle widespread tax evasion — long tolerated, particularly among the country’s richest citizens.


Greek officials agreed to the targets as part of an international lending pact last year, but there is no penalty for missing them. In recent weeks, however, two reports by Greece’s foreign lenders have found that Athens pulled in less than half of the additional tax income that it expected last year and performed fewer than half of the expected audits.


One report said that Athens had brought in a little less than $1.3 billion in additional taxes of the $2.6 billion it had hoped to collect in 2012. Only 88 major taxpayers, including corporations, were the subject of full-scope audits, well below a target of 300, the report said, while just 467 audits of high-wealth individuals were completed, compared with a goal of 1,300.


The fragile, three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras continues to vow it will crack down on corruption and tax evasion, but a blunt assessment last month by a task force of Greece’s foreign lenders said, “These changes have not yet been reflected in results in terms of improved tax inspection and collection.” Analysts say the failure to pursue tax evaders aggressively is deepening social tensions. “It’s a weak government with very difficult work to do, and this is very, very bad for the morale of the people,” said Nikos Xydakis, a political columnist for Kathimerini, a daily newspaper. “This year will be hell for the middle-class people. And the rich people are untouchable. This is very bad.”


In a separate report, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund said they were concerned that the “authorities are falling idle and that the drive to fight tax evasion by the very wealthy and the free professions is at risk of weakening.”


The report added that total unpaid taxes amounted to nearly $70 billion, about 25 percent of Greece’s gross domestic product. But only about 15 percent to 20 percent of the amount is actually collectible, either because the statute of limitations has run out or the scofflaws do not have the money.


It pressed Greece to focus on the cases most likely to produce real revenues, especially in vocations where tax evasion has become pernicious. “Doctors and lawyers are a good place to start,” it said.


Critics, especially the leftist party Syriza, which leads in opinion polls, say the government has not done enough to stop corruption because its members are tied to the country’s business elite and do not want to jeopardize their political careers.


“The problem is not simply tax evasion among the rich,” said Zoe Konstantopoulou, a member of Parliament from Syriza who serves on a panel investigating the so-called Lagarde list, a compilation of more than 2,000 Greeks with accounts in a Swiss branch of HSBC that had been sent to Mr. Papaconstantinou in 2010 by Christine Lagarde, then the finance minister of France. “The problem is tax evasion among the rich with the complicity and the aiding and abetting of those who govern.”


While Greece received a badly needed $45 billion in aid last month to help it avoid defaulting on its debts, critics say that unless Athens can more forcefully tap the billions it is owed in taxes, it will never pay off its debts, even if its moribund economy eventually starts to recover.


A dysfunctional bureaucracy weakened by budget cuts, two destabilizing rounds of elections last spring and an economy decimated by austerity have hampered tax collections further. But a thicket of regulations and a culture of resistance also fuel a shadow economy that includes an estimated 25 percent of economic activity.


Liz Alderman reported from Paris, and Rachel Donadio from Rome. Niki Kitsantonis contributed reporting from Athens.



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The Secret iPad List to Bring Down Boehener






When the failed House Republican revolution came, it came by iPad. Now that House Speaker John Boehner has survived the rebellion, all of D.C. now knows which conservative House members were conspiring to mount a challenge, thanks to a list that one of the coup’s leaders brandished on the House floor during the vote.


RELATED: United Nation Fights the ‘Asshole Factor’






A Politico photographer captured Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas (pictured above), who Boehner had removed from a committee for refusing to cooperate, tapping his iPad during the roll call, checking off a list of names of other Congressmen he thought might join him in voting against Boehner. The list was titled, appropriately, “You would be fired if this goes out,” Politico’s Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan report. They hedge, “It’s not clear that any of the Republicans on Huelskamp’s list knew they were on it, or even knew of the list’s existence,” but let’s look at who were at least expected to vote against Boehner:


RELATED: Boehner Puts Down House Republican Coup


  • Steve King of Iowa

  • Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming

  • Paul Gosar of Arizona

  • Scott Garrett of New Jersey

  • Steve Fincher of Tennessee

  • Scott Desjarlais of Tennessee

Earlier this week, outgoing Louisiana Rep. Jeff Landry bragged to Breitbart News that the anti-Boehner ranks were 17 to 20 members strong, though in the end, only nine voted against their speaker, while two didn’t vote, and one voted present. Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle reports on Friday that there were several more names on Huelskamp‘s list:


RELATED: Boehner Was Afraid Issa Would Go Full Pumpkin-Shooter on His Holder Probe


  • Jeff Duncan of South Carolina

  • Mo Brooks of Alabama

  • Sam Graves of Missouri

  • Steve Southerland of Florida

  • Trey Gowdy of South Carolina

  • David Schweikert of Arizona

  • Tom Cotton of Arkansas

  • Brett Guthrie of Kentucky

Perhaps Huelskamp anticipated some would chicken out, since if some poor aide risked being “fired” for the list getting out, surely a House member might fear the wrath of Boehner for actually voting against him.


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Hero Lawyer Gives His House to a Homeless Family for a Year















01/05/2013 at 12:00 PM EST



Felicia Dukes and her four children had been living in a homeless shelter – but now they have a cozy house all their own – thanks to a Los Angeles lawyer who has temporarily given up his residence to the family in need.

Tony Tolbert, 51, decided he wanted to give up his fully furnished home, rent-free for one year, to a struggling family. So he sought out Alexandria House, a homeless shelter for women and children, where he was connected with Dukes.

"You don't have to be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Oprah," Tolbert, who has moved back into his parents' house for the year, told CBS News. "We can do it wherever we are, with whatever we have, and for me, I have a home that I can make available."

Dukes, who was joined by her three daughters and son, tearfully tells CBS, "My heart just fills up and stuff … I'm just really happy."

Tolbert says his generous spirit comes from his father, an L.A. entertainment lawyer, who taught his son about the virtues of giving when he was growing up. Tolbert says his dad regularly lent out the family's spare bedroom to someone in need.

"Kindness creates kindness; generosity creates generosity; love creates love," Tolbert said, while emotionally addressing his dad, who has Alzheimer's disease. "I think if we can share some of that and have more stories about people doing nice things for other people, and fewer stories about people doing horrible things to other people, that's a better world."

Tolbert's ways are nothing new, according to his mom Marie, who says, "He's so giving, and he's always been that way."

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

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FDA: New rules will make food safer


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.


The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.


The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. The new guidelines were announced Friday.


Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.


Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.


In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.


Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.


"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.


The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.


The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.


The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.


Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.


In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."


The new rules could cost large farms $30,000 a year, according to the FDA. The agency did not break down the costs for individual processing plants, but said the rules could cost manufacturers up to $475 million annually.


FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the success of the rules will also depend on how much money Congress gives the chronically underfunded agency to put them in place. "Resources remain an ongoing concern," she said.


The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.


Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.


"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.


Read More..

"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


REVENUE WORRIES


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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