After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

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Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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China Denies Directing Radar at Japanese Military

HONG KONG — China on Friday denied Japanese accusations that its ships directed a radar capable of aiding weapon strikes at a Japanese naval vessel and helicopter near disputed islands recently, then lobbed its own accusation: that Japan was trying to fan tensions. The latest exchange underscored the depth of a festering discord between the two countries, and trading partners, over the territorial dispute.

The tit-for-tat accusations started on Tuesday, when Japan’s Ministry of Defense announced that a Chinese military vessel had trained a radar on a Japanese naval destroyer near the islands in the East China Sea on Jan. 30. The ministry said a Chinese frigate had directed the same kind of radar at one of its military helicopters on Jan. 19.

Because using such “fire-control” radar can precede an attack, the Japanese defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, said that a misstep “could have pushed things into a dangerous situation.”

China did not respond at the time, but on Friday the Defense Ministry Web site said that the naval vessels’ radar had “maintained normal observational alertness, and there was no use of fire-control radar.” It did not explain what it meant by “normal observational alertness,” though the ministry added that the Japanese claims were “out of step with the facts.”

For all China’s vehemence, the statement by its defense ministry suggested that senior officials in Beijing want to avoid an escalating quarrel, said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu who researches security issues.

“I think it’s a positive development that the Chinese would deny doing this, as opposed to saying, ‘Yes we did it, and we’ll do it again,’ ” said Mr. Roy. “For the Chinese to not want to be portrayed as an aggressor, I think, is a good sign.”

By contrast, when Japan complained in early January that Chinese ships had entered Japanese-controlled waters near the islands for 13 hours the ambassador responded that the islands belong to China and the Japanese ships that had no right to be there, according to Japanese officials. That incursion was particularly long, but it came amid weeks of cat-and-mouse games between ships and occasionally planes from both countries.

This time, the Chinese defense ministry accompanied its denial with accusations that Japan was to blame for any unnervingly close encounters between their ships and aircraft near the islands known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan, which has controlled them for decades.

Japan was “deliberately creating a tense atmosphere and misleading international opinion,” the defense ministry said.

Later on Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry also dismissed Japan’s assertions as “spun out of thin air.”

“We have no choice but to stay highly vigilant about Japan’s true intentions,” Hua Chunying, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, told reporters.

Long-standing tensions over the islands flared in September, when the Japanese government bought three of the five islands from a private owner in what it said was an effort to keep them out of the hands of a Japanese nationalist. China, however, said the purchase amounted to a provocative denial of its territorial claims, and sometimes violent protests broke out in dozens of Chinese cities.

In the months since, the Chinese government has underscored its claim to the islands by sending government vessels and military ships and aircraft to the waters near the islands which are patrolled by Japanese Coast Guard ships.

In Tokyo, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga responded Friday to China’s denial about the radar, saying, “We cannot accept China’s explanation.”

“We urge China to take sincere measures to prevent dangerous actions which could cause a contingency situation,” he said.

Japan earlier said that Russian fighter planes had briefly entered its airspace on Thursday, raising tensions in a separate dispute between those two countries over another set of islands. Russia denied any incursion.

Bree Feng and Patrick Zuo contributed research from Beijing.

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Britney Spears Gets Another Dog

People Pets

02/08/2013 at 01:40 PM EST

Britney Spears and her new dog

Courtesy Britney Spears

It's a furbaby one more time for Britney Spears.

After bringing home pooch Hannah in November, Spears introduced her newest furry family member on her Facebook page Friday.

"Say good morning to my new baby people," she wrote, sharing an adorable photo of her and the little white pup snuggling.

And if this new addition is anything like its big sister, the dog will surely become as famous as its Mom soon. Hannah Spears (@HannahSpears) is already a Twitter phenomenon, with close to 40,000 followers and a devoted fan base that loves her quirky Tweets.

The start of the New Year has been an eventful one for Spears, who in addition to expanding her pet family, also split with fiancé Jason Trawick and left her post as a judge on The X Factor. She is currently mulling over a deal to set up a residency in Las Vegas.

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Health officials: Worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say the worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread flu dropped again last week. By some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks. Deaths from the flu or pneumonia have been dropping for two weeks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the latest flu numbers on Friday.

This flu season started about a month earlier than normal. Outbreaks began in the late fall, and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker.

It's been nine years since a flu season started like this one, and that proved to be one of the deadliest. So far, this season has been labeled moderately severe.

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Equities climb in wake of positive data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged higher on Friday, with the benchmark S&P index hitting a five-year high, in the wake of a batch of encouraging domestic and international economic reports.

Data showing stronger international trade in China and Germany, and a report indicating the U.S. trade deficit had narrowed in December, pointed to improving global demand.

The U.S. technology sector rose, boosted by gains in LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc following their quarterly results, and in turn, lifting the Nasdaq.

Shares of LinkedIn jumped 22 percent to $151.81 after announcing quarterly profits and giving a bullish forecast for the year.

AOL Inc shares rose 7.1 percent to $33.62 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.

The benchmark S&P 500 <.spx>, up more than 6 percent for the year, is on track for six straight weeks of gains for the first time since August 2012.

But an advance has been tougher in recent days as investors await strong trading incentives to drive the index further upward.

"The rally is definitely slowing down. We might see a record high this year but we do need a bit of correction before going there," said Randy Frederick, director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.

"We've been in this 1,516 level (for the S&P 500) for the sixth straight session and need break above to really move higher."

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 44.79 points, or 0.32 percent, at 13,988.84. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 7.13 points, or 0.47 percent, at 1,516.52. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 29.51 points, or 0.93 percent, at 3,194.64.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 4.2 percent at 12.94. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.

Some analysts wondered if the market would convincingly stride higher.

"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."

Healthcare stocks climbed, with the Morgan Stanley healthcare payor index <.hmo> up 2.3 percent. Molina Healthcare Inc surged 9.7 percent to $31.67 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.

McDonald's Corp said January sales at established hamburger restaurants around the world fell 1.9 percent, a steeper decline than analysts had expected. Still, shares edged up 0.7 percent to $95.33.

Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand, while German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.

Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

"The reason why this is so important is because the trade deficit was a major contributor to the negative GDP report we had in Q4. With today's number, we could see a reversal of this in the next GDP report, going from negative to positive," Frederick said.

On the earnings front, many companies beat estimates as their profits grew.

According to Thomson Reuters data through Friday morning, of 339 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 69.9 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies grew 5.2 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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The Lede: Video Broadcast on State Television Was Downloaded From U.S. Drone, Iran Says

As The Associated Press reports from Tehran, late Wednesday Iran’s state television broadcast what it described as video recorded by the American surveillance drone that crash-landed about 140 miles from the country’s border with Afghanistan in late 2011.

Video broadcast by Iranian state television Wednesday included what was described as footage recorded by an American surveillance drone that crash-landed in Iran in 2011.

The state television report includes aerial views of what the narration describes as the American air base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, mixed in with still photographs of an RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone at that base made public in 2011, and images of the craft being recovered in 2011 by Iran’s military.

The report features an interview with Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, identified as the head of the aerospace division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, who denied that the drone had simply crashed because of a computer malfunction, as American officials have claimed. “We were able to definitively access the data of the drone, once we brought it down,” General Hajizadeh said.

More footage said to have been recorded by the drone can be seen in a copy of the 24-minute Iranian report posted on YouTube on Wednesday by Lenziran, a site that monitors Iranian media.

In an analysis of the footage for Foreign Policy, the national security reporter John Reed observes that in one segment of the Iranian report, “the camera on this aircraft is positioned behind a rather complex nose landing gear assembly — a layout that matches grainy Web images of the Sentinel that show what looks like a compartment that could contain a camera positioned on the bottom of the airplane, just behind the front landing gear.”

A copy of an Iranian television report on a captured United States drone posted on YouTube late Wednesday.

The report, Mr. Reed adds, also features what appear to be authentic images of an American air base, “right down to C-130s parked on the ramp,” and “what looks like an MQ-9 Reaper drone (or possibly two) parked in an enclosed ramp — a drone pen if you will — complete with a walled perimeter and those tent hangars that are seen at expeditionary drone bases around the world.”

As The A.P. notes, on Thursday Iran’s Fars News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, claimed that Iran had also started to produce functional copies of the smaller, American ScanEagle surveillance drone it displayed on state television in December. The Fars report quoted Iran’s deputy defense minister, Mohammad Eslami, saying that the country had also established a “production line for the drones in foreign countries.”

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Shirley MacLaine's Only Daughter Pens a Shocking New Tell-All

Seeing her mom, Shirley MacLaine, play a saucy septuagenarian on Downton Abbey, Sachi Parker couldn't help but smile.

"She was true to form," Parker says of MacLaine, 78, whose zinger-slinging turn as Lady Grantham's American mom shook up the big house this season. "It certainly hit home."

Hearing about Parker's relationship with MacLaine makes it easy to understand why.

Raised mostly by her dad, Parker grew up feeling distanced from her movie-star mother. She yearned for MacLaine's attention – so much so that when Parker, 56, also an actress, became a mom herself (to Frank Jr., 16, and Arin, 14, her kids with ex-husband Frank Murray), "I overcompensated," she tells PEOPLE. "But being a great mom is healing for me."

In her memoir Lucky Me, excerpted below, she shares her painful story (a story her mother, in a statement to PEOPLE, calls "virtually all fiction. I'm sorry to see such a dishonest, opportunistic effort from my daughter").

For all their ups and downs, she and her mom "love each other dearly," Parker says. "I've accepted who she is."

At age 2, Sachi was sent to live in Japan with her dad, producer Steve Parker. In the summers she visited MacLaine. "My visits in L.A. started at the airport, with Mom rushing up and giving me an all-encompassing hug. Once we got into the car she'd say, 'Let's have fun!'

"Sometimes we'd head down to the Piggly Wiggly and eat cookies from the bakery. They weren't supposed to be free, but Mom had no qualms about grabbing one. No one stopped her; she was a celebrity, after all."

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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.

It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.

Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.

"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.

In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.

"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.

Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.

The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:

—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.

—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.

—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.

—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.

—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.

"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.

Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.

There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.

There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.

The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.

Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.

"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.

"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Wall Street dips on renewed euro zone concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares fell on Thursday after the euro currency dropped against the safe-haven dollar and yen, raising worries about Europe's outlook and curbing investors' appetite for risky assets such as stocks.

The euro sank after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the exchange rate was important to growth and price stability, which investors took as a sign the bank is concerned about the euro's advance in recent days.

U.S. stocks have been in an uninterrupted uptrend for most of the year, with the S&P 500 gaining more than 5 percent for 2013.

"The market is a bit shaky on the back of some of the Draghi comments" amid worry the strength of the euro might hamper economic recovery, said Andre Bakhos, director of market analytics at LEK Securities in New York.

"Whether this ignites renewed concerns about the euro debt struggles and Europe in general is yet to be seen, but the market is looking for any reason to take a profit. It is just consolidating near multi-year highs, taking a respite before we advance higher."

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 92.05 points, or 0.66 percent, at 13,894.47. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 7.93 points, or 0.52 percent, at 1,504.19. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 14.95 points, or 0.47 percent, at 3,153.52.

Housing and retail stocks were the day's biggest decliners. The housing sector index <.hgx> was off 1 percent and the S&P housing index <.spxrt> was off 0.5 percent.

Top U.S. retailers reported strong January sales after offering compelling merchandise that drew in shoppers facing a hit to their take-home pay from higher payroll taxes.

Macy's Inc rose 1.3 percent to $40.01 after reporting January same store sales rose 11.7 percent.

But Ann Inc dropped 6.6 percent to $30.63 after forecasting fourth-quarter sales below analysts' expectations.

Fund manager David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital on Thursday said it has sued Apple Inc and said the company needs to do more to unlock value for shareholders. Apple shares gained 1.2 percent at $460.16.

Akamai Technologies Inc lost 15.6 percent to $35.06 as the worst performer on the S&P 500 after the Internet content delivery company forecast current-quarter revenue below analysts' expectations.

Initial jobless claims dipped last week, with the four-week moving average falling to its lowest level since March 2008, signaling the economy continues to recover slowly.

A separate report said fourth-quarter productivity registered its biggest drop in nearly two years, while unit labor costs jumped 4.5 percent, more than economists expected.

According to Thomson Reuters data through Thursday morning, of 317 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 69 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies rose 5 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Clashes Erupt in Damascus, Shattering Lull, as Prospects for Talks Dim

Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

A building in the Damascus suburb of Zamalka was hit by a mortar shell fired by the Syrian Army on Wednesday.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian insurgents attacked military checkpoints and other targets in parts of central Damascus on Wednesday, antigovernment activist groups reported. The fighting shattered a lull there as prospects for any talks between the antagonists appeared to dim, a week after the opposition coalition leader first proposed the surprise idea of a dialogue aimed at ending the war.

Some antigovernment activists described the resumption of fighting, which had lapsed for the past few weeks, as part of a renewed effort by rebels to seize control of central Damascus, the Syrian capital, although that depiction seemed highly exaggerated. Witness accounts said many people were going about their business, while others noted that previous rebel claims of territorial gains in Damascus had almost always turned out to be embellished or unfounded.

Representatives of the Military Council of Damascus, an insurgent group, said that at least 33 members of President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces in Damascus had surrendered, while others had fled central Al Abasiyeen Square, and that other forces had erected roadblocks on all access streets to the area to thwart the movement of rebel fighters.

Salam Mohammed, an activist in Damascus, described Al Abasiyeen Square as “on fire,” and a video clip uploaded on YouTube showed a thick column of black smoke spiraling over the area while the sound of shelling could be heard. A voice is heard saying the shelling had started a fire. The Local Coordination Committees, an anti-Assad activist network in Syria, also reported gunfire in nearby streets.

Firas al-Horani, a military council spokesman, said fighters of the Free Syrian Army, the main armed opposition group, were in control of Al Abasiyeen Square. He also said, “The capital, Damascus, is in a state of paralysis at the moment, and clashes are in full force in the streets.”

It was impossible to confirm Mr. Horani’s assertions or the extent of the fighting because of Syrian government restrictions on foreign news organizations. But Syria’s state-run media said insurgent claims of combat success in Damascus were false. “Those are miserable attempts to raise the morale of terrorists who are fleeing our valiant armed forces,” said SANA, the official news agency.

Deadly violence also was reported in the Homs Province town of Palmyra, the site of a notorious prison where Mr. Assad’s father, Hafez, ordered the summary execution of about 1,000 prisoners during an uprising against his family’s grip on power in the 1980s.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with a network of contacts inside Syria, said two booby-trapped cars exploded near the military intelligence and state security branches, killing at least 12 members of the security forces and wounding more than 20. The observatory said government forces deployed throughout Palmyra afterward, engaging in gun battles with insurgents that left at least eight civilians wounded in the cross-fire.

SANA also reported an attack but said it was caused by two suicide bombers who had targeted a residential part of the town, killing an unspecified number of civilians.

The new mayhem came as discord appeared to grow within the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the umbrella anti-Assad group, over a proposal made on Jan. 30 by Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, its leader, to engage in talks with Mr. Assad’s government aimed at ending the nearly two-year-old conflict, which has left more than 60,000 people dead. Although Sheik Khatib’s proposal contained a number of conditions, it broke a longstanding principle that Mr. Assad must relinquish power before any talks can begin.

Many of Sheik Khatib’s colleagues grudgingly agreed to go along with the proposal after it had been made, but critical voices have been rising, especially among the coalition’s more militant elements.

In a new video uploaded on YouTube, a cleric from the Nusra Front, an anti-Assad Islamist militant group that the Obama administration has classified as a terrorist organization, said in a prayer speech that brute force against Mr. Assad and his disciples was the only solution.

“We will cut their heads, we swear to kill them all, and they will see our worst war,” said the cleric, who spoke in Libyan-accented Arabic at a mosque in the contested northern city of Aleppo, holding a sword in his right hand. “No for the negotiations, no for the talks, no retreat in a jihad for God’s sake.”

Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Antakya, Turkey.

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