From St. Barts to Cabo San Lucas, see how Julianne Hough, Jessica Alba, Sofia Vergara and more are heating things up this winter
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Updated: Friday Jan 04, 2013 | 06:00 AM EST
By: Kiran Hefa
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.
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
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
(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Kin Cheung/Associated Press
The smuggled ivory shipment confiscated by custom officials in Hong Kong was valued at around $1.4 million.
HONG KONG — Customs officials in Hong Kong announced on Friday their third large seizure of smuggled ivory in less than three months, saying they had intercepted 779 elephant tusks weighing 2,900 pounds in a container originating from Kenya.
The shipment was valued at around $1.4 million.
In October, 1,209 tusks weighing 3.8 tons and worth about $3.5 million were seized from two containers shipped from Tanzania and Kenya. The following month, 1.6 tons were discovered in a container originating from Tanzania.
Large seizures also have been made in other countries recently, notably in Port Klang, Malaysia, last month.
Demand from an increasingly affluent Asia and improved international trade and transport links have caused the trade in ivory and other wildlife products to soar in recent years, pushing many species to the brink. Meanwhile, in many countries enforcement and penalties remain weak and constitute little deterrent to smugglers and poachers, conservationists say.
A total of about 10 tons of ivory was seized by customs officials around the world in 2007, according to Traffic, an organization that monitors wildlife trade. By 2011, that figure had jumped to nearly 40 tons — a record. Much of that ivory came from large hauls — weighing 1,600 pounds or more — indicating the rising involvement of organized criminal gangs, Traffic said.
Official records for 2012 are not yet complete, but the quantity of raw ivory already reported seized in the past year totals nearly 27.5 tons, according to Traffic.
“2011 still reigns supreme as the ‘annus horribilis’, but last December’s Malaysia seizure pushes 2012 into the top four years of highest ivory seizures by weight, indicating the illegal ivory trade is still running rampant,” Tom Milliken, Traffic’s elephant expert, wrote in an e-mail.
No arrests have been made in connection with Friday’s seizure in Hong Kong. Customs officials said Friday that a fictitious address in Hong Kong had been listed at the shipment’s destination, and that their investigations were continuing.
There were no indications that Hong Kong was becoming a more important transshipment point for ivory smuggling, they said, adding that the three recent hauls were “isolated” events.
The smugglers, said Vincent Wong, a senior official in the Hong Kong customs department, were adopting new approaches all the time, diversifying routes and using different concealment measures.
Friday’s batch of ivory contained some whole tusks, but also many that had been cut into two or three pieces, allowing them to fit into five wooden crates transported among a shipment declared as containing “architectural stones.”
Despite its attempts to attract new customers with high-end phones, Huawei (002502) remains relatively unknown to U.S. consumers. The company is looking to change that and on Thursday announced the availability of the Ascend P1 smartphone. The Android-powered device is equipped with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The handset is also one of the thinnest smartphones on the market, measuring in at 7.6 millimeters. BGR reviewed the Ascend P1 earlier this year and found it to be a decent smartphone. Huawei is offering the device carrier-unlocked through Amazon (AMZN) for $ 449.99. Read more for Huawei’s press release.
[More from BGR: Samsung confirms plan to begin inching away from Android]
Huawei’s Ascend P1 Launches in U.S.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
Super thin Huawei Ascend P1 comes with 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and Android 4.0 ICS OS
PLANO, Texas, Jan. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced an unlocked version of the Huawei Ascend P1 is available to U.S. consumers through Amazon.com. The Huawei Ascend P1 comes equipped with 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and is one of the fastest models in class, capable of handling 3D games effectively.
“The Ascend P1 is perfect for consumers looking to get the most out of their device,” said Michael Chuang, Executive Vice President of Huawei Device USA. “Whether it’s for playing games, streaming music and videos, or sharing multimedia in the home or workplace, the Ascend P1 offers unparalleled performance and a truly unique mobile experience.”
The Ascend P1 offers users a movie theatre-quality cinematic experience with its super AMOLED, 4.3 inch screen and 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound System. In addition, at only 7.69 mm thick, the Huawei Ascend P1 is one of the thinnest smartphones on the market. The 64.8 mm frame allows the Ascend P1 to sit comfortably in the user’s palm, giving them the ability to navigate all the phone’s features with a single hand.
The Huawei Ascend P1 is available online at Amazon.com for $ 449.99.
This article was originally published by BGR
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"Brandon's totally the one," Clarkson, 30, tells Cosmopolitan for its February issue. "I've never been so happy."
After dating for a year, Blackstock, whose father Narvel Blackstock is Clarkson's manager (and Reba McEntire's husband), popped the question in December on what she called the "happiest night of my life."
But romance was a long time coming for the pair.
Julianne Hough covers the February issue of Cosmopolitan
Courtesy Cosmopolitan
"We've known each other for years, but we didn't start talking until the Super Bowl last February," Clarkson says in the issue, which hits newsstands Tuesday.
Though she's thrilled to be engaged, Clarkson wasn't sure when they first went out together. "This is the funniest/worst thing ever: One of my superhero idols is Whitney Houston, and the day she died was our first date," she says. "I was like 'This is a bad omen.' "
That turned out not to be true, but it seems that one thing is: love is worth waiting for: "Six years I was single before this," Clarkson says. "I've never been truly loved like I am right now."
NEW DELHI (AP) — From Africa's crowded AIDS clinics to the malarial jungles of Southeast Asia, the lives of millions of ill people in the developing world are hanging in the balance ahead of a legal ruling that will determine whether India's drug companies can continue to provide cheap versions of many life-saving medicines.
The case — involving Swiss drug maker Novartis AG's cancer drug Glivec — pits aid groups that argue India plays a vital role as the pharmacy to the poor against drug companies that insist they need strong patents to make drug development profitable. A ruling by India's Supreme Court is expected in early 2013.
"The implications of this case reach far beyond India, and far beyond this particular cancer drug," said Leena Menghaney, from the aid group Doctors Without Borders. "Across the world, there is a heavy dependence on India to supply affordable versions of expensive patented medicines."
With no costs for developing new drugs or conducting expensive trials, India's $26 billion generics industry is able to sell medicine for as little as one-tenth the price of the companies that developed them, making India the second-largest source of medicines distributed by UNICEF in its global programs.
Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Cipla, Cadila Laboratories and Lupin have emerged over the past decade as major sources of generic cancer, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS drugs for poor countries that can't afford to pay Western prices.
The 6-year-old case that just wrapped up in the Supreme Court revolves around a legal provision in India's 2005 patent law that is aimed at preventing companies from getting fresh patents for making only minor changes to existing medicines — a practice known as "evergreening."
Novartis' argued that a new version of Glivec — marketed in the U.S. as Gleevec — was a significant change from the earlier version because it was more easily absorbed by the body.
India's Patent Controller turned down the application, saying the change was an obvious development, and the new medicine was not sufficiently distinct from the earlier version to warrant a patent extension.
Patient advocacy groups hailed the decision as a blow to "evergreening."
But Western companies argued that India's generic manufacturers were cutting the incentive for major drug makers to invest in research and innovation if they were not going to be able to reap the exclusive profits that patents bring.
"This case is about safeguarding incentives for better medicines so that patients' needs will be met in the future," says Eric Althoff, a Novartis spokesman.
International drug companies have accused India of disregarding intellectual property rights, and have pushed for stronger patent protection that would weaken India's generics industry.
Earlier this year, an Indian manufacturer was allowed to produce a far cheaper version of the kidney and liver cancer treatment sorefinib, manufactured by Bayer Corp.
Bayer was selling the drug for about $5,600 a month. Natco, the Indian company, said its generic version would cost $175 a month, less than 1/30th as much. Natco was ordered to pay 6 percent in royalties to Bayer.
Novartis says the outcome of the new case will not affect the availability of generic versions of Glivec because it is covered by a grandfather clause in India's patent law. Only the more easily absorbed drug would be affected, Althoff said, adding that its own generic business, Sandoz, produces cheap versions of its drugs for millions across the globe.
Public health activists say the question goes beyond Glivec to whether drug companies should get special protection for minor tweaks to medicines that others could easily have uncovered.
"We're looking to the Supreme Court to tell Novartis it won't open the floodgates and allow abusive patenting practices," said Eldred Tellis, of the Sankalp Rehabilitation Centre, a private group working with HIV patients.
The court's decision is expected to be a landmark that will influence future drug accessibility and price across the developing world.
"We're already paying very high prices for some of the new drugs that are patented in India," said Petros Isaakidis, an epidemiologist with Doctors Without Borders. "If Novartis' wins, even older medicines could be subject to patenting again, and it will become much more difficult for us in future to provide medicines to our patients being treated for HIV, hepatitis and drug resistant TB."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened slightly higher after a key U.S. jobs report showed the pace of hiring by employers had eased slightly in December but gave signals of some momentum in the labor market's recovery since the 2007-09 recession.
Though the data showed lackluster economic growth was unable to make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 17.12 points, or 0.13 percent, at 13,408.48. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.49 points, or 0.10 percent, at 1,460.86. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 0.75 points, or 0.02 percent, at 3,101.32.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An American drone strike killed a top Pakistani militant commander in a northwestern tribal region, security officials said on Thursday. The death of the commander, Maulvi Nazir, was seen as a serious blow to Taliban fighters who attack United States and allied forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
Maulvi Nazir in South Waziristan in 2007.
The drone strike took place on Wednesday night and targeted Mr. Nazir’s vehicle in the Angoor Adda area in South Waziristan. Five other people were also killed, including one of his key aides, officials said.
“He has been killed. It is confirmed,” said a senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The vehicle he was traveling in was hit.”
Mr. Nazir was traveling from Birmal to Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, when his vehicle was struck by the drone.
In a separate drone strike in North Waziristan on Thursday morning, at least four people were killed when a vehicle was targeted. The identities of those killed were not immediately known.
Mr. Nazir, believed to be in his 30s, was based in the western part of the South Waziristan tribal region. He led the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, and his loyalists regularly joined attacks on American forces across the porous border with Afghanistan. Unlike other Taliban factions, Mr. Nazir’s fighters did not attack Pakistani military or government targets, instead focusing on the war inside Afghanistan. He was believed to have signed a peace pact with the Pakistani military.
Mr. Nazir was allied with Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a leading warlord in North Waziristan. The nonconfrontational posture of the two commanders toward the Pakistani military often led to them being labeled here as “good Taliban.”
Asad Munir, a former Pakistan Army brigadier and the intelligence chief in Peshawar, said the killing of Mr. Nazir could lead to a spurt in violence.
“A dangerous scenario for Pakistani military would be joining of hands of Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir supporters with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.”
Mr. Munir said the area controlled by Mr. Nazir’s forces had been “relatively peaceful” but his death increased the chances of attacks on military targets. Mr. Nazir had survived two earlier drone strikes. In November, he survived a suicide attack, which was blamed on Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or T.T.P., the Pakistani Taliban who conduct attacks inside Pakistan. After the suicide attack, he expelled rival Mehsud tribesmen from territory controlled by his fighters.
Mr. Nazir also opposed the presence of Uzbek fighters inside Pakistan and, with the help of the Pakistani military, pushed Uzbeks out of his region several years ago.
Some analysts said that militants like Mr. Nazir could be troublesome for the Pakistani military once the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan begins in 2014.
“Maulvi Nazir would probably have posed a problem for the Pakistan Army if and when a political settlement is reached in Afghanistan in 2014. But in the interim, the killing of Nazir and his deputies likely hurts the Pakistan Army’s efforts against the T.T.P. in South Waziristan,” said Arif Rafiq, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, based in Washington.
“Nazir would probably have wanted to hold on to his local jihadist fiefdom, making him a long-term threat for the Pakistani state,” said Mr. Rafiq.
The suspicion that the Pakistani military gave a nod to Mr. Nazir’s killing could result in attacks on Pakistani troops in some areas in South Waziristan, analysts said.
Pakistani officials publicly denounce American drone strikes but have privately acknowledged the effectiveness of the campaign.
We’ve seen “Cormac McCarthy” Tweet apocalyptic non sequiturs. “Philip Roth” promised us a bite-sized short story. Now a fake Twitter account for British spy novelist John le Carré is spreading bizarre death rumors about J.K. Rowling. After a few days of Tweeting harmless missives, the week-old handle @JLecarre dropped this would-be bombshell on its nearly 2,500 followers Wednesday morning:
A terrible news. My publisher phones me announcing that J.K. Rowling dies by accident. Few minutes ago. No words!
— John le Carré (@JLecarre) January 2, 2013
OK, there are at least three dead-giveaways that this is a fake account. One: If J.K. Rowling had died, does anyone credibly think John le Carré would be the one breaking the news? Rowling and le Carré don’t even share a publisher—he’s with Penguin and she’s printed by Little, Brown and Company—making this story even more implausible. Two: As noted by le Carré’s literary agent Jonny Geller, the “L” in the author’s name shouldn’t be capitalized, as it is in the handle of this hoax account. Three: Phrases like “a terrible news” and “my publisher phones me” sound more like snippets from an ESL workbook than lines from an author praised for his chilly, controlled prose style. This could again be the work of Italian media troll Tommaso De Benedetti, who copped to creating a fake Philip Roth account recently. “Twitter works well for deaths,” he told The Guardian‘s Tom Kington, describing his M.O. for spreading misinformation about the deaths of public figures like Fidel Castro and Pedro Almodóvar.
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Too bad John le Carrè isn’t actually on Twitter, though. Imagine the flame wars he would get into with longtime adversary Salman Rushdie—who most certainly is on Twitter, and loves using it to throw literate shade. And too bad this isn’t the handiwork of someone with more imagination—someone like the unpublished Scottish novelist behind @cormaccmccarthy. Outed right here on The Atlantic Wire, Michael Crossan at least had the chops to fool Margaret Atwood and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey with dead-on spoofs of McCarthy’s writing:
RELATED: Salman Rushdie’s Video Speech Gets Spiked; The World’s Priciest Books
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