TSX near 18-month high, buoyed by Agrium, RIM

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index hit a near 18-month high on Thursday, as shares of Agrium Inc rose after the fertilizer maker raised its profit forecast and as U.S. manufacturing and labor data drove optimism on the economic outlook of Canada’s largest trade partner.

Shares of Research In Motion Ltd also boosted the market, rising more than 3 percent after a report that China’s Lenovo Group said a bid for the BlackBerry maker was among the options available to boost its mobile business.

Canadian stocks were also supported by data that showed Chinese manufacturing growth hit a two-year high this month. Gains were kept in check by falling gold stocks, which slipped with the price of the precious metal.

In the United States, a private survey showed that factory activity advanced at the fastest pace in nearly two years this month, while the government reported the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits hit a five-year low last week.

“There’s a growing feeling that we’re heading in the right direction. The U.S. economy is showing a little bit of life, and that’s spilling over into Canada,” said Fred Ketchen, director of equity trading at ScotiaMcLeod.

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> was up 41.36 points, or 0.32 percent, at 12,835.41, after touching 12,863.47, its highest since August 2, 2011.</.gsptse>

Seven of the 10 main sectors on the index were trading higher.

The materials sector, which includes mining stocks, slipped 0.1 percent as declines in gold stocks offset a rise in shares of fertilizer giants Agrium and Potash Corp .

Agrium rose 3.5 percent to C$ 114.55 after it raised its fourth-quarter earnings forecast as strong grain and oilseed prices spurred demand for its fertilizer products over the fall season.

Ketchen, noting the activity in Agrium shares over the past few days, said, “People are taking another look at it, thinking maybe it’s time to get back in.”

Potash was up 2.1 percent at C$ 42.77.

The energy sector gained 0.6 percent and was the biggest contributor to the market’s gains as U.S. crude oil prices rose.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd rose 1.5 percent to C$ 30.62.

Financials, the index’s weightiest sector, added 0.4 percent. Toronto Dominion Bank

was up 0.4 percent at C$ 83.51, and the Royal Bank of Canada rose 0.3 percent to C$ 61.62.

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Leslie Adler)

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Kristen Bell's Birth Plan Involves Whiskey and a Baseball Bat

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

01/24/2013 at 11:00 AM ET

Kristen Bell is very much looking forward to childbirth — and all the drugs, alcohol and violence that go with it.

“I’ve got nothing to prove,” the House of Lies actress, 32, jokes about her birth plan — and whether she’ll go natural — in an interview airing Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

“I feel like when I arrive at the hospital, I want a glass of whiskey, I want the epidural in my back. And I want to get hit in the face with a baseball bat and wake me up when it’s over, because I’ve seen the videos and it looks terrifying.”

When the child does finally emerge, he or she will already have a favorite hobby: off-roading with dad Dax Shepard.

“He is [excited],” Bell says of her Parenthood actor fiancé. “In different ways than I am. He’s just thinking about all the off-roading he’ll have in this tiny partner.”

Michael Rozman

DeGeneres said that sounds like she’s having a boy but Bell wouldn’t confirm that, although she does know the sex of the baby, due in late spring.

“Do you have to be a boy off-road? Absolutely not,” she says. “I think he’s going to force [the baby], even if it’s a sloth, to off-road.”

As she mentioned a year ago on Ellen, Bell is actually quite obsessed with sloths. So this time, DeGeneres surprised her with a real sloth — named Lola.

– Tim Nudd

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CDC: New version of stomach bug causing US illness

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say a new strain of stomach bug that's sweeping the globe is taking over in the U.S.

In the last four months, more than 140 outbreaks in the U.S. have been caused by the new Sydney strain of norovirus. These kinds of contagious bugs cause bouts of diarrhea and vomiting.

The new strain may not be unusually dangerous; some scientists don't think it is. But it is different, and many people might not be able to fight off its gut-wrenching effects.

It often spreads in places like schools, cruise ships and nursing homes. The new strain was blamed for a recent outbreak on the Queen Mary 2.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on the new strain Thursday.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Wall Street edges up in face of Apple decline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 advanced on Thursday, with the benchmark S&P index on track for its first seven-day streak of gains in over six years as solid economic data managed to outweigh a steep decline in Apple shares.

Apple Inc dropped 10.4 percent to $460.69 after the technology giant missed Wall Street's revenue forecast for a third straight quarter as iPhone sales were poorer than expected, lending credence to recent concerns its days as the dominant player in consumer electronics may be on the wane.

The drop wiped out roughly $50 billion in Apple's market capitalization to $432 billion, leaving the company vulnerable to losing its status as the most valuable U.S. company to second place ExxonMobil Corp, at $417 billion.

A trio of economic reports helped buoy the market, with data showing a decline in weekly jobless claims and an increase in manufacturing, while a gauge of future economic activity climbed.

"The claims numbers are clearly a big surprise and were very good numbers - they imply we may have a good employment number for the month of January," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, New York.

"You have Apple and technology on the one side and the rest of the market on the other side."

The gains marked the first time the S&P 500 had risen above 1,500 since December 12, 2007 and put the index on pace for its seventh straight advance, its longest streak since October 2006.

The advance for the S&P, and muted declines in the Nasdaq in spite of the decline in Apple, were viewed as a positive sign, as investors take encouragement from an improving global economy and move into stocks more closely tied to economic fortunes, such as industrials.

General Electric rose 0.5 percent to $22.06 and United Parcel Service gained 2.4 percent to $82.30. Of the 10 major S&P sectors, only technology, off 1.5 percent, was lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 58.82 points, or 0.43 percent, to 13,838.15. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 1.78 points, or 0.12 percent, to 1,496.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 14.25 points, or 0.45 percent, to 3,139.42.

The domestic data meshed with those overseas showing growth in Chinese manufacturing accelerated to a two-year high this month and a buoyant Germany took the euro zone economy a step closer to recovery.

Apple's disappointing results drew a round of price-target cuts from brokerages. At least 14 brokerages, including Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, cut their price target on the stock by $142 on average. Morgan Stanley removed the stock from its 'best ideas' list.

In contrast to Apple, Netflix Inc surprised Wall Street Wednesday with a quarterly profit after the video subscription service added nearly 4 million customers in the U.S. and abroad. Shares surged 37.6 percent to $142.10, its biggest percentage jump ever.

Diversified U.S. manufacturer 3M Co reported a 3.9 percent rise in profit, meeting expectations, on solid growth in sales of its wide array of products, which range from Post-It notes to films used in television screens. The shares slipped 0.2 percent to $99.28.

Corporate earnings have helped drive the recent stock market rally. Thomson Reuters data through early Thursday showed that of the 133 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings, 66.9 percent have exceeded expectations, above the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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The Lede Blog: Clinton Testifies on Benghazi Attacks

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Lede is following Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Earlier today, she testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee .

At a House Committee hearing last October investigating the attack, as reported on The Lede, State Department officials and security experts who served on the ground offered conflicting assessments about what resources were requested and made available to deal with growing security concerns in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Mrs. Clinton had been scheduled to testify before Congress last month, but an illness, a concussion and a blood clot near her brain forced her to postpone her appearance.

As our colleagues Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported, four State Department officials were removed from their posts on last month after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

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Prince Harry Returns to Britain from Fighting in Afghanistan

By Simon Perry

01/23/2013 at 01:50 PM EST

Prince Harry arrives at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire

REX USA

Prince Harry is back in Britain.

The army captain and Apache helicopter co-pilot gunner touched down at RAF Brize Norton, in snowy Oxfordshire, shortly after 4:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

And, like his colleagues, he had a family reunion on his mind, telling reporters that he is "longing to see my brother and sister-in-law."

"Behind closed doors," he added with a smile. "You guys aren't invited."

It will be the first time he has seen brother Prince William and his pregnant wife Kate since they announced they were expecting a baby in December.

Now that he's home and away from the war in Afghanistan, he plans to focus "on more royal stuff" and hopes to "pay more attention to the charities" he supports in the coming 12 months.

The fun-loving prince arrived in the U.K. via a military base in Cyrpus, where he was debriefed and enjoyed some downtime (and likely a few beers) and, he said, "some comedy" with his squadron colleagues.

Harry, 28, is expected to take about a month off (servicemen get a day off for every seven they are on tour) but royal watchers will be eager to see him back at the family business of making appearances and doing good. While nothing is planned for the short term, once he has reported back for duty at the Army Air Corps at RAF Wattisham, in Suffolk, he will then be able to put his mind to carrying out royal engagements, palace sources say.

One thing on his mind, he revealed in one of his interviews given while he was based at Camp Bastion, is a daring trip to the South Pole.

He is patron of the mission by Walking With The Wounded to Antarctica, which takes place in November. (He pulled out of the group's North Pole expedition to attend William and Kate's wedding.)

"Medically, if I can do that, that's perfect because I'd love to do it," he told reporters in Afghanistan. "Because missing out on the whole North Pole thing was a real dig in the ribs, but that was another experience I had with a bunch of military guys who are really sound."

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Sickening fog settles over Salt Lake City area

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A group of Utah doctors is declaring a health emergency over the Salt Lake City area's lingering air pollution problem.

Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment planned to deliver a petition Wednesday demanding immediate action by elected officials.

The group wants Gov. Gary Herbert and mayors of northern Utah cities to cut the pollution.

The doctors suggest lowering highway speed limits, making mass transit free for the winter and curbing industrial activities. They want a permanent ban on wood-burning. And they want large employees to let people work from home.

The doctors are advising people to avoid the outdoors. They say people can help their bodies fight toxic exposure by introducing anti-oxidants in their diet, like fish oil or chocolate.

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Tech stocks lift Dow, Nasdaq; S&P holds flat

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and Nasdaq advanced on Wednesday, lifted by IBM and Google whose stronger-than-expected profits helped to alleviate growing investor concern about the tech sector.

IBM's and Google's earnings, released after Tuesday's close, were the latest reassuring fourth-quarter results that pushed the Dow and S&P 500 to five-year highs as worries about the "fiscal cliff" and euro zone debt crisis faded and earnings became the market's main focus.

International Business Machines Corp forecast better-than-anticipated 2013 results and also posted fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations.

Shares in the world's largest technology services company climbed 4.9 percent to $205.71, its biggest advance since July, making it by far the largest boost to the Dow.

Worries about the profit potential in the tech sector had increased amid questions about waning demand for Apple Inc products and a weak outlook from Intel Corp last week.

Also helping to boost the tech sector was a 6.4 percent jump in Google Inc to $747.55. The Internet search company reported its core business outpaced expectations and revenue was higher than expected.

"That is kind of what got the Street's attention - is that tech was considered an area of vulnerability and now seems to be actually be an area of real strength, and not just in terms of the fourth quarter, but in terms of guidance," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Despite a 1.1 percent gain in the S&P technology sector <.splrct>, gains on the broader S&P 500 index were limited a day after the benchmark index closed at a fresh 5-year high.

The recent gains have been largely fueled by a stronger-than-expected start to the earning season, pushing the benchmark S&P index near the 1,500 level, last reached on December 12, 2007, and may make additional gains harder to come by after a 4.6 increase for the month.

"It's only reasonable to expect some sort of resistance when you get to that all-important level, the fact that here it is Jan 23 and we are brushing up against it, is really impressive," Kenny said.

With tech earnings strong, Thomson Reuters data through Wednesday shows that of the 99 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 67.7 percent have topped expectations, above the 62 percent average since 1994 and the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 67.98 points, or 0.50 percent, to 13,780.19. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 1.36 points, or 0.09 percent, to 1,493.92. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 11.50 points, or 0.37 percent, to 3,154.68.

McDonald's edged up 0.5 percent to $93.37 after reporting a rise in fourth-quarter earnings, lifted by an increase in same-store sales. Fellow Dow component United Technology Corp's earnings fell from the prior year, hurt by large restructuring charges. Shares climbed 0.6 percent to $87.98.

On the downside, leather-goods maker Coach Inc plunged 15.48 percent to $51.31 as the S&P's worst performer after reporting sales that missed expectations. The S&P consumer discretionary sector <.splrcd> slipped 0.3 percent.

After the market closes, investors will scour Apple's results, with the options market bracing for a big move in Apple shares after its earnings, amid a dramatic plunge for the world's most valuable publicly traded company. Apple shares rose 0.4 percent to $507.04 on Wednesday.

Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season, but well below the 9.9 percent fourth-quarter earnings forecast on October 1, the data showed.

Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives began considering a Republican measure on Wednesday to extend the U.S. debt limit for nearly four months but many Democrats vowed to oppose the measure, calling it a gimmick that sets up a new "fiscal cliff.

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

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Greek Prosecutors Seek Inquiry Over Deficit Claims

ATHENS — Greek prosecutors called on Tuesday for a criminal inquiry into the actions of the head of Elstat, the country’s statistical authority, and two of his subordinates, over claims that they manipulated budget figures to justify the country’s appeal for an international financial bailout.

The agency head, Andreas Georgiou, a veteran of nearly two decades at the International Monetary Fund, first came under scrutiny in the fall of 2011, when a former Elstat employee, Zoe Georganta, claimed that Mr. Georgiou had inflated the agency’s official figure for Greece’s 2009 budget deficit, saying it amounted to more than 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

In an interview with The New York Times last spring, the statistics chief said that some members of Elstat’s board represented vested interests that did not want the full extent of Greece’s dire finances to come to light. “We were faced with significant pressures through the board not to revise the deficit upwards on account of fully applying European Union rules, but to minimize it,” he said.

Greece’s governing coalition, headed by the conservative New Democracy party, has lately undertaken a campaign to stamp out lawlessness and corruption, in part to impress its European creditors that it is serious about dealing with the country’s deep-seated problems. However, critics charge that it is doing so by attacking a series of straw men while ignoring criminality and tax evasion among the business, professional and political elites that have run the country for decades.

This month, for example, the police raided a squatter house in Athens that had been occupied by leftists and a few anarchists for more than 20 years, even though the violence that had plagued the city for years had subsided in recent months. The opposition said that, far from a crackdown on lawlessness, the raid incited a new wave of violence and was, at base, intended to distract attention from a scandal that threatens to disclose rampant tax evasion by the wealthy and well connected.

The Greek financial crisis erupted in 2009, when an incoming Socialist government announced that the budget deficit was 12.4 percent of gross domestic product, more than twice the previous estimate of the former government, also headed by New Democracy. To date, neither the Socialists nor New Democracy have prosecuted any officials responsible for the understatement of the deficit.

It was about a year ago that prosecutors first summoned Mr. Georgiou, following the claims by Ms. Georganta that Elstat inflated the deficit beyond the 12.4 percent figure. They further called upon Parliament to consider whether the former Socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, and the former finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, should be investigated for their roles in the 12.4 percent deficit estimate. A parliamentary committee last year found no wrongdoing by the politicians, vaguely highlighting instead “a lack of institutional knowledge of the euro zone.”

Since then Mr. Papaconstantinou, who appointed Mr. Georgiou as chief of the statistics service in June 2010, has been ensnarled in the tax evasion scandal, accused of removing names of family members from a list of more than 2,000 Greeks with Swiss bank accounts that may have been used to avoid taxes.

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Is Facebook envy making you miserable?

LONDON (Reuters) – Witnessing friends’ vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.

A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world’s largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.

The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

“We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry,” researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin’s Humboldt University told Reuters.

“From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site,” said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.

Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt’s Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.

Social interaction was the second most common cause of envy as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their Facebook friends and how many “likes” or comments were made on photos and postings.

“Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize,” the researchers said in the report “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” released on Tuesday.

“The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users’ life satisfaction.”

They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.

These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about their achievements on the site run by Facebook Inc. to portray themselves in a better light.

Men were shown to post more self-promotional content on Facebook to let people know about their accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives.

The researchers based their findings on two studies involving 600 people with the results to be presented at a conference on information systems in Germany in February.

The first study looked at the scale, scope and nature of envy incidents triggered by Facebook and the second at how envy was linked to passive use of Facebook and life satisfaction.

The researchers said the respondents in both studies were German but they expected the findings to hold internationally as envy is a universal feeling and possibly impact Facebook usage.

“From a provider’s perspective, our findings signal that users frequently perceive Facebook as a stressful environment, which may, in the long-run, endanger platform sustainability,” the researchers concluded.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

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