General investigated for emails to Petraeus friend

PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen’s communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.

Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus’ biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.

Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.

The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta’s decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.

Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.

In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen’s nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold “until the relevant facts are determined.” He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.

Panetta said President Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that Allen’s nomination should be put on hold. Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.

NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen’s appointment.

“We have seen Secretary Panetta‘s statement,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. “It is a U.S. investigation.”

Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama’s nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.

___

Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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At Mao-style conclave, China embraces Twitter age

BEIJING (AP) — During China’s last party congress, the cadres in charge of the world’s most populous nation didn’t know a hashtag from a hyperlink. But five years on, there’s a new message from Beijing: The political transition will be microblogged.

Party officials have this fall embraced social media with unprecedented enthusiasm, hoping it can help guide public opinion and stir up excitement about the staid and scripted party meeting taking place this week in Beijing that kicks off a transition to a new, younger set of top leaders.

Dozens of the more than 2,000 party delegates, among them Chairman Mao‘s grandson, are using social media to wax rhapsodic about China’s rise and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao’s live 90-minute reading of highlights from this year’s party work report. Typical posts include pictures of grinning delegates on Tiananmen Square and mobile snapshots of poinsettia arrangements and chandeliers from inside the Great Hall of the People, where the congress is meeting.

Guo Mingyi, a miner from the frigid northeast who was making his debut as a party delegate, tweeted: “On this land with great affections, how can I not sing, how can I not tear up, I love this piece of land, the people and the great Chinese Communist Party!”

State media also are posting microblog interviews with officials and shooting out updates about the congress schedule via Twitter-like accounts.

But apart from being a tool to deliver Beijing’s approved policy messages to the mobile phones of ordinary Chinese, the Internet is a two-way street that’s also being used by the public to poke fun at and critique the propaganda. Online commentators have compared the gushy crying and clapping of some delegates over Hu’s speech to North Korean style mass hysteria.

Responding to state media report about how a female delegate, Li Jian, cried five times at Hu’s work report, a Sina microblog user writing under the name ‘Buying Soysauce’ wrote: “I sobbed uncontrollably too, at the thought that these people were my compatriots.”

Wang Keqin, the assistant to the editor in chief of Beijing’s Economic Observer magazine, wrote about the tears of another delegate, He Guiqin: “It’s back to North Korea overnight!”

Other critics have dredged up old headlines from 1987 about the scourge of bribe-seeking and posted them online to highlight how little party rhetoric, and party problems, have changed despite major social change over the last three decades.

The clash of ideas underscores just how important the Internet has become in China’s campaign to guide public opinion — a major shift from just a few years ago.

At the last party conclave in October 2007, Twitter was a little over a year old and hashtags had only just been introduced. China’s leading homegrown Twitter-like microblog service, Sina Weibo, was still two years from launch.

But as elsewhere, China’s Internet population has exploded over the last five years, jumping from 170 million to more than 500 million today. Social media has boomed with it and now plays a huge part in everyday Chinese life, particularly for urban residents who use it to find restaurants, jobs and mates.

Beijing’s initial reaction to social media was to block and censor, to limit conversations by banning access to Twitter and Facebook and to limit mention of anything considered sensitive or destabilizing with keyword filters. Though authorities still use those tactics, the government is increasingly proactive and working to wrest control of the online conversation by flooding the zone with its own content.

David Bandurski, a researcher with the China Media Project at Hong Kong University, says Chinese officials have learned that simply banning or blocking reports is no longer effective in the porous Internet sphere and that stifling information can backfire by fanning more interest in scandals and crises and sparking online rumors.

“You can’t just stuff the genie back into the bottle,” said Bandurski. “You have also to channel public opinion … officially, they are seeing social media as the best way to send out their authoritative information and kind of drive the agenda.”

But the government remains yoked to its party-ese, which can seem hopelessly out of date in the Twitter age.

A dispatch on the trend by the official Xinhua News Agency gives a hint to the flavor of Beijing’s rhetoric.

“The Internet has been unprecedentedly embedded into the ongoing National Congress of the Communist Party of China,” the news agency trumpeted over the weekend. “Not only can contents on the Internet be found in the congress report, but online media practitioners are attending the congress in person.”

On Saturday, Chairman Mao’s grandson Mao Xinyu tweeted this to his 105,943 followers on Renmin Weibo, the microblog of the official party paper, the People’s Daily: “Mao Zedong thought will always be the guiding ideology of the party.”

It got 155 retweets, a mediocre showing in China‘s lively web sphere.

___

Follow Alexa Olesen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/alobeijing

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Jason Biggs defends tweeting ways

NEW YORK (AP) — Jason Biggs is brushing off criticism he received during the recent election season for vulgar tweets that referenced the wives of both Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate in the presidential race, Paul Ryan.

The “American Pie” star took heat for off-color comments posted to his Twitter feed at the time of the Republican National Convention in August. The outpouring of criticism from parents groups, pundits and others led Nickelodeon to issue an apology for the actor’s comments on the social media website. Biggs is providing one of the voices in the cable TV station’s new animated series “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

“I made a political tweet, so I got a little bit of heat from the right,” he said.

With elections over, Biggs says he’s moving on.

He appeared Monday night in New York at the annual 24 Hour Plays event, which was sponsored by luxury pen-maker Montblanc to benefit the Urban Arts Partnership. The benefit draws more than two dozen actors who write, rehearse, and perform one of six plays that they began working on the night before.

Biggs’ tweets have also poked fun at the Kardashians, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan and the ABC show “The Bachelorette.”

“I’m more afraid of the Kardashians, than I am of the Republicans,” he said.

He said he sees Twitter as an extension of the darker side of his humor.

As a three-time performer in 24 Hour Plays benefit, Biggs says he’s grown to feel more comfortable with the process.

“It’s a little easier. But it’s still nerve-racking, man.”

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One in three open to traveling for medical treatment, poll finds

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Looking for an affordable face lift without breaking the bank? Want to combine a tummy tuck with two weeks in the sun? You’re not alone.

Nearly a third of people surveyed around the world say they are open to the idea of medical tourism – traveling abroad to enjoy cheaper medical or dental treatment, according to a new Ipsos poll of 18,731 adults in 24 countries.

Indeed, 18 percent said they would definitely consider it.

“The concept of medical tourism is well accepted in many countries,” said Nicolas Boyon, senior vice president of Ipsos Public Affairs.

“With the exception of Japan there are at least one third of consumers in every country we covered that are open to the idea,” he said in an interview.

Whether for economic reasons or perceptions of superior treatment elsewhere, for treatments ranging from cosmetic to life-saving surgeries, Indians, Indonesians, Russians, Mexicans and Poles were the most open to the idea of being medically mobile.

Thirty-one percent or more people in each of those countries said they would definitely consider traveling for a medical or dental treatment.

Conversely, people in Japan, South Korea, Spain and Sweden were least likely to be medical tourists.

Boyon said it was not surprising that men and women from emerging nations would be medically mobile if the treatments were cheaper.

“This probably reflects perceptions of medical care in other countries that is superior to what is available at home,” he said.

But he was intrigued by the percentage of people in developed nations such as Italy, where 66 percent said they would definitely or probably consider medical tourism, along with Germany (48 percent), Canada (41 percent) and the United States, where 38 percent of people were open to the idea.

“It is a reflection that the medical profession is no longer protected from globalization,” Boyon said.

RISKS VS. BENEFITS

Although medical tourism spans a range of treatments, the most common are dental care, cosmetic surgery, elective surgery and fertility treatment, according to an OECD report.

“The medical tourist industry is dynamic and volatile and a range of factors including the economic climate, domestic policy changes, political instability, travel restrictions, advertising practices, geo-political shifts, and innovative and pioneering forms of treatment may all contribute towards shifts in patterns of consumption and production of domestic and overseas health services,” the report said.

Various studies using different criteria have estimated that anywhere between 60,000 to 750,000 U.S. residents travel abroad for health care each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Along with variations among countries, the Ipsos survey showed that younger adults under 35 years of age were more likely in most countries to consider medical tourism, than people 50 to 64 years old.

In India, 86 percent of young adults said they would consider medical tourism, along with 77 percent in China, and 71 percent in Italy.

Boyon suggested that the cost of travel, proximity, borders and quality of care may also be factors considered by potential medical tourists. In both Italy and Germany, about 20 percent of adults said they would definitely consider medical tourism. Both countries are near Hungary, a popular destination for health treatments.

Ipsos conducted the poll in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.

(Editing by Elaine Lies and Bernadette Baum)

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Wall Street gains, led by retail sector after Home Depot

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks rose on Tuesday in a sharp turnaround from earlier losses, led by gains in retail stocks after strong results from Home Depot , the world’s largest home improvement company.

Traders said rumors that Spain may be close to asking for a sovereign bailout may have boosted buying.

Dow component Home Depot Inc was the top gainer on the S&P 500, climbing 4.5 percent to $ 63.90 after reporting earnings that beat expectations and raising its outlook. Rival retailer Lowes Companies also gained, up 1.1 percent to $ 32.32.

Energy stocks, which were trading lower earlier, also turned around sharply. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.GSPE> rose 0.7 percent.

Technology shares were little changed and earlier were under pressure from weakness in Microsoft after the executive most widely tipped to be the next chief executive left the company.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 74.71 points, or 0.58 percent, at 12,889.79. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.SPX> was up 7.49 points, or 0.54 percent, at 1,387.52. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 1.24 points, or 0.04 percent, at 2,905.50.

The euro zone debt crisis continued to roil global markets.

“The intraday moves are pretty big today as we continue to be in a rumor-filled market, mainly news out of Europe,” said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Despite the gains, the S&P 500 was still down nearly 2 percent for the month on lingering concerns about the “fiscal cliff” in the U.S., and debt crisis in the euro zone.

The fiscal cliff is a series of budget cuts and tax hikes that begin to take effect in the new year. Market participants worry that if no deal is reached to avoid going over the cliff, the economy could fall back into recession.

Concerns over this possibility contributed to the S&P’s worst week since June last week, with no sign of a bottom despite a drop of almost 3 percent over the past two weeks.

“The attention in the equity markets has shifted more noticeably to the possibility that the U.S. fails to properly handle the so-called fiscal cliff,” said Ari Wald, analyst at PrinceRidge Group. He said equities in developed countries have been outperforming U.S. stocks despite worries about the euro zone’s financial health.

In other earnings news, AK Steel Holding Corp shares fell 10 percent to $ 4.91 after forecasting a fourth-quarter loss, while Michael Kors Holdings gained 3.9 percent to $ 52.58 after raising its outlook.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Clarke’s 218 puts Australia on front foot

BRISBANE (Reuters) – Australia captain Michael Clarke scored a brilliant unbeaten double century to give the hosts a remarkable 37-run first innings lead on the fourth day of the first test against South Africa on Monday.

Supported first by a maiden century from opener Ed Cowan in a record stand of 259, and then by Mike Hussey‘s 86 not out, Clarke’s 218 helped lift Australia from 40 for three when he took to the crease on Sunday to 487 for four when stumps were drawn.

It was Clarke’s sixth test century, and his third double hundred, in the 15 tests since he was named captain last year in the wake of the Ashes humiliation and Australia’s quarter-final exit at the World Cup.

Although by no means a chanceless knock, the 31-year-old played with patience when South Africa’s vaunted pacemen got anything out of the Gabba track before punishing anything loose with some fine shot-making.

When he carried his bat back to the pavilion at the end of the day to the raucous cheers of a sparse crowd at the famous Brisbane ground, Clarke had faced 350 balls over 504 minutes and scored 21 fours.

“I’m very happy with that,” Clarke, who accumulated his 1,000 test run of the year during the innings, said in an interview on the boundary.

“I didn’t feel great at the start and I think Ed Cowan batted beautifully.

“We’re in a great position with a 30-odd lead. I’d like another 70 odd runs in the morning and then I want to have a crack with the ball. We’ll see what happens.”

Cowan departed for 136 in heartbreaking fashion just before tea, run out at the non-striker’s end when Dale Steyn got a finger to a Clarke drive that hit the stumps and the opener was caught out of his crease backing up.

RECORD PARTNERSHIP

His partnership with Clarke was an Australian record for the fourth wicket at the Gabba, beating the 245 Clarke and Mike Hussey made against Sri Lanka in 2007.

Cowan’s wicket was the only wicket to fall on the day and Hussey started pouring on the runs as if determined to get the record back for his own partnership with his captain.

The 37-year-old bucked his poor recent form against South Africa by reaching his half century off just 68 balls with a drive through long-off and was closing on a century of his own when play ended.

It was Hussey’s cut four off Morne Morkel with which Australia overhauled South Africa’s first innings tally of 450 and put themselves in with an unlikely chance of even winning a test which lost an entire day to rain on Saturday.

Clarke’s negotiation of the “nervous nineties” for his century had been fraught and he was nearly run out going for a second run that would have brought him to the hundred mark.

There were no such jitters on his approach to the two hundred mark, which he passed by slapping the ball through mid-on for two runs before giving the badge on his helmet another kiss.

Cowan’s century was a retort to those critics who have consistently questioned his place in the team since he made his debut in last year’s Melbourne test against India.

The 30-year-old lefthander reached the mark two overs after lunch by pulling a short Vernon Philander delivery for four to the square leg boundary, beginning his joyous celebrations before the ball hit the rope.

South Africa’s number one test ranking is on the line in the series, which continues with matches in Adelaide and Perth after Brisbane.

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Elmo puppeteer accused of underage relationship

NEW YORK (AP) — The puppeteer who performs as Elmo on “Sesame Street” is taking a leave of absence from the popular kids’ show in the wake of allegations that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old boy.

Sesame Workshop said puppeteer Kevin Clash denies the charges, which were first made in June by the alleged partner, who by then was 23.

“We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action,” Sesame Workshop said in a statement issued Monday. “We met with the accuser twice and had repeated communications with him. We met with Kevin, who denied the accusation.”

The organization described the relationship as personal and “unrelated to the workplace.” Its investigation found the allegation of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated. But it said Clash exercised “poor judgment” and was disciplined for violating company policy regarding Internet usage. It offered no details.

“I had a relationship with (the accuser),” Clash told TMZ. “It was between two consenting adults and I am deeply saddened that he is trying to make it into something it was not.”

At his request, Clash has been granted a leave of absence in order to “protect his reputation,” Sesame Workshop said.

No further explanation was provided, nor was the duration of his leave specified.

“Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of ‘Sesame Street’ to engage, educate and inspire children around the world, as it has for 40 years,” Sesame Workshop said in its statement.

“Sesame Street” is currently in production, but other puppeteers are prepared to fill in for Clash during his absence, according to a person close to the show who spoke on condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to publicly discuss details about the show’s production.

“Elmo will still be a part of the shows being produced,” that person said.

The 52-year-old Clash, the divorced father of a grown daughter, has been a puppeteer for “Sesame Street” since 1984. It was then that he was handed the fuzzy red puppet named Elmo and asked to come up with a voice for him. Clash transformed the character, which had been a marginal member of the Muppets troupe for a number of years, into a major star rivaling Big Bird as the face of “Sesame Street.”

In 2006, Clash published an autobiography, “My Life as a Furry Red Monster,” and was the subject of the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.”

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Vt. Mom Begs FDA: Save My Other Son

Jenn McNary, a mother of six from Saxtons River, Vt., is desperate.

Both her boys have Duchenne muscular dystrophy, but only her 10-year-old Max has access to a wonder drug that appears to be reversing the symptoms of this deadly disease.

His 13-year-old brother Austin is languishing in a wheelchair while Max has been able to take the drug eteplirsen through a highly successful clinical trial.

After 60 weeks on an IV infusion, Max was able to participate in a three-mile Halloween walk.

“It’s the first time ever — he’s never been able to walk that far. He’s always gone with a wheelchair, even as a toddler,” said McNary, 32. “He actually doesn’t look like a Duchenne kid at all. And his balance is great.”

“People all over the world are calling it a miracle,” she said of the drug.

Now, McNary has written petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to give accelerated approval of the medication, the fastest way to help Austin and other boys with the disease.

Both boys, whose last name is Leclair, have the same gene mutation that the drug targets and will eventually kill them. Austin was diagnosed at 3 and Max at 3 months.

McNary and her husband Craig are also raising four other healthy children in a second marriage.

There is no cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Until now, doctors have only been able to use steroids, which just temporarily delay the inevitable loss of muscle strength.

“My brother says he’s doing it for me, that he’s trying really hard,” Austin told ABCNews.com in August. “That’s why he wanted to do it.”

Austin was not allowed to participate in the clinical trial because one of the inclusion criteria was that he be able to complete a six-minute walk.

“This has been a bitter-sweet journey for us,” McNary wrote in a letter to the FDA this week. “As we watch Max get better, we also watch his older brother, Austin, 13, get worse. He suffers, silently, as his disease progresses.”

Duchenne muscular dystrophy affects one in 3,500 male births, about 20,000 children in the United States and 300,000 worldwide, according to Cure Duchenne, one of three organizations that have funded the clinical trial.

The muscular disease strikes between the ages of 3 and 5 as boys progressively lose their ability to walk. Eventually, they are wheelchair bound, their upper body strength fails, and, like Austin, they eventually cannot raise their arms to feed themselves.

Later, their breathing is affected and they require tracheotomies and breathing assistance. Eventually, the heart and lungs fail.

Parents of children who were in the clinical trial of eteplirsen at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus are calling it a “wonder drug.”

According to McNary, all 12 children in the double-blind study received “some benefit” from the drug. It has no known side effects.

“Even two boys who stopped walking before taking it have stronger upper bodies and their hearts are strong,” she said. “They have progressed to stable.”

Muscular Dystrophy Drug Could Stabilize Disease

If this exon-skipping drug is approved, she estimates 15 percent of boys with Duchenne could be helped, those with the type that skips exon 51. As a class of drugs, they could up to 85 percent of boys with the disease.

Stock prices for its manufacturer, Sarepta Therapeutics. , have soared.

If Sarepta Therapeutics can get accelerated approval, the drug could be available in six to nine months, according to McNary. Otherwise, the wait could be four or five years — too late for Austin.

“We are very encouraged by the data we have seen to date,” said Chris Garabedian, president and CEO of Sarepta Therapeutics, which makes the drug and is pressing the FDA to take action.

“If we start using the drug earlier in patients, we might be able to stabilize whatever state they are in for a longer period of time,” said Garabedian. “We are not going to end up creating Olympic athletes from this drug, but we are encouraged this could really halt or slow the progression.”

McNary is reaching out to media and online petition sites to encourage as many people as possible to write letters of support to the FDA.

But as she waits approval, Austin gets weaker. In the last few months, he has lost all upper body control and must be lifted 100 percent of the time.

Just recently, he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and must go on a nighttime machine to keep his lungs inflated.

Austin keeps his spirits high, according to McNary.

On Halloween, he dressed his wheelchair up as a hot dog stand, carrying his dachshund in a cloth bun. And just recently, his father and uncle took him hunting. They held up the gun for Austin and he shot his first buck — an eight-pointer.

McNary is convinced that if the FDA can move on approving the drug that has healed Max, it can also help Austin.

Until then, he’s “hanging in there,” she said. “He has a huge zest for life.”

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S&P 500 and Nasdaq inch higher, fiscal cliff a concern

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks mostly ticked higher on Monday, but persistent concerns about the upcoming debate on the fiscal cliff limited gains even after last week’s steep sell-off.

Barclays cut its year-end target for the S&P 500 to 1,325, citing fiscal cliff issues.

The S&P 500 dropped 2.4 percent last week, the worst week for the benchmark index since June. It closed below its 200-day moving average for the first time in five months, and an extended run under that level could signal further losses ahead.

Trading volume is expected to be light, with the U.S. bond market and government offices closed on Monday for the Veterans Day holiday.

Last week’s weakness was partly propelled by concerns about whether there will be a timely solution to avoid the fiscal cliff, a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases set to go into effect early next year unless Congress acts to change the law before then. Though most consider it unlikely that no deal will be reached, analysts fear going over the cliff could push the economy back into recession

“Right now, all eyes are on Washington, and we’re just waiting,” said Matthew Keator, a partner in the Keator Group, a wealth management firm in Lenox, Massachusetts. “We’re hopeful something gets done, but we’ve been disappointed before. We need to see something done if we’re going to remain up for the year.”

The S&P 500 is still up 10 percent for 2012, though recent months have eroded those gains. The Nasdaq has fallen for five straight weeks.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was down 3.69 points, or 0.03 percent, at 12,811.70. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.SPX> was up 0.87 of a point, or 0.06 percent, at 1,380.72. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 4.53 points, or 0.16 percent, at 2,909.41.

Some major acquisition news gave investors some reasons for optimism on Monday. Precision Castparts Corp offered to buy Titanium Metals Corp for $ 2.9 billion, while Leucadia National Corp agreed to buy investment bank Jefferies Group for $ 3.6 billion.

Shares of Titanium surged 42.3 percent to $ 16.46 while Jefferies climbed 13.5 percent to $ 16.19. Precision rose 5.5 percent to $ 180.67. In contrast, Leucadia fell 4 percent to $ 20.93.

“After last week, there could be some bargain opportunities out there,” said Keator, who helps oversee $ 500 million in assets. “Especially since if there is a fiscal cliff deal, that could lead to a tremendous move on the upside.”

Overseas, a report over the weekend showed China’s export growth climbed to a five-month high, beating expectations and adding to recent data suggesting the country’s seven straight quarters of slowing economic growth have ended.

In addition, the Greek parliament on Sunday approved an austerity budget for next year, a necessary step to unblock a new tranche of credit from the European Union and International Monetary Fund before the government runs out of cash. Still, investors remain concerned about whether the EU and IMF will agree to send the next tranche.

Apple Inc rose 0.6 percent to $ 550.42 after the company announced a global patent settlement with HTC Corp <2498.TW>, as well as a 10-year licensing agreement. Apple‘s stock has been under pressure recently, dropping more than 20 percent from its 2012 high to enter bear market territory.

Homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations, helped by a jump in orders. D.R. Horton‘s shares gained 3.1 percent to $ 21.23.

According to Thomson Reuters data through Friday, of the 449 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 63.3 percent have topped expectations. But only 38.2 percent of companies have topped revenue expectations – well below the 62 percent average since 2002.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Israel kills Gaza rocket crewman in second day of clashes

GAZA (Reuters) – An Israeli air strike killed a Palestinian militant in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip on Sunday as a surge in cross-border violence entered its second day, local officials said.

Islamic Jihad, a smaller faction than Hamas which often operates independently, identified the dead man as one of its own, saying he was a member of a rocket crew hit by an Israeli missile in Jabalya, northern Gaza.

The Israeli military confirmed carrying out an air strike in the area. The death brought to six the number of Palestinians killed by Israel since four of its troops were hurt in a missile attack on their jeep along the Gaza boundary fence.

Islamic Jihad said it had fired 70 short-range rockets and mortar bombs across the border since Saturday, salvoes which drove Israeli residents to blast shelters. At least one Israeli, in the town of Sderot, was wounded, ambulance workers said.

Israel described the jeep ambush as part of a Palestinian strategy of trying to curb its countermeasures against possible cross-border infiltration. Israeli forces often mount hunts for tunnels and landmines on the inside of the Gaza boundary, creating a no-go zone for Palestinians.

“Of course we don’t accept their attempt to change the rules,” Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Israel’s Army Radio.

“The essence of the struggle is over the fence. We intend to enable the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) to work not just on our side but on the other side as well.”

Palestinians said four of Saturday’s dead were civilians hit by an Israeli tank shell while paying respects at a crowded mourning tent in Gaza’s Shijaia neighborhood. Israel denies targeting civilians.

The bloodshed puts internal pressure on Hamas, which, though hostile to the Jewish state, has sat out some of the recent rounds of violence as it tried to consolidate its Gaza rule and reach out to neighboring Egypt and other foreign powers.

Israel blames Hamas for any attacks emanating from Gaza, but has shown little appetite for a major sweep of the territory which might strain its own fraught ties to the new Islamist-rooted government in Cairo.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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