Facebook releases ‘Poke’ for the iPhone to compete with Snapchat

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Americans answer D.C.’s siren song of employment, strong economy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Thirteen years ago the band The Magnetic Fields crooned that the U.S. capital city is “the greatest place to be,” in the indie love song “Washington, D.C.”

Recently, a growing number of Americans are singing along as they move to the District in search of jobs, economic opportunity and cultural attractions.

In a study on migration provided exclusively to Reuters that is set to be released next month, United Van Lines found the District of Columbia tops all 50 states for the number of people moving in during 2012.

The city has held that spot for five years running, with 64 percent of the household moves in Washington coming from outside the city in 2012.

United Van Lines is the largest moving company in the country for households.

Oregon ranked second, followed by Nevada, North Carolina and South Carolina. Washington is a city that does not belong to a state, but is subject to loose control from the federal government.

“Washington, D.C., is unique because over the last five years its unemployment rate was not hit as hard by the Great Recession,” said Michael Stoll, chair and professor of public policy at the University of California at Los Angeles about the study. “But I think the other thing is that the city has remade itself from the one we knew 10 to 15 years ago.”

Washington has shed its reputation as the crime capital of the country, and it has developed a high technology corridor and other businesses that are both stable and hiring, said Stoll.

Also, many members of the Baby Boom generation are moving in as they retire, taking advantage of the free museums, monuments and cultural events the city has to offer, he said.

The rising popularity could yield a result also unthinkable less than two decades ago.

“D.C. will not just be a place of tourism. It will be a major economic engine, which many of us haven’t thought of it as being before,” Stoll said.

A U.S. Census report released on Thursday also showed the city is gaining new residents. Washington’s population increased 2.15 percent between July 2011 and July 2012, a rise second only to North Dakota.

The District’s population increase of 5.1 percent from 2010 to 2012 was the biggest in the country, the Census found. It had had 632,323 residents as of July 1.

The city has a large international community, largely due to the presence of foreign embassies and organizations such as the World Bank. The Census found people from other countries made up 32 percent of the net migration from 2011 to 2012.

According to a Labor Department report released on Friday, the District’s unemployment rate fell in November to 8.1 percent from 10.1 percent the year before. Local political leaders point to a development boom and one of the highest median incomes in the country – $ 63,124 – as other draws to the city.

On a national level, Stoll said, the migration patterns show Americans are seeking economic opportunity in places where new manufacturing and technology enterprises are building up. The patterns reveal a swelling group of aging people who are retiring and looking for affordable and comfortable places to live, as well.

He added that many people who wanted to move to California, but were put off by the state’s economic woes, turned their moving vans north to Oregon.

New Jersey topped states for outward moves, in 2012, the United Van Lines study showed, largely due to a shrinking factory sector. It was followed by Illinois, West Virginia, Michigan and New York.

Washington’s popularity surge recently created a paradox in the city’s economic success story. Last month, the Brookings Institution concluded three U.S. metropolitan areas are in economic recovery, but did not include Washington because its population burst drove down its gross domestic product on a per capita basis.

(Reporting By Lisa Lambert; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Federal appeals court rules against Hobby Lobby on contraception

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a claim by an arts and crafts chain that wants to be exempted from a requirement to provide emergency contraceptives to employees because it violates the religious principles of its owners.

The Court of Appeals in Denver ruled against family-owned Hobby Lobby‘s assertion that the religious beliefs of its owners should relieve them from providing the “morning after” and “week after” pills to their employees, as required under President Barack Obama‘s signature health care reforms.

Hobby Lobby vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The Green family is disappointed with this ruling,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is assisting Hobby Lobby in the legal case. “The Greens will continue to make their case on appeal that this unconstitutional mandate infringes their right to earn a living while remaining true to their faith.”

The medications at issue are classified as emergency contraceptives by the Food and Drug Administration, but the owners of Hobby Lobby call them “abortion-inducing drugs” because they are often taken after conception.

The lawsuit is among 42 legal actions that have been filed over the issue, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit law firm in Washington, D.C.

The company faces fines of up to $ 1.3 million daily if it disobeys the mandate, which takes effect on January 1 for Hobby Lobby, a $ 3 billion chain, and its smaller sister operation, Mardel, a Christian-oriented bookstore and educational supply company.

Both companies are owned by the Green family of Oklahoma City, whose patriarch, David Green, is ranked 79th on Forbes Magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans, with a net worth of $ 4.5 billion.

The family operates 514 Hobby Lobby stores in 41 states and employ 13,240 people. Inspirational Christian music is played in the stores, which are closed on Sundays.

U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton of the Western District of Oklahoma ruled on November 19 that the privately-owned companies are secular, for-profit enterprises that do not possess the same religious rights as the individual members of the family.

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Lisa Shumaker)

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Steve Jobs’ super-yacht impounded

21 December 2012 Last updated at 12:29 ET

Venus, the minimalist high-tech yacht commissioned by the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, has become embroiled in a row over a disputed bill.

French designer Philippe Starck claims Mr Jobs’ heirs still owe him 3m euros of a 9m euro fee for the project, according to Dutch paper Het Financieele Dagblad.

Mr Starck called in the debt collectors and had the yacht impounded,

The Port of Amsterdam confirmed that the boat is not allowed to leave.

Jeroen Ranzijn, spokesman for the Port of Amsterdam told the BBC: “The boat is brand new but there is a 3m euro claim on it. The parties will have to fight it out.”

Roelant Klaassen, a lawyer representing Mr Starck’s company, Ubik, told the Reuters news agency that the boat would remain in port pending payment by lawyers representing Mr Jobs’ estate.

“These guys trusted each other, so there wasn’t a very detailed contract,” he said.

Mr Starck was unavailable for comment.

Gerard Moussault, the lawyer representing the owners of the Venus told the BBC: “I cannot comment at all on this, sorry.”

The sleek, 260ft-long (80m) aluminium super-yacht cost 105m euros ($ 138m; £85m) and was launched in October, at Aalsmeer, The Netherlands.

Mr Starck is known for his striking designs for the Alessi company, including an aluminium lemon squeezer that is shaped like a spaceship.

He collaborated with Steve Jobs for five years on the project, describing the boat as “showing the elegance of intelligence.”

The vessel is minimalist in style and is named after the Roman goddess of love and its windows measure 3m (10 feet) in height.

Mr Starck has said that Venus “looks strange for a boat” but said its shape comes from design ideas he shared with Mr Jobs.

Mr Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 and never saw his boat go to sea.

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TSX ends flat as RIM buckles, gold miners bounce

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index ended little changed on Friday as gold miners gained on safe-haven buying amid U.S. budget uncertainty, while BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plunged more than 20 percent.

The index’s materials sector, which includes miners, rose 0.4 percent. Even though the price of gold was near its lowest level in four months, the gold-mining sub-sector added 0.9 percent as investors fretted over stalled U.S. budget talks that could throw Canada’s largest trading partner back into recession.

“As our tiptoes are over the (U.S.) fiscal cliff and we’re looking over the abyss, the markets are upset obviously, and this is sort of putting a damper on the stocks,” said John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada.

“But we’ve had a mixed reaction in Canada, mainly because the resources have been much better, like gold for example, which is hedging into the uncertainty (around the budget talks),” he said, noting gold miners had been under pressure for the last two weeks.

Miner Barrick Gold Corp edged up 0.2 percent to C$ 33.29. Centerra Gold Inc jumped more than 3 percent to C$ 9.10.

Gold miners are playing catch-up after underperforming throughout the year and could rise further in 2013, said Gavin Graham, president at Graham Investment Strategy.

Shares of RIM dropped 22.2 percent to C$ 10.86 on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on the business that has set the company apart from its competitors.

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> fell 3.01 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 12,385.70. It gained 0.7 percent for the week.</.gsptse>

Efforts to avoid the looming U.S. “fiscal cliff” were thrown into disarray on Friday with finger-pointing lawmakers fleeing Washington for Christmas vacations even as the year-end deadline for action edged ever closer.

Graham said that until a deal is reached in the U.S. budget talks, investors will avoid economically sensitive Canadian stocks and those most closely tied to the U.S. economy: auto parts manufacturers, forestry companies and resource stocks generally.

“The resource sectors in Canada, which is half of the index, is going to be adversely affected, correctly or not,” he said.

“Chinese demand is likely to pick up somewhat now with the new leadership there but people will be focused on the U.S. given that it is still by far the most important export market for Canada.”

($ 1=$ 0.99 Canadian)

(Additional reporting by Claire Sibonney, Julie Gordon and Jeffrey Hodgson; Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Ashton Kutcher files for divorce from Demi Moore

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ashton Kutcher filed court papers Friday to end his seven-year marriage to actress Demi Moore.

The actor’s divorce petition cites irreconcilable differences and does not list a date that the couple separated. Moore announced last year that she was ending her marriage to the actor 15 years her junior, but she never filed a petition.

Kutcher’s filing does not indicate that the couple has a prenuptial agreement. The filing states Kutcher signed the document Friday, hours before it was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Kutcher and Moore married in September 2005 and until recently kept their relationship very public, communicating with each other and fans on the social networking site Twitter. After their breakup, Moore changed her name on the site from (at)mrskutcher to (at)justdemi.

Kutcher currently stars on CBS’ “Two and a Half Men.”

Messages sent to Kutcher’s and Moore’s publicists were not immediately returned Friday.

Moore, 50, and Kutcher, 34, created the DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, in 2010 to combat the organized sexual exploitation of girls around the globe. They later lent their support to the United Nations’ efforts to fight human trafficking, a scourge the international organization estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.

Moore was previously married to actor Bruce Willis for 13 years. They had three daughters together — Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle — before divorcing in 2000. Willis later married model-actress Emma Heming in an intimate 2009 ceremony at his home in Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands that attended by their children, as well as Moore and Kutcher.

Kutcher has been dating former “That ’70s Show” co-star Mila Kunis.

The divorce filing was first reported Friday by People magazine.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP.

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Alexza’s agitation drug gets FDA approval

(Reuters) – Alexza Pharmaceuticals Inc said the U.S. health regulators approved Adasuve, making it the first treatment for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that can be inhaled.

Adasuve, which delivers an older antipsychotic drug called loxapine, passes through the lungs and into the bloodstream faster than a typical pill. Loxapine is available as an oral drug for schizophrenia.

The company said the product will include a boxed safety warning about potentially dangerous side effects including the potential for fatal bronchial spasms in people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and a higher risk of death in elderly people with dementia-related psychosis.

Adasuve use will be restricted to mitigate the potential harm of bronchial spasms, Alexza said.

The FDA also required Alexza to conduct a large post- marketing clinical trial of patients to assess the real-world use of the drug.

“We believe that the ability to deliver medications rapidly and non-invasively will be important for patients and the professionals who care for them,” Chief Executive Thomas King said in the statement.

Three injectable drugs, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Abilify, Eli Lilly’s Zyprexa and Pfizer Inc’s Geodon, are currently approved to calm patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Adasuve, Alexza’s most advanced drug, will be available for commercial launch early in the third quarter of 2013, the company said.

Earlier this month, European health regulators recommended approval of Adasuve.

The FDA denied approval to Adasuve in May, after it found deficiencies at the company’s Mountain View, California manufacturing facility during an inspection.

The company’s shares fell 12 percent in the after market trading after the trade was halted at $ 5.79 before the drug- approval announcement.

(Reporting by Prateek Kumar; Editing by Sreejiraj Eluvangal)

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Vote on US fiscal cliff ‘Plan B’

20 December 2012 Last updated at 17:23 ET

The Republican-led US House is set to vote on a package of spending cuts and tax rises party leaders say will keep the US away from the “fiscal cliff”.

The vote includes tax rises on earnings above $ 1m (£614,000) on Speaker John Boehner’s so-called “Plan B” option.

It comes as talks with the White House appear to have stalled, with President Barack Obama seeking a lower threshold.

A deal must be reached by 1 January, or a combination of steep tax rises and sharp spending cuts will take effect.

Analysts in the US and overseas have expressed concern that failure to reach a deal could take the US into recession.

Veto threat

A vote is expected by the late afternoon on Thursday, but could stretch on into the evening.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said on Thursday: “We, as Republicans, have taken concrete actions to avoid the fiscal cliff.”

He and Mr Boehner say the bill as proposed would ensure permanent tax cuts for 99.8% of Americans.

Continue reading the main story

What is the fiscal cliff?

• On 1 January 2013, a series of tax increases and huge spending cuts are due to come into force – the so-called fiscal cliff


• The deadline was put in place in 2011 as a means of forcing the president and Congress to agree on ways to save money over the next 10 years


• If they can reach a deal before 1 January, the cliff will be averted


• The fear is that raising taxes while massively cutting spending will have a huge impact on households and businesses


• Experts believe it could push the US into recession, and have a global impact on growth, especially in China and Europe

But Mr Cantor added that Republicans would not be sending their members home for the Christmas recess after the vote – a sign that Congress could be expected to vote on a more bipartisan deal within days.

Correspondents say the Republican plan has no chance of passing the Democratic-led Senate, and is in effect an effort to tell the US public that they should not be blamed if the US falls over the fiscal cliff.

The White House has threatened to veto the legislation if does pass Congress, saying the bill would mean tax rises on 25 million Americans making under $ 250,000.

A study by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center found some low-income people would see tax rises because the measure would not renew several tax cuts that were part of the 2009 stimulus package.

On Thursday, the White House criticised Republicans, saying Mr Boehner’s response to compromises from the president was “to walk away” from negotiations.

Spokesman Jay Carney said the introduction of Mr Boehner’s so-called Plan B was a “multi-day exercise in futility at a time when we do not have the luxury of exercises in futility”.

‘Partisan war paint’

Mr Boehner announced the bill on Tuesday, saying he would bring forward a measure that extended Bush-era tax cuts for those earning less than $ 1m per year – but would not address the automatic spending cuts.

Correspondents say the move came as a surprise as negotiations appeared to be making progress.

On Wednesday, the Republican leadership added a companion bill that would replace the automatic cuts with a proposal to remove cuts from defence and government operating budgets. They would be offset by reductions elsewhere in the budget.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

It is positioning, theatrics, part of the negotiations, not the negotiations themselves. There are still few days left, and many think a deal will be done, because it has to be done”

End Quote

The proposal would cut food stamps, benefits for federal workers and some social services programmes.

On Wednesday, Mr Obama dismissed the bill, telling reporters that he and Mr Boehner were just a few hundred billion dollars apart on full 10-year deal.

The president said Republicans should “peel off the partisan war paint” and take his most recent offer.

Mr Obama is now proposing a tax rise on incomes over $ 400,000 (£247,000), an increase on the $ 250,000 level he had originally sought.

He also offered a change to the way Social Security cost of living adjustments are made for some recipients, cuts from government healthcare programmes and a two-year extension of the debt ceiling.

Mr Boehner’s office called the proposal “a step in the right direction” but not fully “balanced”.

In a brief news conference on Wednesday, the House Speaker countered that the president will bear responsibility for “the largest tax increase in history” if he does veto the bill.

But Senate leaders have signalled there is little hope for the measure in Congress’ upper-chamber.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the proposal would not pass and that lawmakers would return to Washington next Thursday to continue working on a deal.

Analysts have painted a grim picture of the consequences of going over the cliff, with some warning that the impact could push the US back into recession.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in its latest economic outlook that the recession from the cliff could become global.

Changing taxation across the years
Tax year	1993-2000	2001	2002	2003-2008	2009-2012	2012 tax brackets	2013 scenarios
Source: Tax Foundation, IRS Tax brackets shown for unmarried individuals
President	Bill Clinton	George W Bush			Barack Obama		Tax cuts expire	Tax cuts expire for top incomes
Bottom rate	15%	15%	10%	10%	10%	Up to $ 8,700	15%	10%
			15%	15%	15%	$ 8,700-$ 35,350		15%
	28%	27.5%	27%	25%	25%	$ 35,350- $ 85,650	28%	25%
	31%	30.5%	30%	28%	28%	$ 85,650- $ 178,650	31%	28%
	36%	35.5%	35%	33%	33%	$ 178,650-$ 388,350	36%	33%
								36%
Top rate	39.6%	39.1%	38.6%	35%	35%	Over $ 388,350	39.6%	39.6%

BBC News – Business

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Wounded presage health crisis for postwar Syria

ATMEH, Syria (AP) — A baby boy joined the ranks of Syria’s tens of thousands of war wounded when a missile fired by Bashar Assad‘s air force slammed into his family home and shrapnel pierced his skull.

Four-month-old Fahed Darwish suffered brain damage and, like thousands of others seriously hurt in the civil war, he will likely need care well after the fighting is over. That’s something doctors say a post-conflict Syria won’t be able to provide.

Making things worse, there has been a sharp spike in serious injuries since the summer, when the regime began bombing rebel-held areas from the air, and doctors say a majority of the wounded they now treat are civilians.

This week, Fahed was recovering from brain surgery in an intensive care unit, his head bandaged and his body under a heavy blanket, watched over by Mariam, his distraught 22-year-old mother.

She said that after her first-born is discharged from the hospital in Atmeh, a village in an area of relative safety near the Turkish border, they will have to return to their village in a war zone in central Syria.

“We have nowhere else to go,” she said.

Even for those who have escaped direct injury, the civil war is posing a mounting health threat. Half the country’s 88 public hospitals and nearly 200 clinics have been damaged or destroyed, the World Health Organization says, leaving many without access to health care. Diabetics can’t find insulin, kidney patients can’t reach dialysis centers. Towns are running out of water-purifying materials. Many of the hundreds of thousands displaced by the fighting are exposed to the cold in tents or unheated public buildings.

“You are talking about a public health crisis on a grand scale,” said Dr. Abdalmajid Katranji, a hand and wrist surgeon from Lansing, Michigan, who regularly volunteers in Syria.

No one knows just how many people have been injured since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, starting out with peaceful protests that turned into an armed insurgency in response to a violent government crackdown.

More than 43,000 have been killed in the past 21 months, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, basing his count on names and details provided by activists in Syria. He said the number of wounded is so large he can only give a rough estimate, of more than 150,000.

Casualties began to rise dramatically at the start of the summer. At the time, the regime, its ground troops stretched thin, began bombing from the air to prevent opposition fighters from gaining more territory.

Seemingly random bombings have razed entire villages and neighborhoods, driving terrified civilians from their homes, with an estimated 3 million Syrians out of the country’s population of 23 million now displaced.

About 10 percent of the wounded suffer serious injuries and many of those will need long-term care and rehabilitation, said Dr. Omar Aswad of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations, an umbrella for 14 aid groups.

This includes artificial limbs and follow-up surgery. “This is of course not available and will be one of the major (health) problems in the months right after the war,” said Mago Tarzian, emergency director for the Paris-based Doctors Without Borders.

For now, aid groups are struggling to provide even emergency treatment in under-equipped clinics.

The two dozen small hospitals and field clinics in rebel-run areas of Idlib province in the north only have a few Intensive Care Unit beds between them, said Aswad. None has a CT scanner, an important diagnostic tool.

“We need generators, we need medical supplies and the most pressing is medicine,” he said.

The challenge has been compounded by new types of injuries.

The regime has begun dropping incendiary bombs that can cause severe burns, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing amateur video and witness accounts.

Ole Solvang, a researcher for the group, said he saw remnants of such a bomb on a recent Syria trip. Aswad said doctors in Idlib and nearby Aleppo province reported seeing patients with burns from such weapons.

Doctors and hospitals have also been targeted. Aswad, who fled the city of Idlib in March after regime forces entered it, said five friends in a secret association of anti-regime physicians have been arrested. Hospitals, ambulances and doctors have been attacked, Solvang said, calling it “a worrying trend that makes the medical situation even worse.”

One of the bright spots is a 50-bed emergency care clinic set up six weeks ago in a former elementary school in Atmeh.

Largely funded by a wealthy Syrian expatriate, the Orient clinic, with five ICU beds, handles some of the most serious cases in a radius of some 150 kilometers (90 miles), said its director, orthopedic surgeon Abdel Hamid Dabbak.

In the past, seriously wounded patients had to go to Turkey, risking dangerous delays at the border, he said. Now, once patients are stabilized in Atmeh, they are sent to a sister clinic across the border for follow-up care.

In Orient’s ICU, a 24-year-old rebel fighter was breathing oxygen through a mask. He had been brought in a day earlier, bleeding heavily from stomach wounds and close to death, said Dr. Maen Martini, a volunteer physician from Joliet, Illinois. After surgery, he stabilized and was taken off a respirator. A delayed crossing into Turkey would have killed him, Martini said.

The fighter’s neighbor was little Fahed, whose house had been struck by a missile on Saturday in the village of Kafr Zeita in Hama province. “The roof collapsed on us,” his mother said of the attack. “We ran out … I saw him bleeding from his head, but it was just a small cut.”

The local clinic said the injury was more serious than it seemed and the family rushed to Atmeh, more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the north.

Since surgery, Fahed has been nursing and has moved his arms and legs, and the doctor is hoping for a near-complete recovery.

“Clinically, he has improved dramatically,” he said.

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Video game shares down in wake of shooting

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shares of video game makers and sellers fell Thursday in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which has renewed debate about violent games and their potential influence on crime.

Shares of GameStop Corp., whose stores sell video games as well as systems like the Xbox and Wii, fell 5 percent in afternoon trading.

Investors are seen as being increasingly concerned that the government may impose tougher rules on the sales of games rated for “mature” and older audiences.

Investors may be worried that parents will also avoid buying first-person shooter games like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2″ after the tragedy Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary, in which 20 children and six adults were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

“Maybe there will be more stringent efforts to make sure youth are not playing games that they’re not old enough to play,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst with National Alliance Securities. “Maybe there will be a greater effort by parents in managing the content their kids are playing.”

Shares of companies involved in the video game industry, many of which had been dropping since the shooting, declined further Thursday.

— GameStop stock lost $ 1.37, or 5 percent, to $ 26.18. Shares have barely changed since last Thursday’s close, the day before the shooting, to Wednesday’s close.

— Shares of Activision Blizzard Inc., the publisher of “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” fell 9 cents to $ 10.70. The stock had already dropped 5.6 percent.

— Electronic Arts Inc. shares fell 41 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $ 13.99. Shares had dropped 5.6 percent.

— Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. shares slipped 29 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $ 11.69. The stock had dropped 8 percent.

The declines came as broader markets rose. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.3 percent at 13,295.

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