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| Wall Street up, Dow and S&P on pace for 7 weeks of gains Friday, Nov 22, 2013 11:54 AM PST  By Luke Swiderski NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday, led by healthcare stocks, putting the Dow and S&P 500 on track for a seventh straight week of gains. The Dow extended gains beyond Thursday's 16,009 close and the S&P 500 reached an intraday high above 1,800. The Nasdaq Biotech Index rose 2.6 percent, driven by a surge in Biogen Idec That's where tactical investors have been focused, and that's where the money has been flowing," said Michael Matousek, head trader at U.S. Global Investors Inc in San Antonio, Texas. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. seeks to add former Wells Fargo exec as fraud defendant Friday, Nov 22, 2013 11:52 AM PST  The U.S. government on Friday sought permission to add former Wells Fargo & Co executive Kurt Lofrano as a defendant in its year-old lawsuit accusing the bank of fraud. In a motion filed in Manhattan federal court, the Justice Department said Lofrano played a "critical role" in the bank's alleged failure to report defective home loans to the government. Wells Fargo, the country's largest mortgage lender and fourth-largest bank, is accused of misleading the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development into believing the loans qualified for insurance from the agency's Federal Housing Administration, costing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Full Story | Top |
| Americans get extra week to sign up for Obamacare as website improves Friday, Nov 22, 2013 11:34 AM PST  Americans hoping to sign up for health insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law will have an additional eight days to do so for coverage to begin January 1, 2014, officials said on Friday. Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said they had no plans to extend the ultimate deadline of March 31, 2014, the date when people without insurance must enroll in a plan or face a tax penalty. That decision reflects, in part, optimism that the website will continue to improve: the site will soon be able to handle 50,000 simultaneous users, said Jeffrey Zients, the Obama administration's HealthCare.gov adviser, and 800,000 people per day, largely because of the more than 300 software and other fixes that technology teams have made to the site over the last seven weeks. Full Story | Top |
| Chinese technology companies shine in US debut Friday, Nov 22, 2013 11:33 AM PST Investor appetite for Chinese companies seems to have recovered after a series of accounting scandals in the past couple of years dried up U.S. listings of China-based companies in 2011 from a high of 40 in 2010. "If they (Chinese IPOs) are brought by top-tier underwriters, then investors are a lot more interested," said Francis Gaskins, a partner at IPO research company IPODesktop.com. Deutsche Bank led the initial public offering of online sports-lottery operator 500.com, while Credit Suisse and JP Morgan were the lead underwriters for the IPO of mobile applications maker Sungy Mobile. Seven Chinese companies have listed in the United States this year so far compared with just two in 2012. Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: Quotes on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination Friday, Nov 22, 2013 11:27 AM PST (Reuters) - The following are quotes on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was shot dead on November 22, 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald as his motorcade passed through crowded Dallas streets. (All quotes are from interviews by Reuters News except the excerpt from the 1963 CBS broadcast with Walter Cronkite) BOB HUFFAKER, EYEWITNESS AND FORMER REPORTER AT KRLD RADIO IN DALLAS: "It looked as though the entire city had turned up. Dallas had shown that it really loved that president." TINA TOWNER PENDER, THEN-13-YEAR-OLD EYEWITNESS: "As the first gunshot sounded, I looked up to the building, thinking somebody was throwing firecrackers out of the window but I only had a split second before some stranger, and I still don't know who it was, pulled me to the ground." HUGH AYNESWORTH, EYEWITNESS AND FORMER DALLAS MORNING NEWS REPORTER: "Then I heard what I thought was a motorcycle backfiring, only it wasn't - it was the first shot and then in a few seconds, another shot and a third." DR. Full Story | Top |
| Ticket sales for 'Hunger Games' sequel top $25 million on Thursday Friday, Nov 22, 2013 11:20 AM PST  The "Hunger Games" sequel "Catching Fire" pulled in $25.25 million in U.S. box office sales on Thursday night, 28 percent more than the first movie in the franchise grossed on the same night, and setting a course for big opening weekend sales. The highly-anticipated Lions Gate Entertainment Corp film opens officially in the United States on Friday, but many theaters began showing the movie on Thursday. The films, which star Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen, are based on Suzanne Collins' wildly popular novels about an oppressive post-apocalyptic society that stages teen death matches to maintain order among its citizens. The first "Hunger Games" movie in 2012 was a smash hit last year, collecting $691 million in ticket sales worldwide. Full Story | Top |
| Two children dead after car crashes into Minnesota pond Friday, Nov 22, 2013 11:08 AM PST Three children were in critical condition on Friday a day after the car they were riding in slid into a near-freezing pond in suburban Minneapolis in a crash that has left two of their siblings dead, authorities and the family's attorney said. The mother and stepmother of the children was at the wheel with only a learner's permit, which requires a licensed driver to be in the car with her, the Minnesota State Patrol said. The car veered off a rain-slicked highway ramp on Thursday and plunged into a retention pond in St. Louis Park. The five children were trapped inside the vehicle as it sank into water up to 9 feet deep and remained there for up to 45 minutes, police said. Full Story | Top |
| Merkel hopeful 'grand coalition' deal will be done next week Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:59 AM PST  By Andreas Rinke MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday she expected a difficult final few days of coalition negotiations but was hopeful that her conservatives and the Social Democrats would reach agreement on a new government next week. The SPD were a distant second and have been in talks for a month with Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), about forming a "grand coalition". They will present final proposals to party leaders, including Merkel and SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel, next week. The CSU had an especially strong result in Bavaria, and her warnings of the need to compromise with the SPD were met by an awkward silence from the hall, although her speech was nevertheless applauded warmly at the end. Full Story | Top |
| MakerBot says shoppers ready for 3D printers, some have doubts Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:56 AM PST  By Jim Finkle BOSTON (Reuters) - MakerBot, a 3D printer maker which opened two new retail stores this week, is among the companies trying to bring the cutting-edge digital manufacturing technology to Main Street consumers, but skeptics say the rollout is premature. , opened retail stores this week in Boston and in Greenwich, Connecticut, both of which are twice the size of MakerBot's first store, 1,500 square feet in downtown Manhattan. "For most people 3D printing is futuristic science fiction. We're here to make it real," said CEO Bre Pettis, who cut the ribbon at the store on Boston's fashionable Newbury Street using scissors made on one of Marketbot's Replicator printers which start at $2,199. Full Story | Top |
| Independent inquiry into Co-op Bank ordered by Treasury Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:52 AM PST  Chancellor George Osborne ordered an independent inquiry into Co-op Bank on Friday, with regulators also considering enforcement action against the lender. The investigation has been jointly agreed with the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority, the Treasury said in a statement on Friday. "It will be led by an independent person appointed by the regulators, with the approval of the Treasury," the finance ministry said. Full Story | Top |
| Fed's Tarullo details plans to counter bank runs Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:47 AM PST By Douwe Miedema WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global regulators should have more policy tools to counter the risk of devastating bank runs and should have powers over a wide array of market participants, U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Dan Tarullo said on Friday. "There is a need to supplement prudential bank regulation with a third set of policy options in the form of regulatory tools that can be applied on a market-wide basis," Tarullo said at a conference on shadow banking. Tarullo also detailed the Fed's plans to make new rules that would make it less attractive for banks to raise cash in short-term wholesale funding markets, a key factor in the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Banks that substantially rely on short-term funding in the interbank market should be required to hold more capital on top of what is already mandated by international rules under the so-called Basel III pact, Tarullo said. Full Story | Top |
| Brazil awards $9 bln of airport deals, prepping Rio for Olympics Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:44 AM PST (Adds officials' comments, details of highway auctions) By Leonardo Goy and Roberta Vilas Boas SAO PAULO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Brazil opened two of its busiest airports to private investors on Friday, awarding $9 billion worth of contracts in a hotly contested auction as the country overhauls crowded terminals ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. The concessions, in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, mean private operators will be running the international airports in both World Cup host cities next year, but there will be little time for their investments ahead of the tournament in June. Local contractors and foreign airport operators won the two concessions for a combined 20.8 billion reais ($9 billion), paying a premium of more than 250 percent over minimum bids as they hope to cash in on a recent boom in Brazilian air travel. It was a welcome victory for President Dilma Rousseff, who has struggled to restore credibility with the private sector as economic growth slumps and investors complain of a heavy-handed approach to concessions in the power industry and elsewhere. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. government rarely uses best cybersecurity steps: advisers Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:43 AM PST By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government itself seldom follows the best cybersecurity practices and must drop its old operating systems and unsecured browsers as it tries to push the private sector to tighten its practices, technology advisers told President Barack Obama. "The federal government rarely follows accepted best practices," the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology said in a report released on Friday. William Press, computer science professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and Craig Mundie, senior adviser to the CEO at Microsoft Corp, comprised the cybersecurity working group. The Obama administration this year stepped up its push for critical industries to bolster their cyber defenses, and Obama in February issued an executive order aimed at countering the lack of progress on cybersecurity legislation in Congress. Full Story | Top |
| Britten, composer of music 'from the heart', feted at 100 Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:34 AM PST  By Michael Roddy TUNSTALL, England (Reuters) - The voices of 650 youngsters singing Benjamin Britten's "Friday Afternoons" song cycle filled the concert hall he built in eastern England and wafted out over the Internet on Friday as the world celebrated the centenary of Britain's most famous modern composer. Some 100,000 schoolchildren singing in locations across Britain were hooked up via the web with performances of the same songs by children who kicked off the birthday celebration in Melbourne, Australia, at 0300 GMT and were to bring down the curtain in Santa Monica, California, at 2200 GMT. The various versions of the cycle were posted on a website set up by Aldeburgh Music, which runs the Snape Maltings hall Britten founded. The BBC will play Britten's music live and from recordings all weekend on its classical music station Radio 3. Full Story | Top |
| Evolution battle stirs as Texas delays new biology text Friday, Nov 22, 2013 10:25 AM PST By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Social conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education have delayed approval of a high school biology textbook, pending a review by experts, citing concerns about the book's lessons on evolution. In the latest episode of a lengthy battle by evangelicals in Texas to insert Christian and Biblical teachings into public school textbooks, the board on Thursday blocked the book's approval. A volunteer reviewer concluded that the assertions in "Pearson Biology," which include lessons on natural selection and the Earth's cooling process, are "errors" that need to be corrected by publisher Pearson Education, one of the nation's largest producers of school textbooks, board members said. "Publishers of several other books agreed to make the changes we pointed out," said David Bradley, a leader of the social conservatives on the board, referring to earlier efforts to change other science texts. Full Story | Top |
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