Massive PC, Console Game Discounts Ring in Holiday Season






Black Friday, the day right after Thanksgiving, is normally the day associated with electronics sales. And while the proponents of “Cyber Monday” and “Small Business Saturday” have tried to get in on the action, it’s still common knowledge that Thanksgiving weekend is the best time to upgrade your PC or console game arsenal. Right?


Not according to online game retailers. Discounts of up to 80 percent off a game’s retail price are taking place across the web, especially in online stores which offer games in the form of digital downloads (which cost nothing to make extra copies of). Here’s a look at just a few of the sales going on right now, for Windows and Linux PCs, Macs, game consoles, and mobile devices.






Steam (Windows, Linux, Mac)


The annual Steam Holiday Sale is under way, and it’s not just blowing hot air. Complete collections of every Steam game from publishers including Valve are on sale for around the price of one retail title, and individual games can be bought from each bundle for only a few dollars. Each day new sales are available, and most of them are massive, percentage-wise. They’re tied to a personal Steam account (which will always be linked to the original name they were created with), but can be bought as gifts for others.


Also check out: Amazon.com’s PC download sales, many of which are fulfilled through Steam and are discounted about as much. Amazon’s lineup also includes many casual games, of the “$ 10 store discount rack” variety.


Humble Indie Bundle 7 (Windows, Linux, Mac)


The Humble Bundle crew has been offering cross-platform, name-your-own-price bundles of indie games for several years now, and their seventh numbered offering is timed right for the holiday season. Bundles are giftable, the games can be played on Steam, and you can choose how much of your purchase price goes to game developers and how much goes to select charities.


PlayStation Network (PS3, PSP, Vita)


Console gamers aren’t being left out. The PSN Holiday Essentials sale is putting “more than 40 titles” on sale over the next three weeks, with a new selection available every week and even lower prices available to PlayStation Plus members.


Also check out: The Xbox Live Countdown to 2013 sale, with a “Daily Deal” every day until the end of the year.


Other sales


Game publishers SEGA and Square-Enix are discounting many of their most popular titles. SEGA’s holiday sale includes PSN, Xbox Live, Android and iOS titles, with most of its mobile games selling for $ 0.99. Meanwhile, the Square-Enix Winter of Mobile sale page lists huge discounts on iPhone and iPad games, while Android Police blogger Jeremiah Rice has put together a list of which Square-Enix Android games are on sale.


Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Ashton Kutcher Files for Divorce from Demi Moore






People Exclusive








12/21/2012 at 03:55 PM EST







Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore


Amanda Edwards/WireImage


After more than a year with their marriage in legal limbo, Ashton Kutcher has filed for divorce from Demi Moore.

The papers were filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Kutcher, 34, citing irreconcilable differences, isn't seeking any spousal support nor is he asking the court to deny Moore any. The documents also show that because the couple had no children together, child support and visitation are not an issue.

Back in Nov. 2011, the couple announced they were ending their 6-year marriage.

"As a woman, a mother and a wife there are certain values and vows that I hold sacred, and it is in this spirit that I have chosen to move forward with my life," Moore, 50, said at the time, following reports of Kutcher's infidelity.

Added Kutcher: "I will forever cherish the time I spent with Demi. Marriage is one of the most difficult things in the world and unfortunately sometimes they fail."

The actor has been dating That '70s Show costar Mila Kunis.

The documents reveal that Kutcher has hired A-list divorce attorney Laura Wasser to represent him, whose past or current clients include Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian, Heidi Klum and Angelina Jolie, among others.

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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse


A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.


The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.


But since then, Big Pharma has been satisfying the steady desires of U.S. users and abusers, including many who take the drug in the false hope of delaying the effects of aging.


From 2005 to 2011, inflation-adjusted sales of HGH were up 69 percent, according to an AP analysis of pharmaceutical company data collected by the research firm IMS Health. Sales of the average prescription drug rose just 12 percent in that same period.


___


EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.


___


Unlike other prescription drugs, HGH may be prescribed only for specific uses. U.S. sales are limited by law to treat a rare growth defect in children and a handful of uncommon conditions like short bowel syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome, a congenital disease that causes reduced muscle tone and a lack of hormones in sex glands.


The AP analysis, supplemented by interviews with experts, shows too many sales and too many prescriptions for the number of people known to be suffering from those ailments. At least half of last year's sales likely went to patients not legally allowed to get the drug. And U.S. pharmacies processed nearly double the expected number of prescriptions.


Peddled as an elixir of life capable of turning middle-aged bodies into lean machines, HGH — a synthesized form of the growth hormone made naturally by the human pituitary gland — winds up in the eager hands of affluent, aging users who hope to slow or even reverse the aging process.


Experts say these folks don't need the drug, and may be harmed by it. The supposed fountain-of-youth medicine can cause enlargement of breast tissue, carpal tunnel syndrome and swelling of hands and feet. Ironically, it also can contribute to aging ailments like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.


Others in the medical establishment also are taking a fat piece of the profits — doctors who fudge prescriptions, as well as pharmacists and distributors who are content to look the other way. HGH also is sold directly without prescriptions, as new-age snake oil, to patients at anti-aging clinics that operate more like automated drug mills.


Years of raids, sports scandals and media attention haven't stopped major drugmakers from selling a whopping $1.4 billion worth of HGH in the U.S. last year. That's more than industry-wide annual gross sales for penicillin or prescription allergy medicine. Anti-aging HGH regimens vary greatly, with a yearly cost typically ranging from $6,000 to $12,000 for three to six self-injections per week.


Across the U.S., the medication is often dispensed through prescriptions based on improper diagnoses, carefully crafted to exploit wiggle room in the law restricting use of HGH, the AP found.


HGH is often promoted on the Internet with the same kind of before-and-after photos found in miracle diet ads, along with wildly hyped claims of rapid muscle growth, loss of fat, greater vigor, and other exaggerated benefits to adults far beyond their physical prime. Sales also are driven by the personal endorsement of celebrities such as actress Suzanne Somers.


Pharmacies that once risked prosecution for using unauthorized, foreign HGH — improperly labeled as raw pharmaceutical ingredients and smuggled across the border — now simply dispense name brands, often for the same banned uses. And usually with impunity.


Eight companies have been granted permission to market HGH by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which reviews the benefits and risks of new drug products. By contrast, three companies are approved for the diabetes drug insulin.


The No. 1 maker, Roche subsidiary Genentech, had nearly $400 million in HGH sales in the U.S. last year, up an inflation-adjusted two-thirds from 2005. Pfizer and Eli Lilly were second and third with $300 million and $220 million in sales, respectively, according to IMS Health. Pfizer now gets more revenue from its HGH brand, Genotropin, than from Zoloft, its well-known depression medicine that lost patent protection.


On their face, the numbers make no sense to the recognized hormone doctors known as endocrinologists who provide legitimate HGH treatment to a small number of patients.


Endocrinologists estimate there are fewer than 45,000 U.S. patients who might legitimately take HGH. They would be expected to use roughly 180,000 prescriptions or refills each year, given that typical patients get three months' worth of HGH at a time, according to doctors and distributors.


Yet U.S. pharmacies last year supplied almost twice that much HGH — 340,000 orders — according to AP's analysis of IMS Health data.


While doctors say more than 90 percent of legitimate patients are children with stunted growth, 40 percent of 442 U.S. side-effect cases tied to HGH over the last year involved people age 18 or older, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. The average adult's age in those cases was 53, far beyond the prime age for sports. The oldest patients were in their 80s.


Some of these medical records even give explicit hints of use to combat aging, justifying treatment with reasons like fatigue, bone thinning and "off-label," which means treatment of an unapproved condition


Even Medicare, the government health program for older Americans, allowed 22,169 HGH prescriptions in 2010, a five-year increase of 78 percent, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in response to an AP public records request.


"There's no question: a lot gets out," said hormone specialist Dr. Mark Molitch of Northwestern University, who helped write medical standards meant to limit HGH treatment to legitimate patients.


And those figures don't include HGH sold directly by doctors without prescriptions at scores of anti-aging medical practices and clinics around the country. Those numbers could only be tallied by drug makers, who have declined to say how many patients they supply and for what conditions.


First marketed in 1985 for children with stunted growth, HGH was soon misappropriated by adults intent on exploiting its modest muscle- and bone-building qualities. Congress limited HGH distribution to the handful of rare conditions in an extraordinary 1990 law, overriding the generally unrestricted right of doctors to prescribe medicines as they see fit.


Despite the law, illicit HGH spread around the sports world in the 1990s, making deep inroads into bodybuilding, college athletics, and professional leagues from baseball to cycling. The even larger banned market among older adults has flourished more recently.


FDA regulations ban the sale of HGH as an anti-aging drug. In fact, since 1990, prescribing it for things like weight loss and strength conditioning has been punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison.


Steve Kleppe, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a restaurant entrepreneur who has taken HGH for almost 15 years to keep feeling young, said he noticed a price jump of about 25 percent after the block on imports. He now buys HGH directly from a doctor at an annual cost of about $8,000 for himself and the same amount for his wife.


Many older patients go for HGH treatment to scores of anti-aging practices and clinics heavily concentrated in retirement states like Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California.


These sites are affiliated with hundreds of doctors who are rarely endocrinologists. Instead, many tout certification by the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, though the medical establishment does not recognize the group's bona fides.


The clinics offer personalized programs of "age management" to business executives, affluent retirees, and other patients of means, sometimes coupled with the amenities of a vacation resort. The operations insist there are few, if any, side effects from HGH. Mainstream medical authorities say otherwise.


A 2007 review of 31 medical studies showed swelling in half of HGH patients, with joint pain or diabetes in more than a fifth. A French study of about 7,000 people who took HGH as children found a 30 percent higher risk of death from causes like bone tumors and stroke, stirring a health advisory from U.S. authorities.


For proof that the drug works, marketers turn to images like the memorable one of pot-bellied septuagenarian Dr. Jeffry Life, supposedly transformed into a ripped hulk of himself by his own program available at the upscale Las Vegas-based Cenegenics Elite Health. (He declined to be interviewed.)


These promoters of HGH say there is a connection between the drop-off in growth hormone levels through adulthood and the physical decline that begins in late middle age. Replace the hormone, they say, and the aging process slows.


"It's an easy ruse. People equate hormones with youth," said Dr. Tom Perls, a leading industry critic who does aging research at Boston University. "It's a marketing dream come true."


___


Associated Press Writer David B. Caruso reported from New York and AP National Writer Jeff Donn reported from Plymouth, Mass. AP Writer Troy Thibodeaux provided data analysis assistance from New Orleans.


___


AP's interactive on the HGH investigation: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/hgh


___


The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org


EDITOR'S NOTE _ Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.


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Wall Street sinks as "fiscal cliff" fears escalate

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks slid on Friday after a Republican plan to avoid the "fiscal cliff" failed to gain support on Thursday night, shrinking hopes that a deal would be reached before the new year.


Trading was volatile as investors lost confidence in the prospect of a deal between the White House and Republicans. Lower volume ahead of the Christmas and New Year's holidays exaggerated market swings. The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or VIX, the market's favored anxiety measure, rose 5 percent to 18.56, but was off the day's high.


Republican House Speaker John Boehner failed to garner enough votes even from his own party to pass his "Plan B" tax bill late on Thursday. This was the latest setback in negotiations to avoid $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts that some say could tip the U.S. economy into recession.


"The failure with Plan B was disappointing, if not terribly surprising, but now there's a real lack of clarity about what will happen, and markets hate that," said Mike Hennessy, managing director of investments for Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.


The day's biggest loser on the New York Stock Exchange was Herbalife , which dropped for an eighth straight session. Investor Bill Ackman recently ramped up his campaign against the company. Herbalife skidded 19 percent to $27.25 and has lost more than 35 percent this week.


Plan B, which called for tax increases on those who earn $1 million or more a year, was not going to pass the Democratic-led Senate or win acceptance from the White House anyway. But it exposed the reality that it will be difficult to get Republican support for the more expansive tax increases that President Barack Obama has urged.


Still, the declines of about 1 percent in the three major U.S. stock indexes suggest that investors do not believe the economy will be unduly damaged by the absence of a deal, said Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities, in San Francisco.


"You could have easily woken up today and seen the market down 300 or 400 points, and everyone would have said, 'That's telling you this is really dire,'" Lehmann said.


"I think if you get into mid-January and (the talks) keep going like this, you get worried, but I don't think we're going to get there."


Banking shares, which outperform in times of economic expansion and have led the market on signs of progress with resolving the fiscal impasse, led declines. Citigroup Inc fell 2 percent to $39.35, while Bank of America slid 2.3 percent to $11.25. The KBW Banks index <.bkx> lost 1.4 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 142.29 points, or 1.07 percent, to 13,169.43. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 15.69 points, or 1.09 percent, to 1,428.00. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 39.23 points, or 1.29 percent, to 3,011.15.


Even with the day's declines, the S&P 500 is up nearly 1 percent for the week and about 13 percent for the year.


The day's round of data indicated the economy was surprisingly resilient in November; consumer spending rose by the most in three years and a gauge of business investment jumped.


But separate data showed consumer sentiment slumped in December. The S&P Retail Index <.spxrt> fell 1.4 percent.


U.S.-listed shares of Research in Motion sank 21 percent to $11.09 after the Canadian company, known as the BlackBerry maker, reported its first-ever decline in its subscriber numbers on Thursday alongside a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment.


(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jan Paschal)



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Italy PM Monti resigns, elections likely in February


ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti tendered his resignation to the president on Friday after 13 months in office, opening the way to a highly uncertain national election in February.


The former European commissioner, appointed to lead an unelected government to save Italy from financial crisis a year ago, has kept his own political plans a closely guarded secret but he has faced growing pressure to seek a second term.


President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to dissolve parliament in the next few days and has already indicated that the most likely date for the election is February 24.


In an unexpected move, Napolitano said he would hold consultations with political leaders from all the main parties on Saturday to discuss the next steps. In the meantime Monti will continue in a caretaker capacity.


European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have called for Monti's economic reform agenda to continue but Italy's two main parties have said he should stay out of the race.


Monti, who handed in his resignation during a brief meeting at the presidential palace shortly after parliament approved his government's 2013 budget, will hold a news conference on Sunday at which he is expected clarify his intentions.


Ordinary Italians are weary of repeated tax hikes and spending cuts and opinion polls offer little evidence that they are ready to give Monti a second term. A survey this week showed 61 percent saying he should not stand.


Whether he runs or not, his legacy will loom over an election which will be fought out over the painful measures he has introduced to try to rein in Italy's huge public debt and revive its stagnant economy.


His resignation came a couple of months before the end of his term, after his technocrat government lost the support of Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party in parliament earlier this month.


Speculation is swirling over Monti's next moves. These could include outlining policy recommendations, endorsing a centrist alliance committed to his reform agenda or even standing as a candidate in the election himself.


The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has held a strong lead in the polls for months but a centrist alliance led by Monti could gain enough support in the Senate to force the PD to seek a coalition deal which could help shape the economic agenda.


BERLUSCONI IN WINGS


Senior figures from the alliance, including both the UDC party, which is close to the Roman Catholic Church, and a new group founded by Ferrari sports car chairman Luca di Montezemolo, have been hoping to gain Monti's backing.


He has not said clearly whether he intends to run, but he has dropped heavy hints he will continue to push a reform agenda that has the backing of both Italy's business community and its European partners.


The PD has promised to stick to the deficit reduction targets Monti has agreed with the European Union and says it will maintain the broad course he has set while putting more emphasis on reviving growth.


Berlusconi's return to the political arena has added to the already considerable uncertainty about the centre-right's intentions and increased the likelihood of a messy and potentially bitter election campaign.


The billionaire media tycoon has fluctuated between attacking the government's "Germano-centric" austerity policies and promising to stand aside if Monti agrees to lead the centre right, but now appears to have settled on an anti-Monti line.


He has pledged to cut taxes and scrap a hated housing tax which Monti imposed. He has also sounded a stridently anti-German line which has at times echoed the tone of the populist 5-Star Movement headed by maverick comic Beppe Grillo.


The PD and the PDL, both of which supported Monti's technocrat government in parliament, have made it clear they would not be happy if he ran against them and there have been foretastes of the kind of attacks he can expect.


Former centre-left prime minister Massimo D'Alema said in an interview last week that it would be "morally questionable" for Monti to run against the PD, which backed all of his reforms and which has pledged to maintain his pledges to European partners.


Berlusconi who has mounted an intensive media campaign in the past few days, echoed that criticism this week, saying Monti risked losing the credibility he has won over the past year and becoming a "little political figure".


(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones, Massimiliano Di Giorgio and Paolo Biondi; Writing by Gavin Jones and James Mackenzie; Editing by Michael Roddy)



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RIM shares dive as fee changes catch market off guard






(Reuters) – Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd dropped 20 percent on Friday 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 shares were still more than 80 percent above the year’s low, which was hit in September. They started to rally in November as investors began to bet that RIM’s long-awaited new BlackBerry 10 phones, to be launched in January, would turn the company around.






The services segment has long been RIM’s most profitable and accounts for about a third of total revenue. Some analysts said there was a risk that the fee changes could endanger its service ecosystem and leave the Canadian company as just another handset maker.


The fee changes, which RIM announced on Thursday after the close, overshadowed stronger-than-expected quarterly results. The company said the new pricing structure would be introduced with the BlackBerry 10 launch, expected on January 30.


RIM said some subscribers would continue to pay for enhanced services such as advanced security. But under the new structure, some other services would account for less revenue, or even none at all.


Chief Executive Thorsten Heins tried to reassure investors in a television interview with CNBC on Friday, saying RIM’s “service revenue isn’t going away”.


He added: “We’re not stopping. We’re not halting. We’re transitioning.”


Since taking over at RIM in January, Heins has focused on shrinking the company and getting it ready to introduce its new BB10 devices, which RIM says will help it claw back ground it has lost to competitors such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.


But the news of the new services pricing strategy came as a shock to markets, and some analysts cut their price targets on RIM stock.


RIM will not be able to sustain profitability by relying on its hardware business alone, said National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson, whom Thomson Reuters StarMine has rated the top RIM analyst based on the accuracy of his estimates of the company’s earnings.


Thompson downgraded RIM’s stock to “underperform” from “sector perform” and cut his price target to $ 10 from $ 15.


Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said the move was likely about stabilizing market share: “At the moment, they need to stem the bleeding.”


He said the tiered pricing might line up better with RIM’s subscriber base as it expands in emerging economies.


RIM’s Nasdaq-listed shares were down 19.8 percent at $ 11.32 on Friday afternoon. The stock was down 19.6 percent to C$ 11.21 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.


COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH


The success of the BB10 will be crucial to the future of RIM, which on Thursday posted its first-ever decline in total subscribers. Heins said on CNBC that the company expected to ship millions of the new devices.


He cautioned that this will require heavy investment, which will reduce RIM’s cash position in its fourth and first quarters from $ 2.9 billion in its fiscal third quarter. He said, however, it would not go below $ 2 billion.


Still, doubts remain about whether RIM can pull off the transformation. Needham analyst Charlie Wolf said the BB10 would have to look meaningfully superior to its competitors for RIM to stage a comeback.


Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley said it was highly unlikely that the market would support RIM’s new mobile computing ecosystem, and he remained skeptical about the company’s ability to survive on its own.


“We believe RIM will eventually need to sell the company,” said Walkley, who cut his price target on RIM shares to $ 9 from $ 10.


Baird Equity Research analysts said BB10 faced a daunting uphill battle against products from Apple, as well as those using Google Inc’s Android operating system, and, increasingly, phones with Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 operating system.


Baird maintained its “underperform” rating on the stock, while Paradigm Capital downgraded the shares to “hold” from “buy” on uncertainty around the services revenue model.


“RIM has gone from having one major aspect of uncertainty – BlackBerry 10 adoption – to two, given an uncertain floor on services revenue,” William Blair analyst Anil Doradla said.


RIM will have to discount BB10 devices significantly to maintain demand, Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu said.


The BlackBerry, however, still offers the security features that helped it build its reputation with big business and government, a selling point with some key customers.


Credit Suisse maintained its “neutral” rating on the stock, but not because it expected BB10 to be a big success.


“Only the potential for an outright sale of the company or a breakup keeps us at a neutral,” Credit Suisse analysts said.


Separately on Friday, ailing Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia said it had settled its patent dispute with RIM in return for payments. Nokia did not disclose detailed terms, but said the deal included a one-time payment to be booked in the fourth quarter, as well as ongoing fees, all to be paid by RIM. [ID:nL5E8NL22K]


($ 1=$ 0.98 Canadian)


(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore and Allison Martell in Toronto. Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Ted Kerr, Dale Hudson, Janet Guttsman,; Lisa Von Ahn and Peter Galloway)


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Miss Universe Olivia Culpo Reveals Her Junk Food Cravings (and Celebrity Crush)















12/20/2012 at 04:00 PM EST







Miss Universe Olivia Culpo


Julie Jacobson/AP


Olivia Culpo went from being Miss USA to Miss Universe on Wednesday night – and it didn't take her long for her to begin thinking internationally ... at least when it comes to eating.

"I can't wait to go to Asia," the 20-year-old Rhode Island beauty told PEOPLE on Thursday morning. "I've never been anywhere in Asia. I like Asian food. I love soup. I really want to go to Vietnam and try some soup. There's nothing like it being authentic."

A few hours after being crowned Miss Universe – the first time a contestant from the United States has won the title in 15 years – Culpo sat down with PEOPLE over coffee in her suite in Las Vegas's Planet Hollywood Hotel to discuss her journey, her new focus and her newest celebrity crush, among other things.

How are you feeling as Miss Universe?
I don't think it's sunk in. It's incredible. I can't believe USA finally did it.

What were you thinking about as you were standing on stage last night?
I was exhausted! The other girls have a bit of an advantage because they've been prepped and prepped to be Miss Universe. I live with Miss Universe in New York, and as Miss USA I travel all over the country using my title to spread awareness for breast and ovarian cancer. I didn't really have time to prepare. I just wanted to see whoever's destiny it was. I just wanted to be myself and be open. I did think I was capable of doing the job but I kind of wanted to see who would win.

As Miss Universe, will your platform still be about raising awareness for breast and ovarian cancer?
I won't be doing so much about breast cancer and ovarian cancer because that was my platform as Miss USA. Miss Universe's platform is HIV and AIDS. I know a lot of the organizations that are affiliated with breast and ovarian cancer and it's always easy enough to inform girls about the symptoms of those diseases. ... That's what the most important. But I'll also be taking on the responsibility of informing people about HIV and AIDS, so I'll be learning a lot about that too.

How do you stay in shape with such a time-intensive schedule?
I stick to a low carb, high protein diet. Shocker, I know. Everyone does that in my world. That's a lot of lean protein. It's important to keep your metabolism up, so I eat breakfast, then I'll have a snack of almonds or something. Then [I eat] a lunch of high protein, low carb [food], then another snack of fruit – and then dinner.

And what's dinner?
Chicken and vegetables right now. I'll eat when I'm in non-competition mode. I'll just have to hit the gym extra hard.

What's your sugary weakness?
I love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Would you be able to resist if they were in front of you right now?
Right now, no way. But they've been around all week and I haven't had any. I've been eyeballing them.

You're single, but who is your celebrity crush?
My judge [Rock of Ages star Diego Boneta] is really hot. Can I just say that? And I tripped right in front of him! He's cute. He's the crush of the week. It's an ongoing thing!

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Wall Street advances on 'fiscal cliff' talks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged up in a thinly traded session on Thursday after Republican House Speaker John Boehner pledged to keep working on a solution to the "fiscal cliff" while still criticizing President Barack Obama's approach to budget talks.


NYSE Euronext was the day's biggest gainer, surging 33.5 percent to $32.12 as the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, after IntercontinentalExchange Inc said it would buy the operator of the New York Stock Exchange for $8.2 billion.


ICE shares were last down 0.7 percent at $127.40.


Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives pushed ahead with their own fiscal plan, complicating negotiations with the White House over a way to avoid a series of steep tax hikes and spending cuts due in early 2013. Obama has vowed to veto the plan.


Investors have hoped for an agreement soon between policymakers, but progress has been slow. Boehner said he expected to continue to work with Obama to find a solution, but repeated his charge that Obama and the Democrats were trying to "slow walk" the country over the fiscal cliff.


"Speaker Boehner went on the air and basically told us he doesn't like what the president's doing or not doing, and the markets rallied on that, which was kind of weird. But we have very light volume," said Stephen Guilfoyle, a trader at Meridian Equity Partners in New York.


About 4 billion shares had changed hands on major U.S. exchanges, a typically light day of trading for late December.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> advanced 27.94 points, or 0.21 percent, to 13,279.91. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 5.51 points, or 0.38 percent, to 1,441.32. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 5.44 points, or 0.18 percent, to 3,049.80.


Stocks rallied earlier in the week on signs of progress in the fiscal cliff negotiations, but with the S&P 500 up 14.6 percent so far this year, investors are taking the opportunity to engage in some hedging as 2012 comes to a close.


Herbalife lost 10.2 percent to $33.54 following news that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was betting against the company as part of his big end-of-the-year short.


The S&P Financial Index <.gspf> gained 1.04 percent.


The U.S. economy grew 3.1 percent in the third quarter, faster than previously estimated, while the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected in the latest week.


Existing home sales jumped 5.9 percent in November, more than expected, and by the fastest monthly pace in three years. An index of housing shares <.hgx> gained 0.43 percent.


But KB Home slid 7 percent to $15.49 as the company reported higher homebuilding costs and expenses in the fourth quarter.


(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and Jan Paschal)



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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said.


The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect has dominated leadership of the Sunni Muslim majority - rumbles on.


Opposition sources said rebels had won some territory in the strategic southern town of Morek and were surrounding the Alawite town of al-Tleisia.


They were also planning to take the town of Maan, arguing that the army was present there and in al-Tleisia and was hindering their advance on nearby Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground in the conflict.


"The rockets are being fired from there, they are being fired from Maan and al-Tleisia, we have taken two checkpoints in the southern town of Morek. If we want to control it then we need to take Maan," said a rebel captain in Hama rural area, who asked not to be named.


Activists said heavy army shelling had targeted the town of Halfaya, captured by rebels two days earlier. Seven people were killed, 30 were wounded, and dozens of homes were destroyed, said activist Safi al-Hamawi.


Hama is home to dozens of Alawite and Christian villages among Sunni towns, and activists said it may be necessary to lay siege to many minority areas to seize Morek. Rebels want to capture Morek to cut off army supply lines into northern Idlib, a province on the northern border with Turkey where rebels hold swathes of territory.


From an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, Alawites have largely stood behind Assad, many out of fear of revenge attacks. Christians and some other minorities have claimed neutrality, with a few joining the rebels and a more sizeable portion of them supporting the government out of fear of hardline Islamism that has taken root in some rebel groups.


Activists in Hama said rebels were also surrounding the Christian town of al-Suqeilabiya and might enter the city to take out army positions as well as those of "shabbiha" - pro-Assad militias, the bulk of whom are usually Alawite but can also include Christians and even Sunnis.


"We have been in touch with Christian opposition activists in al-Suqeilabiya and we have told them to stay downstairs or on the lowest floor of their building as possible, and not to go outside. The rebels have promised not to hurt anyone who stays at home," said activist Mousab al-Hamdee, speaking by Skype.


He said he was optimistic that potential sectarian tensions with Christians could be resolved but that Sunni-Alawite strife may be harder to suppress.


SECTARIAN FEARS


U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.


"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of the U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.


Deeper sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.


Some activists privately voiced concerns of sectarian violence, but the rebel commander in Hama said fighters had been told "violations" would not be tolerated and argued that the move to attack the towns was purely strategic.


"If we are fired at from a Sunni village that is loyal to the regime we go in and we liberate it and clean it," he said. "So should we not do the same when it comes to an Alawite village just because there is a fear of an all-out sectarian war? We respond to the source of fire."


President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.


The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.


Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.


A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.


Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.


Rebels said on Thursday they had negotiated to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.


Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.


A resident in Damascus said dozens of families were returning to the camp but that the army had erected checkpoints. Many families were still hesitant to return.


LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN


Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.


The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.


They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.


Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.


Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.


Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.


The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors from the government as well as from the army, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.


The conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces on Thursday arrested an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.


Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government.


(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Andrew Osborn)



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