Algerian army stages "final assault" on gas plant


ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - The Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a siege by Islamic militants at a desert gas plant on Saturday, killing 11 al Qaeda-linked gunmen after they took the lives of seven more foreign hostages, the state news agency said.


The state oil and gas company, Sonatrach, said the militants who attacked the plant on Wednesday and took a large number of hostages had booby-trapped the complex with explosives, which the army was removing.


"It is over now, the assault is over, and the military are inside the plant clearing it of mines," a source familiar with the operation told Reuters.


British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the hostage situation had been "brought to an end" by the Algerian army assault on the militants.


The exact death toll among the gunmen and the foreign and Algerian workers at the plant near the town of In Amenas remained unclear, although a tally of reports from various sources indicated that several dozen people had been killed.


The Islamists' attack on the gas plant has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamic radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.


Some Western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. Algeria's response to the raid will have been conditioned by the legacy of a civil war against Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives.


HOSTAGES FREED


As the army closed in, 16 foreign hostages were freed, a source close to the crisis said. They included two Americans and one Portuguese. Britain said fewer than 10 of its nationals at the plant were unaccounted for and it was urgently seeking to establish the status of all Britions caught up in the crisis.


The base was home to foreign workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others.


BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.


The crisis at the gas plant marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


The captors said their attack on the Algerian gas plant was a response to the French offensive in Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the week since France launched its strikes.


Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified gas compound when it was seized before dawn on Wednesday by Islamist fighters who said they wanted a halt to the French intervention in neighboring Mali.


Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.


Before the final assault, different sources had put the number of hostages killed at between 12 and 30, with many foreigners still unaccounted for, among them Norwegians, Japanese, Britons and Americans.


The figure of 30 came from an Algerian security source, who said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said nobody was going to attack the United States and get away with it.


"We have made a commitment that we're going to go after al Qaeda wherever they are and wherever they try to hide," he said during a visit to London. "We have done that obviously in Afghanistan, Pakistan, we've done it in Somalia, in Yemen and we will do it in North Africa as well."


BURNED BODIES


Earlier on Saturday, Algerian special forces found 15 unidentified burned bodies at the plant, a source told Reuters.


The field commander of the group that attacked the plant is a fighter from Niger called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, according to Mauritanian news agencies. His boss, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s, appears not to have joined the raid.


Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed irritation that the army assault was ordered without consultation and officials grumbled at the lack of information.


But French President Francois Hollande said the Algerian military's response seemed to have been the best option given that negotiation was not possible.


"When you have people taken hostage in such large number by terrorists with such cold determination and ready to kill those hostages - as they did - Algeria has an approach which to me, as I see it, is the most appropriate because there could be no negotiation," Hollande said.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.


Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.


Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.


The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.


France says the hostage incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary. Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year.


(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Rosalind Russell)



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Nintendo’s Wii U problems turn into a crisis






In just a week, the problems Nintendo’s (NTDOY) new home console is facing have cascaded into something sinister. The traditional post-New Year slump hit Nintendo’s home market in the week ending January 12 and exposed cruelly how weak the consumer interest in Wii U truly is. According to Famitsu, Wii U sales slumped from a pace of 70,000 per week to just 21,000. The ancient PlayStation 3 sold the exact same number of units, which is nothing short of a debacle for Nintendo. The hot portable console 3DS saw its sales slow down from 305,000 units to 106,000 units.  This means that Nintendo’s portable machine is now outselling the brand new home console by a 5-to-1 margin in Japan.


[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]






No matter how weak the Wii U sales are now, they are likely to get worse. The launch dates of key games seem to be slipping from March quarter to June quarter, including the important Pikmin, Wario and Wii Fit franchises. The Wii U now must depend on Rayman and Lego City in coming months.


[More from BGR: Paid apps are history]


This is a scary prospect, because it now seems that Sony (SNE) is planning to unveil the PlayStation 4 in May and Microsoft (MSFT) is expected to announce the Xbox 720 in June. Nintendo rushed its console out in late 2012 to get a running start before the big guns of the home console industry grab the consumer interest with their new machines. That gambit may now be about to backfire in a spectacular manner. As demand for Wii U is already fizzling in Japan and key games slip from the first quarter of 2013, Wii U faces a very hard January-March period. Sony and Microsoft are then inevitably going to start leaking information about their new consoles in April-May time frame in the run-up to their big unveilings in the second half of the spring quarter.


The clock is ticking for Wii U. If consumers start smelling the scent of the grave emanating from the console just when Sony and Microsoft roll out their new gear, Wii U could face a sudden rejection in the market place by early summer. Nintendo needs some big new titles to revive its home machine very soon.


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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7 Stunning Dresses You May Have Missed!





Sure, the Golden Globes fashion was predictably glam, but some of the best gowns that weekend never made it to your TV screen. Check out the looks you may have missed








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Updated: Thursday Jan 17, 2013 | 01:00 PM EST
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Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says


The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.


The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.


New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.


Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.


The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.


So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.


"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.


About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.


If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.


Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.


To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.


"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.


This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.


About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.


Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.


"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.


Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.


___


Online:


Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov


CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm


___


AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Market flat on mixed earnings from Intel, Morgan Stanley

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Friday as a weak outlook from tech heavyweight Intel offset a better-than-expected quarterly profit at Morgan Stanley.


Still, the S&P 500 was on track for a third week in a row of gains and remained near a five-year high.


Shares of Intel Corp slumped 6.7 percent to $21.17 a day after it forecast quarterly revenue below analysts' estimates and announced plans for increased capital spending amid slow demand for personal computers.


On a positive note, Morgan Stanley reported a fourth-quarter profit after a year-earlier loss, helped by higher revenue at the bank's institutional securities business. Its stock jumped 7.5 percent to $22.32.


"Intel earnings weren't that bad, although their revenue was weak. It sparks fears about not only the company but about the whole PC sector, and that's pressuring the market today," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.


Heading into a three-day weekend, investors were cautious about the chances for settling of major differences in Congress about government debt and spending. U.S. markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday


"Governmental policy, or lack thereof, is again pushing forth this wait-and-see attitude on the part of investors. So the market is flat and with low volume and low volatility because investors are waiting to see what happens with the debt ceiling and spending cuts," said Bryant Evans, investment adviser and portfolio manager at Cozad Asset Management, in Champaign, Illinois.


There were signs that the question of raising the U.S. debt limit would be put off for a while. House Republican leaders said they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority next week to buy time for the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget that shrinks deficits.


Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose an estimated 2.5 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 8.69 points, or 0.06 percent, at 13,604.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.17 points, or 0.01 percent, at 1,481.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 8.61 points, or 0.27 percent, at 3,127.39.


On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose to its highest since late 2007, and that could prompt investors to lock in recent gains, analysts said.


Reflecting the complacency, the CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, fell 7.4 percent. The VIX usually moves inversely to the S&P 500 as it is used as a hedge tool against further market decline.


Economic data from China provided some support to the market, though the focus remained on U.S. corporate earnings. The country's economy grew at a modestly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the latest sign the world's second-biggest economy was pulling out of a post-global financial crisis slowdown which saw it grow in 2012 at its weakest pace since 1999.


General Electric reported a better-than-expected rise in earnings, spurred by robust demand in China and oil-producing countries. Shares were up 3.2 percent at $21.99.


Despite the gains by Morgan Stanley, financial stocks sagged as Capital One Financial reported disappointing profit. Capital One slumped 7.7 percent to $56.87, while the KBW bank index <.bkx> slipped 0.9 percent.


(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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Foreigners still caught in Sahara hostage crisis


ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were still either being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants.


More than a day after the Algerian army launched an assault to seize the remote desert compound, much was still unclear about the number and fate of the victims, leaving countries with citizens in harm's way struggling to find hard information.


Reports on the number of hostages killed ranged from 12 to 30, with anywhere from dozens to scores of foreigners still unaccounted for.


Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, eight of whose countrymen were missing, said fighters still controlled the gas treatment plant itself, while Algerian forces now held the nearby residential compound that housed hundreds of workers.


Leaders of Britain, Japan and other countries expressed frustration that the assault had been ordered without consultation. Many countries were also withholding information about their citizens to avoid helping the captors.


Night fell quietly on the village of In Amenas, the nearest settlement, some 50 km (30 miles) from the vast and remote desert plant. A military helicopter could be seen in the sky.


An Algerian security source said 30 hostages, including at least seven Westerners, had been killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian, with the nationalities of the rest of the dead still unclear, he said.


Algeria's state news agency APS put the total number of dead hostages at 12, including both foreigners and locals.


Norway's Stoltenberg said some of those killed in vehicles blasted by the army could not be identified. "We must be prepared for bad news this weekend but we still have hope."


Northern Irish engineer Stephen McFaul, who survived, said he saw four trucks full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops.


The attack has plunged international capitals into crisis mode and is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.


A local Algerian source said 100 of 132 foreign hostages had been freed from the facility. However, other estimates of the number of unaccounted-for foreigners were higher. Earlier the same source said 60 were still missing. Some may be held hostage; others may still be hiding in the sprawling compound.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


Those still unaccounted for on Friday included 10 from Japan and eight Norwegians, according to their employers, and a number of Britons which Cameron put at "significantly" less than 30


France said it had no information on two Frenchmen who may have been at the site and Washington has said a number of Americans were among the hostages, without giving details. The local source said a U.S. aircraft landed nearby on Friday.


The attackers had initially claimed to be holding 41 Western hostages. Some Westerners were able to evade capture by hiding.


They lived among hundreds of Algerian employees on the compound. The state news agency said the army had rescued 650 hostages in total, 573 of whom were Algerians.


"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," it said, quoting a security source.


MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY


Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began, because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.


A French hostage employed by a French catering company said he had hidden in his room for 40 hours under the bed, relying on Algerian employees to smuggle him food with a password.


"I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."


The captors said their attack was a response to a French military offensive in neighboring Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the single week since France first launched its strikes.


Paris says the incident proves that its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary.


Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a pre-occupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.


The most powerful Islamist groups in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in a civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of Al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.


Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year, prompting the French intervention in that poor African former colony.


The Algerian security source said only two of 11 militants whose bodies were found on Thursday were Algerian, including the squad's leader. The others comprised three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman, he said.


The plant was heavily fortified, with security, controlled access and an army camp with hundreds of armed personnel between the accommodation and processing plant, Andy Coward Honeywell, who worked there in 2009, told the BBC.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough security measures.


Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site. The attackers benefitted from bases and staging grounds across the nearby border in Libya's desert, Algerian officials said.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere.... Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."


WARNING OF MORE ATTACKS


The kidnappers threatened more attacks and warned Algerians to stay away from foreign companies' installations, according to Mauritania's news agency ANI, which maintained contact with the group during the siege.


Hundreds of workers from international oil companies were evacuated from Algeria on Thursday and many more will follow, said BP, which jointly ran the gas plant with Norway's Statoil and the Algerian state oil firm.


The overall commander of the kidnappers, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s. He appears not to have been present.


Algerian security specialist Anis Rahmani, author of several books on terrorism and editor of Ennahar daily, told Reuters about 70 militants were involved from two groups, Belmokhtar's "Those who sign in blood", who traveled from Libya, and the lesser known "Movement of the Islamic Youth in the South".


Britain's Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who canceled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid. Japan made similar complaints.


U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's military intervention in Mali.


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Roche)



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With an air kiss or empty hug, Te’oing is Twitter craze






NEW YORK (Reuters) – Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame linebacker entangled in a girlfriend hoax that gives a whole new meaning to the term “air kiss,” is inspiring a new fad racing through social media: Te’oing.


An avalanche of pictures of people hugging empty chairs or puckering up to an otherwise empty room were posted to Twitter with the hashtag #Te’oing days after the college football star’s story about his girlfriend’s cancer death was exposed as a fraud. Not only did she never have leukemia, she never existed.






Notre Dame officials said Te’o told them he had been duped into believing he had an online relationship with the fictitious woman.


“Te’oing – Mile High Club edition” read one tweet with a photo of a man hugging the air in an airplane bathroom, an apparent reference to the whispered practice of having sex in mid-flight.


Clint Eastwood was hailed in several tweets as a “Te’oing” pioneer for the actor’s interlude with an empty chair at the 2012 Republican Convention. Other tweets showed Ronald McDonald Te’oing on his cozy bench and President Barack Obama spending quality time Te’oing with a vacant seat.


“Just some afternoon bubbly with my baby” said one Te’oing tweet with a photo of a man clinking his champagne flute against another that appeared to be suspended in mid-air.


The snarky social media frenzy recalled another similar trend called the “Tebowing,” named for New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow, who frequently kneeled for on-field prayers and inspired copy-cat poses by people whose pictures flooded social media last year.


In its own riff on emptiness and romance, a Kentucky minor league baseball team, the Florence Freedom, has announced it will give away Manti Te’o Girlfriend Bobblehead dolls – actually empty boxes – to the first 1,000 fans at the May 23 game.


One section of the Florence, Kentucky, stadium has been reserved “for fans to sit with their imaginary friends, girlfriends/boyfriends or spouses” who may be caught on the “pretend kiss cam” and are invited to compete in an air guitar contest or an imaginary food fight.


(Writing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Vicki Allen)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Uma Thurman: Why My Daughter Has Five Names




Celebrity Baby Blog





01/17/2013 at 11:00 AM ET



What’s in a name? Apparently every last one on Uma Thurman‘s list of favorites!


After the actress and her boyfriend Arpad Busson revealed they had decided on Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence for their baby girl born in July, it was Thurman’s 14-year-old daughter Maya who found reason in their multitude of monikers.


“[Maya] came up with the best excuse, [which] was that I probably wouldn’t get to have any more children, so I just put every name that I liked into [Luna's],” the Playing for Keeps star, 42, said during a Monday appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.


Joking that there is a bit of logic behind their “crazy” choice — “The last part makes sense, right?” she says of Luna’s surname –  Thurman admits she and Busson couldn’t compromise.


“We couldn’t quite agree on the name,” she shares. “We call her Luna, so she’s lucky that way.”


Uma Thurman: Why My Daughter Has Five Names
Lloyd Bishop/NBC



And, in the long run Thurman and Fallon agree that the “full Catholic” 6-month-old will have no problems brainstorming baby names for her future family.


“The rest she can just name her own children all these interesting names,” quips the proud mama. “Proper Catholic, observant!”


– Anya Leon


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Study: NYC better than LA at cutting kids' obesity


NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.


From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.


The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.


The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.


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S&P 500 at five-year high with boost from data, eBay

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday, with the S&P 500 advancing to a five-year intraday high on signs of strength in the housing and job markets and on better-than-expected results from online marketplace eBay .


The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week and housing starts jumped last month to the highest since June 2008.


Strength in the housing and labor markets is key to sustained growth and higher corporate profits. Job market improvement helps stimulate consumer spending while a recovery in housing means more purchases of appliances, furniture and other household goods as well as a source of employment.


The S&P is on track for its third consecutive advance, which pushed the index above an intraday peak set in September to its highest since December 2007. The PHLX semiconductor index <.sox>, up 1.7 percent, reached its highest level in eight months.


"Having consolidated really for the last two weeks, the fact that we broke out, I think that that's sucking in quite a bit of money," said James Dailey, portfolio manager of TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.


In the housing sector, PulteGroup Inc shares gained 4.9 percent to $20.29 and Toll Brothers Inc advanced 3.1 percent to $35.99. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> climbed 2.2 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 110.01 points, or 0.81 percent, at 13,621.24. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 10.96 points, or 0.74 percent, at 1,483.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 22.52 points, or 0.72 percent, at 3,140.07.


EBay's shares rose 2.7 percent to $54.33 a day after it reported holiday quarter results that just beat Wall Street expectations. It gave a 2013 forecast that was within analysts' estimates.


Gains were tempered somewhat by weakness in the financial sector, with Bank of America down 4.3 percent to $11.27 and Citigroup off 3 percent to $41.22 after they posted their results.


Bank of America's fourth-quarter profit fell as it took more charges to clean up mortgage-related problems. Citigroup posted $2.32 billion of charges for layoffs and lawsuits.


The S&P financial sector index <.spsy> slipped 0.14 percent as the only one of the 10 major S&P sectors to decline.


S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, Thomson Reuters data showed. Expectations for the quarter have fallen considerably since October when a 9.9 percent gain was estimated.


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



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