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Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads

Labels: World

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.

The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.

The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.

Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.

AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.

Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.

"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.

The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.

"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.

Shares of Dell closed at $13.63, up 0.7 percent, after briefly trading above a buyout offering price of $13.65 during the session.

Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.

Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.

Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.

"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."

Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by almost 5 to 3.

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

Michigan, Kansas go down as run of upsets continue

Labels: Technology

There goes another one, and another one.

No. 3 Michigan and fifth-ranked Kansas each lost on Saturday, continuing a perilous stretch for the Top 25.

The Wolverines became the third top-three team to fall this week when Ben Brust hit a tiebreaking 3-pointer with less than 40 seconds left in overtime, leading Wisconsin to a 65-62 victory. Brust also tied the game at the end of regulation with a heave from just inside halfcourt.

That's just the way it has gone lately for the top of the poll.

No. 2 Florida lost at Arkansas on Tuesday night, and No. 1 Indiana dropped a 74-72 decision at Illinois on Thursday. This should be the sixth straight week with a different No. 1 in The Associated Press' Top 25, which would be the second-longest streak since the first AP poll in 1949.

The Jayhawks have dropped three straight games for the first time in eight years after they lost 72-66 at Oklahoma.

"It hasn't been a good week for us by any stretch, but let's be real," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "We were ranked No. 2 in the country seven days ago, and you don't go from being a good team to a bad team overnight.

"We've had a couple of bad outings, but we're still a good team."

The current string of No. 1 swapping is the longest since 1994, when Arkansas, North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA and Duke alternated at the top seven straight weeks — the longest streak since Saint Louis debuted as No. 1 in the initial AP poll.

But it isn't just the teams at the top that are having trouble. Top 25 teams all over the country are getting knocked off by unranked opponents.

According to STATS LLC, Top 25 teams lost to unranked teams 36 times from Jan. 17 to Feb. 6 this season, most in at least 17 years.

China needs smog-free air in a can

Labels: Lifestyle

Hazardous smog over Beijing

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

This year has been one of the worst for air quality in China

Residents have termed the smog event the "air-pocalypse"

John Sutter says the country should pass a Clean Air Act

It's a matter of human rights and public health, not image

Editor's note: John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN Opinion. He heads the section's Change the List project, which focuses on human rights and social justice. E-mail him at CTL@CNN.com.

(CNN) -- Air pollution in China has gotten so bad lately that one environmentalist's wacky idea for a solution doesn't seem all that far-fetched: putting clean air in a can.

Last week, when a thick gray haze blanketed Beijing and several other Chinese cities, sending kids to the hospital, grounding planes and causing the government to order cars off the road, Chen Guangbiao took to the streets in Beijing to hand out yellow and green cans of smog-free, non-carcinogenic air.

"Free fresh air. Open it and drink it and breathe it!" the Guardian quoted the multimillionaire and national celeb as saying. "It keeps you fresh the whole day!"

Ego aside (the bright cans feature an image of Chen's face and the words "Chen Guangbio is a good man" on them), the clever, political stunt is just the sort of thing that China needs these days. Such creative and public protests should help push forward much-needed national reforms to combat air pollution in the country.

A "Clean Air Act" for China is long overdue.

John D. Sutter

And the recent "air-pocalypse," as the suffocating air pollution that hung over several Chinese cities in January has been termed, should be more than enough proof of that.

The pollution during the 2013 Great Smog of China was so thick last month that it was visible from space (from space!). Breathing in Beijing was "akin to living in a smoking lounge," according to an analysis from Bloomberg. Air quality readings literally were off the charts. An index reading below about 50 is considered healthy. Readings for Beijing in January hit 500, the top of the index, and went higher than 700, according to the U.S. Embassy.

"The air has this kind of greenish-gray pallor to it. And it smells like you're standing next to a chemical plant, really chlorine-y," said David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "It's an awesomely bad smell."

He was telling me about Beijing air on a normal day.

"I'm standing outside my office building but am unable to see its top," one Beijing resident said, according to China's state news agency, Xinhua.

"The new normal in Beijing is sending your kids to school wearing gas masks ..." Christina Larson wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Fixing China's air pollution is not just about the country's image or economy, although those certainly suffer because of smog, too. It's about the right of all humans to walk outside and breathe in air that won't choke them or make them sick.

The AFP reports hospital visits for respiratory problems were up 20% during the air-pocalypse. Last year, small particle air pollution, called PM2.5, in four major Chinese cities resulted in 8,572 premature deaths, according to a December study by Greenpeace East Asia and Peking University's School of Public Health.

Similar deaths can and should be prevented.

And I'm optimistic they will be. For several reasons.

The first is history. It wasn't all that long ago, in 1952, that the "Great Smog" covered London in gray, sooty pollution, resulting in an estimated 4,000 premature deaths.

The government reacted by passing sweeping reforms.

Now London is known for its real fog, not smog.

Air pollution in Los Angeles was handled in a similar fashion.

After the city's car culture created a smog problem, scientists started researching protective helmets to protect people. Others wore gas masks. But, eventually the government took action to reduce the pollution. California led the way for the nation, and in 1963, the United States passed the Clean Air Act.

That law is credited with preventing 205,000 premature deaths, 843,000 asthma attacks and 18 million child respiratory illnesses in 1990, based on the first 20 years of the law.

These changes took time. And it's unfortunate that things had to get bad before they could get better. But China, like others, is finally realizing that its air really is that bad.

Its own people are calling for the change and more vigorously than before.

More than 200 students at a Beijing high school school signed a petition asking the city to "amend air quality regulations and take specific emergency measures," according to Calum MacLeod from USA Today. And on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, Pan Shiyi, a real estate magnate, called for the country to adopt its own Clean Air Act. When he posed the idea to his 14 million Weibo followers in an online poll, nearly all of the 50,000-some people who responded said they supported that type of national legislation.

Maybe that's just one man's social media feed. But there's a history of this kind of thing working in China. In 2011, Pan successfully used his online network to press Beijing authorities to report more smog data, according to the Wall Street Journal's China blog.

It's clear the government has taken notice this time as well. Beijing implemented several emergency measures to curb smog. State media is talking about the pollution.

After speaking with a few experts, it seems clear what needs to be done: China has to reduce its reliance on coal, increase renewable energy, regulate the amount of smog-causing sulfur that can go into its diesel fuel and increase vehicle efficiency.

"It's not rocket science," said Pettit, from NRDC.

There will, of course, be costs and significant challenges. China burns "nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined," according to a recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Beijing catches so much of the pollution from coal-burning power plants because it sits at the center of a ring of mountains, which help trap the smog. Throw a bunch more cars into the mix, 13 million of them were sold in China last year, according to IHS Automotive and the problems start compounding.

Fixes may be expensive, but the United States has made the compelling case that the costs of enforcing clean air regulations are offset by gains in health and worker productivity. China, which does have some air quality regulations, already seems to be realizing this. The country on Wednesday announced stricter fuel standards that go into effect by the end of 2014 for diesel and 2017 for gas, according to the Financial Times. An environmental official, Wu Xiaoqing, also told state media this week that "China will formulate regulations, standards and policies to reduce air pollutants and control coal burning."

The energy industry estimates it will costs billions for China to meet tougher fuel standards. It may be up to people like the artist Ai Weiwei, who posed in a photo wearing a gas mask, and Chen, the man who's peddling cans of clean air, to ensure that the public and the government see that clean air is worth the cost.

"I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies: Don't just chase GDP growth, don't chase the biggest profits at the expense of our children and grandchildren, and at the cost of sacrificing our ecological environment," Chen told Reuters.

If Chinese leaders don't want to drink air from a can, they should listen.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of John D. Sutter.

DCFS: Credible evidence of abuse at Maine West

Labels: Health

The state’s child welfare agency has ruled that two staff members at Maine West High School abused and neglected children, a revelation that appears to be linked to a soccer team hazing scandal at the Des Plaines school involving allegations of beating and sodomy.

An Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigation concluded on January 30 that there were “indicated” reports of abuse and neglect against both staff members, according to spokesman Dave Clarkin. An “indicated” report means that the agency uncovered credible evidence that abuse took place.
Clarkin declined to comment on whether the targets of the investigation were boys and girls varsity coach Michael Divincenzo and freshman boys coach Emilio Rodriguez.

Both men, who have denied knowledge of hazing and could not be reached for comment Saturday, have been suspended and face being fired in the wake of the scandal that was revealed in November.

Officials at Maine Township High School District 207 have also disciplined 10 students and did not renew the contracts of three other Maine West High coaches who were not full-time staff members.

The hazing accusations surfaced when the parents of a 14-year-old boy sued the school in November.

The lawsuit alleged that soccer coaches and school officials allowed a culture of hazing that led to the boy being sodomized and beaten by teammates on Sept. 27. The lawsuit also alleged that similar incidents took place as far back as 2007.

School officials, who are also investigating the claims, later alleged that varsity soccer players also grabbed the genitals of other players and dunked their heads in a hot tub during a training camp in 2012.
Clarkin, the DCFS spokesman, said three allegations of abuse were subtantiated against one staff member. Those records will be kept on file for 50 years, Clarkin said, which is procedure for instances of death or sexual penetration.

Seven allegations of neglect against the same staff member were substantiated, while four allegations of neglect against the second staff member were substantiated, Clarkin said.

Several other allegations against both staff members were deemed unfounded, he said.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has said it is also investigating the allegations.

District spokesman David Beery said Saturday that officials had received a written memo from DCFS indicating they had completed an investigation, but the memo was “minimal” in information. He declined to comment specifically on the DCFS findings.

“From the initial onset of this, when we first received reports in September, we notified DCFS right away, and have been cooperating with their investigation all along,” Beery said.

Tribune reporter Jonathan Bullington contributed.

cdrhodes@tribune.com

Israel's Lieberman says Palestinian peace accord impossible

Labels: Business

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has no chance of signing a permanent peace accord with the Palestinians and should instead seek a long-term interim deal, the most powerful political partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.

The remarks by Avigdor Lieberman, an ultranationalist whose joint party list with Netanyahu narrowly won a January 22 election while centrist challengers made surprise gains, seemed designed to dampen expectations at home and abroad of fresh peacemaking.

A spring visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories by U.S. President Barack Obama, announced this week, has stirred speculation that foreign pressure for a diplomatic breakthrough could build - though Washington played down that possibility.

In a television interview, ex-foreign minister Lieberman linked the more than two-year-old impasse to pan-Arab political upheaval that has boosted Islamists hostile to the Jewish state.

These include Hamas, rivals of U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who control the Gaza Strip and spurn coexistence with Israel though they have mooted extended truces.

"Anyone who thinks that in the center of this socio-diplomatic ocean, this tsunami which is jarring the Arab world, it is possible to arrive at the magic solution of a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians does not understand," Lieberman told Israel's Channel Two.

"This is impossible. It is not possible to solve the conflict here. The conflict can be managed and it is important to manage the conflict ... to negotiate on a long-term interim agreement."

Abbas broke off talks in late 2010 in protest at Israel's settlement of the occupied West Bank. He angered Israel and the United States in November by securing a U.N. status upgrade that implicitly recognized Palestinian independence in all the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Israel insists it will keep East Jerusalem and swathes of West Bank settlements under any eventual peace deal. Most world powers consider the settlements illegal because they take up land seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

Lieberman, himself a West Bank settler, said the ball was "in Abu Mazen's (Abbas') court" to revive diplomacy.

Abbas has demanded Israel first freeze all settlement construction. With two decades gone since Palestinians signed their first interim deal with Israel, he has ruled out any new negotiations that do not solemnize Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev noted that Lieberman, in the Channel Two interview, had said he was expressing his own opinion.

Asked how Netanyahu saw peace prospects for an accord with the Palestinians, Regev referred to a speech on Tuesday in which the conservative prime minister said that Israel, while addressing threats by its enemies, "must also pursue secure, stable and realistic peace with our neighbors".

Netanyahu has previously spoken in favor of a Palestinian state, though he has been cagey on its borders and whether he would be prepared to dismantle Israeli settlements.

Lieberman's role in the next coalition government is unclear as he faces trial for corruption. If convicted, he could be barred from the cabinet. Lieberman denies wrongdoing and has said he would like to regain the foreign portfolio, which he surrendered after his indictment was announced last year.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Stephen Powell)