Queen Elizabeth Goes 3D for Her Holiday Message









12/24/2012 at 03:05 PM EST







Queen Elizabeth, in her 3D glasses


John Stillwell/AFP/Getty


Check out the new Queen of Cool – rockin' her shades.

As if her Diamond Jubilee, her Summer Olympics' James Bond stunt and the anticipation of her great-grandchild from William and Kate weren't enough, Queen Elizabeth has capped this very special year by donning some funky glasses to view a new 3D version of her annual seasonal broadcast – the first time her traditional speech has been filmed in the format.

Complete with a blinged-out "Q" in Swarovski crystals decorating the temples of the frames, the specs – which she also once wore for a 3D movie in Canada a couple years ago – are an unlikely addition to the Queen's jewels.

"We wanted to do something a bit different and special in this Jubilee year, so doing it for the first time in 3D seemed a good thing, technology-wise, to do," a spokeswoman says.

The Queen's message will air at 3 p.m. U.K. time on Christmas Day. Looking back on the highlights of the year, she is expected to include her praise of the British Olympians and Paralympians who excelled at the London 2012 games.

Meanwhile, the 86-year-old monarch was absent from a pre-Christmas church service at Sandringham Sunday. It was said by Buckingham Palace that she is nursing a cold.

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy


CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.


Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.


But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.


"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.


Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.


Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)


Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.


Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.


"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."


The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."


In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:


—Previous violent or aggressive behavior


—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse


—Guns in the home


—Use of drugs or alcohol


—Brain damage from a head injury


Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.


Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.


Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.


According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.


Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.


Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.


And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.


All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.


Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.


Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.


Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.


___


Online:


American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Start of "Santa Claus rally" dampened by "cliff' worries

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged lower on Monday as caution over the potential for volatility driven by worries about the U.S. "fiscal cliff" dampened enthusiasm at the start of a seasonally strong period for equities.


Investors are betting Congress will reach a deal to avert most of the austerity measures due to come into force at the start of next year. That has led to the best year for stocks since the post-financial crisis rebound. But those gains may be quickly reversed if a deal is not reached soon.


The S&P 500 index posted its biggest drop in more than a month on Friday as a Republican plan to avoid the cliff - $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts that could tip the U.S. economy into recession - failed to gain traction on Thursday night.


Sharp moves like that highlight how headlines from Washington can whipsaw markets, especially during the thinly traded period over the Christmas holiday.


Still, with the S&P 500 up 0.7 percent in December and on course for its strongest month since September, some analysts are predicting that stocks will find their footing during a market seasonality known as the "Santa Claus rally."


"Right now we've seen some very constructive action in the market so I think that bodes well for this being a positive seasonal 'Santa' period over the coming seven days," said Ari Wald, a technical analyst at The PrinceRidge Group.


He noted an all-time high in the NYSE advance-decline line, which compares advancing and declining stocks, as indication of strong participation in the rally off November lows.


"Pull-backs are buying opportunities," said Wald. "There has been really great participation on this move, a lot of small- and mid-cap stocks behaving well, pushing out to the upside; we're seeing some good leadership from offensive sectors of the market as well."


A high ratio of advancing stocks to declining issues shows there is broad participation across the equity market.


The Santa seasonality covers the last five trading days of the year and the first two of the new year. Since 1928, the S&P 500 has averaged a gain of 1.8 percent during this period and risen 79 percent of the time, according to data from PrinceRidge.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 51.76 points, or 0.39 percent, to 13,139.08. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 3.49 points, or 0.24 percent, to 1,426.66. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 8.41 points, or 0.28 percent, to 3,012.60.


The S&P 500 is up more than 13 percent for the year, having recovered nearly all the losses suffered in the wake of the U.S. election. The yearly gain would be the best since 2009.


Some U.S. lawmakers expressed concern on Sunday the country would go over the cliff, as some Republicans charged that was President Barack Obama's goal. Talks are stalled with Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner out of Washington for the holidays.


"It does seem like we are continuing through the same drift of the same thing we've had the past couple of weeks - 'cliff' talk," said Nick Scheumann, wealth partner at Hefty Wealth Partners in Auburn, Indiana.


"You can't trade on what you don't know and we truly don't know what they are going to do," he said.


Congress is expected to return to Washington next Thursday as President Barack Obama returns from a trip to Hawaii. As the deadline draws closer, a 'stop-gap' deal appears to be the most likely outcome of any talks.


Trading volume was muted, with U.S. equity markets closing at 1 p.m. (1800 GMT) ahead of the Christmas Day holiday on Tuesday.


In addition, a number of European markets operated on a shortened session, with other markets closed.


U.S. retailers may not see a sales surge from this weekend as ho-hum discounts and fears about imminent tax hikes and cuts in government spending give Americans fewer reasons to open their wallets in the last few days before Christmas.


Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Juxtapid capsules in patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, but will conduct a post-approval study to test long-term safety and efficacy. Shares fell 1.8 percent to $25.25.


Herbalife Ltd dipped 4.4 percent to $26.06 after the company said it expects to exceed its previously announced repurchase authorization guidance and has retained Moelis & Company as its strategic adviser. The declines put the stock on track for a ninth straight decline.


Yum Brands Inc advanced 1.8 percent to $65.01 after Shanghai's food safety authority said the level of antibiotics and steroids in the company's KFC chicken was within official limits.


(Reporting By Edward Krudy; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)



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As Envoy Meets Syria’s Assad, Russia Signals New Pessimism





BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lakhdar Brahimi, the special envoy seeking an end to the Syria crisis, held an urgent meeting with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Monday as new signs emerged that Mr. Assad’s grip on power was weakening and that Russia, his most important foreign backer, was moving forward with efforts to evacuate Russian diplomats and other expatriates from the country.




Mr. Brahimi, the Algerian statesman who has been the special Syria representative for the United Nations and Arab League for the past three months, did not specify the substance or tone of his discussion with Mr. Assad, describing it only in general terms in brief remarks afterward.


“The president expressed his view regarding the current situation and I briefed him on the meetings I had in several capitals with officials from different countries inside and outside the region,” Mr. Brahimi told reporters, according to an account posted on the United Nations’s Web site. “I also told him about the steps that in my view need to be taken to help the Syrian people find a way out of this crisis.”


But one member of Syria’s political opposition who said he had spoken with Mr. Brahimi’s aides said the envoy had advocated a plan for a negotiated solution first proposed in June. The opposition member, Mohamed Sarmini, said the proposal would temporarily leave Mr. Assad in power but curb his authority and create a transitional government that would theoretically remove Mr. Assad from power later — an arrangement that some members of the opposition had previously rejected as inadequate.


Another prominent opposition member, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks, said he understood that Mr. Brahimi had been intending to deliver a “final warning” to Mr. Assad. “This is a final proposal for Bashar to leave with his team, especially his military and intelligence officials,” said the opposition member, who was not in Syria.


The official Syrian state news agency, SANA, said nothing about the specifics of what was discussed at the meeting, but that Mr. Assad had “stressed the Syrian government’s keenness” to pursue efforts that “preserve the sovereignty and independence of the homeland.”


Mr. Brahimi was scheduled to meet with opposition members in Damascus on Tuesday, according to Hassan Abdel Azim, a longtime domestic dissident who  took a favorable view of the envoy’s visit, reflecting the splits within the opposition movement and especially between exile and domestic opponents.


“We are going to listen first to his proposals.  We support the Brahimi initiative, and we don’t say it has failed at all," he said.  "Our priority for the time being is breaking the circle of violence, and transforming the solution to the crisis from military to political.”


Mr. Brahimi arrived in Damascus on Sunday as new mayhem gripped the country. His entourage was forced to drive in from Lebanon instead of flying because of insurgent threats to attack commercial traffic at the Damascus airport.


Some of the worst violence appeared to be in the town of Halfaya, in west-central Syria, where activists reported that dozens of people had been killed when a Syrian warplane dropped bombs on a bakery.


The attack, and the number of casualties, could not be immediately confirmed. A local activist said he ran to the bakery soon after he heard a warplane followed by explosions and the sound of ambulances. “There were bodies everywhere,” said the activist, who gave his name as Samer.


Photographs he took after the attack showed bodies in a heap on a bloody sidewalk outside a low-slung, heavily damaged building.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based anti-Assad group with a network of contacts inside Syria, said Monday that it had collected the names of 43 victims, and that 15 more were unidentified.  All but three of the victims were men, the group said.


The reasons for the attack were unclear, but activists speculated that it was a government response to the arrival of rebel fighters in Halfaya. The rebels occupied the town last week after embarking on a broad offensive to seize territory around the city of Hama, where the government has kept tight control after suppressing protests in the city last year. In several days of fighting, civilians have been caught between the warring sides, a volatile development in a part of the country where members of Syria’s many sects live among one another in neighboring villages.


Human rights groups have accused the government of indiscriminate attacks on or near bakeries in the past, especially in the northern city of Aleppo. In a three-week period in the summer, Human Rights Watch documented 10 separate bombings on bakeries in the city.


Top Russian diplomats said that Mr. Brahimi, perhaps trying to broker a deal that would help ease Mr. Assad out, may visit Russia as soon as this week. Russian officials have sought to distance themselves from Mr. Assad in recent weeks as the nearly two-year-old conflict in Syria has worsened, although they still strongly oppose military intervention in favor of a negotiated transition. Some Russian expatriates working in Syria were abducted earlier this month.


Russian security officials were quoted in Monday’s edition of Kommersant, a Russian daily newspaper, as saying that diplomats in Damascus would be evacuated with the help of special forces, if necessary. Authorities are also prepared to dispatch 100 officers from a special armed unit of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, called “Screen,” which was last used to evacuate Russian diplomats from Baghdad in 2003. The newspaper quoted an intelligence source saying the officers were “ready for a transfer to Damascus, however the order from above has not been given.”


Ruslan R. Aliyev, an analyst with the Center for the Analysis of Strategy and Technologies, a defense research group based in Moscow, said renewed discussion of evacuations by Russia’s Foreign Ministry reflected what he described as Moscow’s deeply pessimistic prognosis for the region.


Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Saturday that several countries in the region had offered Mr. Assad asylum, but he added that Moscow would not mediate on their behalf.


It was the third visit to Syria by Mr. Brahimi since he assumed his post in August, and it occurred as fighting grew worse in the eastern and southern suburbs of Damascus, where rebel commanders say they are trying to establish staging grounds for attacks on the capital.


West-central Syria has become the latest front in the war, with the rebels attacking government checkpoints and other positions in an effort to disrupt the military’s supply lines and to push south from opposition strongholds in northern Syria. The offensive has led to growing fears for civilians in the area.


On Friday, a group of rebel fighters posted a video in which they threatened to shell Christian villages unless residents forced government loyalists to leave. Local church leaders have pleaded for peace and an end to sectarian strife.


Kareem Fahim reported from Beirut, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Hala Droubi from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, and Rick Gladstone from New York.



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RIM’s biggest problem: It’s still scrambling to catch yesterday’s hottest mobile app






The moment I first realized that RIM (RIMM) was truly in enormous trouble was back in 2010 when I heard then co-CEO Jim Balsillie downplay the importance of apps. Yes, you read that correctly. Balsillie actually told attendees at a Web 2.0 summit in 2010 that the Internet itself was the most important “app” for mobile devices and contended that the “Web needs a platform that allows you to use your existing Web content, not apps.” My feelings on this matter were only solidified when I attended the BlackBerry World conference in May 2011 and watched RIM executives proudly announce that the Playbook tablet would soon get its own version of Angry Birds sometime in the near future. In reality, Angry Birds didn’t release for BlackBerry until late December of that year, or two full years after it was originally released for iOS.


[More from BGR: WhatsApp goes free for iPhone for a limited time]






All of which brings me back to RIM’s current state: Despite the great looking hardware and user interface pictures we’ve seen from new BlackBerry 10 smartphones so far, the company still has an app problem. I was reminded of this when I read a post over at CrackBerry titled, “There’s still a chance for WhatsApp on BlackBerry 10.” The issue here isn’t whether RIM eventually does or doesn’t get WhatsApp on its platform — the issue is that RIM always seems to be one step behind when it comes to getting the hottest apps of the day on its devices.


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


The most absurd example of this, of course, is Instagram. Yes, it’s very likely that BlackBerry 10 will support the popular photo-sharing app right out of the gate given the company’s partnership with Instagram owner Facebook (FB). But we still have no official confirmation that Instagram will be a BlackBerry 10 app just over a month before the new platform launches, and this is symbolic of the fact that RIM is always stuck at the back of line when it comes to app developers’ priorities.


Simply put, RIM can’t possibly hope to compete with Android, iOS or even Windows Phone 8 if its users will always wonder if they’ll be able to do all the cool things with their phones that their friends can do. In the unpredictable Wild West of today’s app market, where new apps seemingly go viral overnight to become global powerhouses, platform developers need to make sure they have quick and simple ways for app developers to port over their software. And until RIM figures out a way to get this done, it still has no shot in the long term.


This article was originally published by BGR


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Sandy Hook Shootings: How to Cope









12/23/2012 at 06:00 PM EST







State police personnel lead children to safety away from the Sandy Hook Elementary School


Shannon Hicks/Newtown Bee/Reuters/Landov


The Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 innocent children and six heroic elementary school faculty members were gunned down last Friday, is particularly difficult for people – even those thousands of miles away from Newtown, Conn. – to process, according to mental health experts.

"This tragedy is so deeply affecting the national psyche, reminding us of 9/11, because of its assault on Norman Rockwell's vision of America," psychiatrist Carole Lieberman tells PEOPLE.

Friday was proclaimed a national day of mourning for those lost a week ago, with a moment of silence called for at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, as 26 churchbells rang in Newtown and elsewhere. In addition, First Lady Michelle Obama sent an open letter of condolence to the town, saying the entire nation "is holding you in our hearts."

But how do those directly involved with the tragedy find the strength to cope?

To do that, family members who lost loved ones need immediate counseling and to maintain their normal routines. They also need to draw support from other affected families who can relate to what they're going through, says Dr. Stephanie N. Marcy, a psychologist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

"I think the people on the ground are feeling a sense of hopelessness because there is no way to justify what happened," Marcy says. "They need to be around other people who have experienced and understand it. If you were all involved together, you can empathize and grieve together."

In many of these families, the remaining children might have survivor's guilt, she adds.

"They rethink what they did that day and wonder if they in some way contributed to the death of a sibling, or they wonder, why did I survive?" Marcy says.

Therapists will need to explain to kids who lost a sibling that their "false belief that they should have been able to prevent it is not correct," adds Marcy.

Children at Sandy Hook may also have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and will need therapy, Lieberman says.

What to Tell Children

And what do parents whose children were not involved in the tragedy tell their own youngsters about what happened? That, Marcy says, depends on how old they are and how much they know already.

"Kindergarteners and first graders don't need to be told about it unless you think they will hear it somewhere else. For older kids, you have to get to know what they know, answer any questions they might have, and be truthful – but don't say too much," Marcy says. "Say that a person who was having problems, that was sick, went into a school and injured some people for no particular reason. Tell them it would never happen at their school."

"Yes," she adds, "it could happen anywhere. But there's no point in letting your child think that, [because] they may be flooded with fear."

For the adults and children across the country who have been vicariously traumatized, Marcy says, "We need to regain our sense of control, because this type of event makes us feel completely helpless."

Lieberman adds that Americans "are also feeling a generalized anxiety, a fear that no place is safe anymore. They need to talk to friends and family, get involved in championing causes that make society better, to volunteer for charities, and to get psychotherapy if the sadness and anxiety persist."

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy


CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.


Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.


But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.


"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.


Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.


Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)


Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.


Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.


"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."


The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."


In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:


—Previous violent or aggressive behavior


—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse


—Guns in the home


—Use of drugs or alcohol


—Brain damage from a head injury


Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.


Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.


Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.


According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.


Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.


Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.


And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.


All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.


Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.


Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.


Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.


___


Online:


American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all.


A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this "fiscal cliff" will push the economy into recession.


Thursday's debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner failed to secure passage of his own bill that was meant to pressure President Obama and Senate Democrats, only added to worry that the protracted budget talks will stretch into 2013.


Still, the market remains resilient. Friday's decline on Wall Street, triggered by Boehner's fiasco, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from posting its best week in four.


"The markets have been sort of taking this in stride," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago, which has about $38 billion in assets under management.


"The markets still basically believe that something will be done," he said.


If something happens next week, it will come in a short time frame. Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas. Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the rest of the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.


For the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes posted gains, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> up 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 <.spx> up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> up 1.7 percent.


Stocks also have booked solid gains for the year so far, with just five trading sessions left in 2012: The Dow has advanced 8 percent, while the S&P 500 has climbed 13.7 percent and the Nasdaq has jumped 16 percent.


IT COULD GET A LITTLE CRAZY


Equity volumes are expected to fall sharply next week. Last year, daily volume on each of the last five trading days dropped on average by about 49 percent, compared with the rest of 2011 - to just over 4 billion shares a day exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT in the final five sessions of the year from a 2011 daily average of 7.9 billion.


If the trend repeats, low volumes could generate a spike in volatility as traders keep track of any advance in the cliff talks in Washington.


"I'm guessing it's going to be a low volume week. There's not a whole lot other than the fiscal cliff that is going to continue to take the headlines," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati.


"A lot of people already have a foot out the door, and with the possibility of some market-moving news, you get the possibility of increased volatility."


Economic data would have to be way off the mark to move markets next week. But if the recent trend of better-than-expected economic data holds, stocks will have strong fundamental support that could prevent selling from getting overextended even as the fiscal cliff negotiations grind along.


Small and mid-cap stocks have outperformed their larger peers in the last couple of months, indicating a shift in investor sentiment toward the U.S. economy. The S&P MidCap 400 Index <.mid> overcame a technical level by confirming its close above 1,000 for a second week.


"We view the outperformance of the mid-caps and the break of that level as a strong sign for the overall market," Schaeffer's Bell said.


"Whenever you have flight to risk, it shows investors are beginning to have more of a risk appetite."


Evidence of that shift could be a spike in shares in the defense sector, expected to take a hit as defense spending is a key component of the budget talks.


The PHLX defense sector index <.dfx> hit a historic high on Thursday, and far outperformed the market on Friday with a dip of just 0.26 percent, while the three major U.S. stock indexes finished the day down about 1 percent.


Following a half-day on Wall Street on Monday ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wednesday will bring the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It is expected to show a ninth-straight month of gains.


U.S. jobless claims on Thursday are seen roughly in line with the previous week's level, with the forecast at 360,000 new filings for unemployment insurance, compared with the previous week's 361,000.


(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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West Antarctic Warming Faster Than Thought, Study Finds





West Antarctica has warmed much more than scientists had thought over the last half century, new research suggests, an ominous finding given that the huge ice sheet there may be vulnerable to long-term collapse, with potentially drastic effects on sea levels.




A paper released on Sunday by the journal Nature Geoscience reports that the temperature at a research station in the middle of West Antarctica has warmed by 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1958. That is roughly twice as much as scientists previously thought and three times the overall rate of global warming, making central West Antarctica one of the fastest-warming regions on earth.


“The surprises keep coming,” said Andrew J. Monaghan, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who took part in the study. “When you see this type of warming, I think it’s alarming.”Of course, warming in Antarctica is a relative concept. West Antarctica remains an exceedingly cold place, with average annual temperatures in the center of the ice sheet that are nearly 50 degrees Fahrenheit below freezing.


But the temperature there does sometimes rise above freezing in the summer, and the new research raises the possibility that it might begin to happen more often, potentially weakening the ice sheet through surface melting. The ice sheet is already under attack at the edges by warmer ocean water, and scientists are on alert for any fresh threat.


A potential collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is one of the long-term hazards that have led experts to worry about global warming. The base of the ice sheet sits below sea level, in a configuration that makes it especially vulnerable. Scientists say a breakup of the ice sheet, over a period that would presumably last at least several hundred years, could raise global sea levels by 10 feet, possibly more.


The new research is an attempt to resolve a scientific controversy that erupted several years ago about exactly how fast West Antarctica is warming. With few automated weather stations and even fewer human observers in the region, scientists have had to use statistical techniques to infer long-term climate trends from sparse data.


A nearby area called the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts north from West Antarctica and for which fairly good records are available, was already known to be warming rapidly. A 2009 paper found extensive warming in the main part of West Antarctica, but those results were challenged by a group that included climate change contrarians.


To try to get to the bottom of the question, David H. Bromwich of Ohio State University pulled together a team that focused on a single temperature record. At a lonely outpost called Byrd Station, in central West Antarctica, people and automated equipment have been keeping track of temperature and other weather variables since the late 1950s.


It is by far the longest weather record in that region, but it had intermittent gaps and other problems that had made many researchers wary of it. The Bromwich group decided to try to salvage the Byrd record.


They retrieved one of the sensors and recalibrated at the University of Wisconsin. They discovered a software error that had introduced mistakes into the record and then used computerized analyses of the atmosphere to fill the gaps.


The reconstruction will most likely undergo intensive scientific scrutiny, which Dr. Bromwich said he would welcome. “We’ve tested everything we could think of,” he said.


Assuming the research holds up, it suggests that the 2009 paper, far from overestimating warming in West Antarctica, had probably underestimated it, especially in summer.


Eric J. Steig, a University of Washington researcher who led the 2009 work, said in an interview that he considered his paper to have been supplanted by the new research. “I think their results are better than ours, and should be adopted as the best estimate,” he said. He noted that the new Byrd record matches a recent temperature reconstruction from a nearby borehole in the ice sheet, adding confidence in the findings.


Much of the warming discovered in the new paper happened in the 1980s, around the same time the planet was beginning to warm briskly. More recently, Dr. Bromwich said, the weather in West Antarctica seems to have become somewhat erratic. In the summer of 2005, the interior of West Antarctica warmed enough for the ice to undergo several days of surface melting.


Dr. Bromwich is worried that this could eventually become routine, perhaps accelerating the decay of the West Antarctic ice sheet, but the warming is not fast enough for that to happen right away. “We’re talking decades into the future, I think,” Dr. Bromwich said.


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