Dave Brubeck, jazz legend, dies at 91

Dave Brubeck, the jazz pianist, composer and bandleader behind the legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet, has died at age 91.

The death of Brubeck, whose composition “Take Five” became a jazz standard and the bestselling jazz song of all time, was confirmed Wednesday by the Associated Press. Brubeck would have turned 92 Thursday.

According to the AP, Brubeck died of heart failure after being stricken while on the way to a cardiologist's  appointment in Connecticut.

Photos: Dave Brubeck | 1920 - 2012

Brubeck, born Dec. 6, 1920, in Concord, Calif., was the son of a cattle rancher. His mother was a classically trained pianist. Although he studied zoology at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, he came to love the music department. While serving in the Army during World War II, Brubeck formed the band the Wolfpack.  After the war in the Bay Area he experimented with music groups and styles.

In 1951 he and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond created what would become one of the most popular acts of West Coast jazz, the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The quartet's most famous song was "Take Five," from the 1959 release "Time Out.

During his career, Brubeck also created standards such as "The Duke" and "In Your Own Sweet Way."

In a 2010 article on the occasion of Brubeck's 90th birthday, the Los Angeles Times interviewed the jazz legend and noted that although jazz may not occupy the center of the musical universe, even people who know little, if anything, about jazz know of Brubeck:

"Through more than 60 years of recordings and performances at colleges, concert halls, festivals and nightclubs all over the world, Brubeck put forth a body of work — as pianist, composer and bandleader — that is as accessible as it is ingenious, as stress-free as it is rhythmically emphatic, as open-hearted as it is wide-ranging."

Details of Brubeck's death coming soon at the Los Angeles Times.

Read More..

PlayStation 3 was the world’s No.1 Netflix streaming device this year

There are dozens of devices that can stream Netflix (NFLX), but only one can machine be crowned the king of the living room. According to Netflix, that device is Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 console. Without revealing any specific figures, Netflix announced on its blog “in the U.S. and globally, PS3 is the largest TV-connected platform in terms of Netflix viewing” and that “at times, PS3 even surpassed the PC in hours of Netflix enjoyment to become our No. 1 platform overall.” 

Netflix’s blog is quick to mention why the PS3 is the most popular streaming device this year, applauding it for being the first console to have 1080p HD video and 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus surround sound, post-play, second screen controls, subtitles and easy app updates.

While the Xbox 360 is gaining ground in terms of how many hours users spend watching videos on it, streaming video services such as Netflix requires an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription. One reason why the PlayStation 3 might be leading Netflix streaming is because it doesn’t require a subscription fee to have access to the Netflix app, or any other streaming video app such as Amazon (AMZN) Instant Video.

“The PlayStation and Netflix communities both share a strong passion for high quality entertainment,” Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO and president Jack Tretton said. “Netflix provides a fantastic experience for watching TV shows and movies on PS3, and our joint development will continue to produce innovations for our customers that further demonstrate PS3 as the true home for entertainment in the living room.”

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Let the debate end: Grammy noms anybody's guess

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — It's a brutal year to be in the Grammy nominations handicapping game.

Sure, there are a few safe bets. Mumford & Sons and Frank Ocean are expected to take a share of nominations when they're announced Wednesday night on national television during "The Grammy Nominations Concert Live!" in Nashville.

And popular songs by Gotye, fun., Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen may land those artists on the list as well, though Jepsen harbors some doubt her omnipresent song "Call Me Maybe" will net a nod.

"I would be so shocked," the 27-year-old singer said last week. "But this year has taught me to look forward to surprises and just be ready for anything. So, cross your fingers for me."

Viral songs like Jepsen's seemed to be the theme of the year, and with no watershed albums during the nominating period for the 2013 Grammys like Adele's "21" or Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," it's not clear who will turn out as this year's top nominee.

Thus the guessing game.

The Grammy nominations period ended Sept. 30 and three of the year's top four debuting albums — from Swift, One Direction and Jason Aldean — came after that date. Rihanna also released a new album after the period ended. All could have songs nominated, but a popular album is the quickest way to accumulate multiple nods.

Mumford & Sons slipped in just under the deadline. Introduced to much of their burgeoning fan base through a 2011 appearance on the Grammys, the British folk-rock band could return with a flourish after selling 600,000 copies of "Babel" in the first week of release and setting streaming records on Spotify.

And Ocean showed the kind of bravery that might be rewarded by The Recording Academy's voters when he announced in liner notes for his album "channel ORANGE" that he'd had a same-sex encounter, causing an industry-wide discussion of the issue.

Questions surround many of the other artists who might be considered sure bets, however. Gotye should be a lock in multiple categories, but his viral song "Somebody That I Used to Know," featuring Kimbra, wasn't submitted in the song of the year category because of a sample, eliminating one of its most viable prospects.

Others who might be considered possible top nominees like Drake and The Black Keys released their platinum-selling, hit-spawning albums late last year and they'll have to overcome short-term memory issues among voters.

Sean Garrett, a producer for artists like Usher and Beyonce with multiple Grammy nominations, said a lack of clear trends during the nominating period made it difficult to guess going into the show.

"It was sort of an iffy kind of year in my opinion," Garrett said in a phone interview. "I'm going to be honest: I think the politics kind of slowed the music down."

He expects pop stars like Jepsen, Bieber, Swift and Korean sensation PSY to take home nominations, but doesn't see an artist accumulating a high number of nominations. That could leave room for newer acts, including fun., one of his favorites.

"They have a very clever sound," Garrett said. "The lead singer (Nate Reuss) has an amazing, amazing voice. I feel like they just came with something that was a bit different. It was mainstream pop music and it had some edge to it. And there was great songwriting there."

Fun., with their anthemic hit "We Are Young," are among the night's performers, joining Maroon 5, Ne-Yo, Luke Bryan, The Who, Hunter Hayes and others.

"It just feels like we spent the last 12 years pulling back the arrow and this year we just let it go," fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff said. "This last year has been incredible and amazing and hard and I don't even know what it would have been like if we didn't have 10 or 12 years of experience because it still feels like we're learning everything for the first time."

The nominations show is being held outside Los Angeles for the first time in its five-year history. LL Cool J returns, co-hosting the show live on CBS at 10 p.m. EST from Bridgestone Arena with Swift.

It's the first official Grammy activity in Music City since 1973, when the late Johnny Cash kicked off the live broadcast. He'll figure into Wednesday night's as well when Dierks Bentley and The Band Perry pay tribute to the man in black.

"So we're going to do that as a tribute to Johnny, a tribute to Nashville, a tribute to country music, a tribute to being back here," longtime Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich said. "And I think it will be magical."

___

AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report from New York City.

___

Online:

http://grammy.com

___

Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

Read More..

Well: New Meaning and Drive in Life After Cancer

When people hear the words “You have cancer,” life is suddenly divided into distinct parts. There was their life before cancer, and then there is life after cancer.

The number of people in that second category continues to grow. In June, the National Cancer Institute reported that an estimated 13.7 million living Americans are cancer survivors, and the number will increase to almost 18 million over the next decade. More than half are younger than 70.

A new book, “Picture Your Life After Cancer,” (American Cancer Society) focuses on the living that goes on after a cancer diagnosis. It’s based on a multimedia project by The New York Times that asked readers to submit photos and their personal stories. So far, nearly 1,500 people have shared their experiences — the good, the bad, the challenging and the inspirational — creating a dramatic photo essay of the varied lives people live in the years after diagnosis.

For Susan Schwalb, a 68-year-old artist from Manhattan, a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer at the age of 62 led to a lumpectomy, followed by a mastectomy and then failed reconstruction surgery. She discovered that cancer was not only a physical challenge but a mental one as well, and she turned to friends and support groups to cope with the emotional strain. When she saw the “Picture Your Life” project, she submitted a photo of herself wearing a paint-splattered artist’s apron.

“What cancer made me do in my own professional life is to pedal faster,” Ms. Schwalb said in an interview. “I’ve encountered some people who decide to enjoy life, retire, work in a garden. I decided I had to have more of what I wanted in life, and I better move fast because maybe I don’t have the long life I imagined I would have.”

Indeed, a common theme of the “Picture Your Life” project is that cancer spurs people to take long-delayed trips, seek out adventure and spend time with their families. Photos of mountain climbs, a ride on a camel, scuba diving excursions and bicycle trips are now part of the online collage.

Dr. David Posner, associate program director of pulmonary medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, says a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer at the age of 47 has helped him relate to his own patients with cancer. The past decade has included nine operations, six recurrences and three rounds of chemotherapy, but Dr. Posner said he never missed more than three weeks of work.

“My salvation has been my family and my work,” he said. “When I was at work I wasn’t thinking about myself, and it was very therapeutic. I see my share of cancer patients, and I motivate them and they motivate me.”

Dr. Posner said he decided to be part of “Picture Your Life” because he wants to get the word out that a cancer diagnosis — even a dire one like his — doesn’t have to define your life.

“I think about someone asking me, ‘So how was your last decade — was it wasted or was it a life filled with a lot of happiness and joy?’ ” he said. “The cancer thing was a pain, but for the most part I’ve had a pretty good time.”

The “Picture Your Life” collage includes photo after photo of survivors with their pets. Sandra Elliott, 59, of Claremont, Calif., submitted a picture of herself with her two golden retrievers, Buddy and Molly. They were just puppies when she received a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer in 2003. During her recovery from surgery and chemotherapy treatments, she took the dogs to romp on the Pomona College campus, near her home, and one day a professional photographer snapped the picture.

“No matter how bad I felt that day, no matter how many chemo treatments or doctors appointments, those two little puppies with these big black eyes would look at me with their tails wagging as if to say, ‘It’s time. It’s time. It’s time to go out!’  ” Ms. Elliott recalled.

“I felt so physically horrible, and I’d look at them and the pure joy on their faces and in their bodies for just being out in nature and being able to smell the air, smell the trees, chase a squirrel — that sheer in-the-moment love of life they showed me really lifted my spirit on a daily basis.”

Ms. Elliott still lives with chronic pain as a result of nerve damage from her cancer treatment, and she can relate to others in the “Picture Your Life” project who worry that their cancer will recur or that they’ll never feel completely normal again. But she says a stronger theme runs through all the pictures and stories.

“We have all been forced to find the joy in the smallest things,” she said. “I’m sitting here looking at a geranium about to bloom. These things are out there — we just have to be reminded to look at them. And cancer is a big reminder.”

Read More..

Netflix buys exclusive rights to Disney movies

Netflix Inc. has acquired exclusive U.S. rights to movies from Walt Disney Studios in a deal that catapults the Internet video-on-demand service into direct competition with pay TV giants such as HBO and Showtime.

The three-year agreement takes effect in 2016 and is a blow to the pay channel Starz, which currently has the rights to broadcast Disney movies, including its Pixar animated films and Marvel superhero pictures, about eight months after they are released in theaters.

Starz's sole remaining movie provider is now Sony Pictures. That partnership ends in 2016.

VIDEO: Disney buys Lucasfilm - Mickey meet Darth Maul

Disney has also agreed to give Netflix nonexclusive streaming rights to more of its older titles — including "Dumbo," "Pocahontas" and "Alice in Wonderland" — starting immediately.

Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, called the deal "a bold leap forward for Internet television."

"We are incredibly pleased and proud this iconic family brand is teaming with Netflix to make it happen," he said.

Netflix stock soared on the news, rising $10.65, or 14%, to $85.65.

Shares in Starz's parent company, Liberty Media Corp., fell $5.49, or 5%, to $105.56.

Currently, Netflix has nonexclusive rights to movies from Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via a deal with pay channel Epix, as well as an array of library titles from other studios. Its only exclusive movie rights come from independent studios such as Relativity Media and DreamWorks Animation. It also has a wide variety of television reruns.

Sarandos and Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings have long said the company wanted to get exclusive pay TV rights to films from one of Hollywood's six major studios to boost its online entertainment service.

PHOTOS: Disney without Pixar

However, Hastings has also at times downplayed the importance of new movies. Netflix previously had streaming rights to Disney and Sony movies via a deal with Starz. In January, investors expressed their concerns that the pending disappearance of those movies would hurt the service. Hastings said in a letter to investors that Disney films accounted for only 2% of domestic streaming and the loss would not be felt.

Since then, though, the Disney movie slate has become more attractive. At that time, Netflix did not have access to movies from Disney's Marvel superhero unit or the "Star Wars" titles from its pending acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd.

The end of the Starz agreement accelerated a trend that has seen Netflix evolve into a television company, with reruns of shows such as "Mad Men" accounting for about two-thirds of the content streamed by users.

With several original programs launching next year, including the Kevin Spacey political drama "House of Cards," and a direct connection to a growing number of Internet-enabled televisions, Netflix is on the verge of standing on par with many TV networks.

Netflix charges $8 a month for its streaming service, while premium cable networks such as HBO cost $13 to $18 a month, and that's on top of a monthly bill for other channels that typically exceeds $50. It remains to be seen whether the addition of Disney products and more original programming could lead Netflix to increase its price.

PHOTOS: Hollywood back lot moments

The Netflix spending spree could continue, with Sarandos telling Bloomberg News on Monday that his company would bid for rights to Sony movies when its Starz deal expires.

Netflix might have a tougher time wresting away the rights to Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox or Universal Pictures releases from their current deals with HBO, which like Warner is part of Time Warner Inc. Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM are almost certain to stick with Epix, of which the trio are co-owners.

Read More..

Suspect in Northridge shootings arrested in Las Vegas, police say

Los Angeles Police Department detectives have arrested a suspect in connection with the shooting deaths of four people in Northridge outside an unlicensed boarding home, department officials confirmed.

Few details were released about the circumstances of the arrest, which took place without incident overnight in Las Vegas, according to several sources familiar with the case. A news conference is planned for later Tuesday.

Police would not immediately identify the suspect, citing the ongoing investigation, but said he was involved in the shooting early Sunday in the 17400 block of Devonshire Street.

Sources said the shooting may have been prompted by a personal dispute, but did not elaborate.

Officers responded to a home about 4:25 a.m. Sunday after a 911 caller reported yelling and shots fired, police said. Authorities found four people — two men and two women — shot dead outside.

No weapon was recovered at the home, prompting police to rule out a murder-suicide.

Three of the victims — a man and two women — were shot on the walkway on the left side of the home, a source familiar with the case told The Times on Monday. They were all wearing hooded sweat shirts and were about two feet apart from one another. All three had at least one bullet wound to the head.

One victim was crumpled on her knees, the source said, her face buried in the palms of her hands, "almost like she was praying." The other two victims on the walkway were face down.

The fourth victim — a man — was farther away and appeared as if he was trying to run to the backyard when he was shot. He had at least one gunshot wound, according to the source.

"It looked like a quick kill," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

The names of the victims have not been released. Police said the women were in their mid-20s; one man was in his mid-30s and the other man in his late 40s.

Authorities said the home was an illegal boardinghouse, with up to 17 people living in conditions that Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander described as "deplorable." The home had so much debris and so many partitions that one room could be accessed only through a window, he said. A trail of extension cords led investigators to the backyard, where several makeshift living quarters had been assembled.

The owner of the home, Yag Kapil, said he rented out rooms but denied he was running a boardinghouse. Kapil, 78, who lives at the home, said he is bedridden and was sleeping at the time of the shootings. He said he didn't hear anything and didn't know the victims.

The slayings stunned the quiet Northridge street, which residents said was the kind where neighbors knew each other and walked to the grocery store or synagogue nearby.

"It's usually sleepy-time America," said Richard Rutherford, 58, who was awakened by the gunfire.
The violent crime rate for Northridge falls in the middle of all Los Angeles neighborhoods, but homicide is rare in the community, according to LAPD data analyzed in The Times' Crime L.A. database. In the previous six months, Northridge had one homicide out of the 89 violent crimes reported.

Since 2007, and before Sunday's quadruple homicide, Northridge had 11 homicides, 10 of them south of Nordhoff Street. The location of Sunday's slayings is on the border with Granada Hills, which typically has a much lower violent-crime rate than Northridge.

Read More..

Is the iPad Mini as Good as the iPad?

The iPad Mini‘s screen doesn’t have the same “resolutionary” Retina display as its bigger brother, but don’t worry: the Apple snobs appear to have gotten over that. After spending time with his new baby-tablet, The New York Times‘s Nick Bilton gave in, calling the gadget his new “Desert Island Device.” (It replaced his iPhone, by the way.) The inferior screen had worried Bilton like it had others, but no longer: ”I used it for two weeks and my concerns about the screen’s quality are completely irrelevant.” It’s not that Bilton prefers the “fuzzy” screen, as he called it. But the portability of the lightweight Mini outweighs that for him, making this tablet, in his opinion, really the best tablet Apple has ever made.

RELATED: Prepare for an iPad Mini This Month

Considering all the fawning over the Retina display on the iPad proper, it’s pretty amazing to see reviewers toss that upgrade for something that Steve Jobs forbid the company to create. Bilton’s not the only one to prefer the new cousin, even if it is technically worse. Noted Apple-phile Jonathan Gruber said he hadn’t touched the fourth-generation iPad that Apple released this year as well “I’ve gone small and fuzzy,” he wrote. When the Retina display first came out, Gruber called it “pure joy” for his “dream iPad.” But a funny thing happened on the way out of the hype cycle: Apple put out something the masses were supposed to like more than the techies, and that just made everyone like it even more. Call it a holiday miracle, but the Apple snobs may be snobs no more.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Fleetwood Mac readies tour and new music

NEW YORK (AP) — Fleetwood Mac is heading back on the road, and that means the top-selling group will release new music — sort of.

On its 34-city North American tour, which kicks off April 4 in Columbus, Ohio, the band will perform two new songs, and it could mean a new album will follow. Or not.

Stevie Nicks recently sang on tracks that Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie worked on, calling the sessions "great." But Nicks also says she's not sure where the band fits in today's music industry.

"Whether or not we're gonna do any more (songs), we don't know because we're so completely bummed out with the state of the music industry and the fact that nobody even wants a full record," she said. "Everybody wants two songs, so we're going to give them two songs."

Nicks said depending on the response to the new tracks — which Buckingham calls "the most Fleetwood Mac-y stuff ... in a long time" — more material could come next.

"Maybe we'll get an EP out of it or something," Buckingham said.

Nicks will continue to record solo albums, though. The group is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the best-selling "Rumours" album, which has moved some 20 million units in the United States. She knows that's not possible again, despite the success of Adele's "21," which has sold 10 million units in America in less than two years.

"This is Adele's 'Rumours,'" Nicks said. "She had a baby, she's going to take a year off to take care of her baby — that's why I never had any kids. She's going to go back and start writing again, you never know what the next record's going to be. Is it going to sell 10 million records? You don't know," she said.

Buckingham said he initially wanted to record a new album, but Nicks "wasn't too into that." But the guitarist and singer knows that new music isn't a priority for the band's fans.

"It wouldn't matter if they didn't hear anything new. In a way there's a freedom to that — it becomes not what you got, but what you do with what you got. Part of the challenge of this tour is figuring out a presentation that has some twists and turns to it without having a full album," he said.

Fleetwood Mac, which was formed in 1967, last released an album in 2003, though they hit the road in 2009. Nicks and Buckingham — who originally joined the band in 1974 as a couple — both released solo albums and toured last year. Buckingham had suggested that Fleetwood Mac tour last year, but says getting everyone to agree was tough.

"If you look at Fleetwood Mac as a group, you can make the case of saying we're a bunch of individuals who don't necessarily belong in the same group together, but it's the synergy of that that makes us so good. But it also makes the politics a little more tenuous," he said. "You can say that not only can it be a political minefield, someone's always causing trouble, right? I caused trouble for years so I can't point any fingers."

The tour also includes cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and will end June 12 in Detroit.

_____

Online:

http://www.fleetwoodmac.com/

You can follow Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at twitter.com/MusicMesfin

Read More..

Sign Language Researchers Broaden Science Lexicon

Imagine trying to learn biology without ever using the word “organism.” Or studying to become a botanist when the only way of referring to photosynthesis is to spell the word out, letter by painstaking letter.

For deaf students, this game of scientific Password has long been the daily classroom and laboratory experience. Words like “organism” and “photosynthesis” — to say nothing of more obscure and harder-to-spell terms — have no single widely accepted equivalent in sign language. This means that deaf students and their teachers and interpreters must improvise, making it that much harder for the students to excel in science and pursue careers in it.

“Often times, it would involve a lot of finger-spelling and a lot of improvisation,” said Matthew Schwerin, a physicist with the Food and Drug Administration who is deaf, of his years in school. “For the majority of scientific terms,” Mr. Schwerin and his interpreter for the day would “try to find a correct sign for the term, and if nothing was pre-existing, we would come up with a sign that was agreeable with both parties.”

Now thanks to the Internet — particularly the boom in online video — resources for deaf students seeking science-related signs are easier to find and share. Crowdsourcing projects in both American Sign Language and British Sign Language are under way at several universities, enabling people who are deaf to coalesce around signs for commonly used terms.

This year, one of those resources, the Scottish Sensory Centre’s British Sign Language Glossary Project, added 116 new signs for physics and engineering terms, including signs for “light-year,”  (hold one hand up and spread the fingers downward for “light,” then bring both hands together in front of your chest and slowly move them apart for “year”), “mass” and “X-ray” (form an X with your index fingers, then, with the index finger on the right hand, point outward). 

The signs were developed by a team of researchers at the center, a division of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland that develops learning tools for students with visual and auditory impairments. The researchers spent more than a year soliciting ideas from deaf science workers, circulating lists of potential signs and ultimately gathering for “an intense weekend” of final voting, said Audrey Cameron, science adviser for the project. (Dr. Cameron is also deaf, and like all non-hearing people interviewed for this article, answered questions via e-mail.)

Whether the Scottish Sensory Centre’s signs will take hold among its audience remains to be seen. “Some will be adopted, and some will probably never be accepted,” Dr. Cameron said. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Ideally, the standardization of signs will make it easier for deaf students to keep pace with their hearing classmates during lectures. “I can only choose to look at one thing at a time,” said Mr. Schwerin of the F.D.A., recalling his science education, “and it often meant choosing between the interpreter, the blackboard/screen/material, or taking notes. It was like, pick one, and lose out on the others.”

The problem doesn’t end at graduation. In fact, it only intensifies as new discoveries add unfamiliar terms to the scientific lexicon. “I’ve had numerous meetings where I couldn’t participate properly because the interpreters were not able to understand the jargon and they did not know any scientific signs,” Dr. Cameron said.

One general complaint about efforts to standardize signs for technical terms is the idea that, much like spoken language, sign language should be allowed to develop organically rather than be dictated from above.

“Signs that are developed naturally — i.e., that are tested and refined in everyday conversation — are more likely to be accepted quickly by the community,” said Derek Braun, director of the molecular genetics laboratory at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which he said was the first biological laboratory designed and administered by deaf scientists.

Since at least the 1970s, deaf scientists have tried to address the lack of uniformity by gathering common signs for scientific terms in printed manuals and on videotapes. The problem has always been getting deaf students and their interpreters to adopt them.

Often, at science conferences, “local interpreters that we never met before would often use different signs for the same terms, leading to confusion,” said Caroline Solomon, a biology professor at Gallaudet University who is deaf.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 4, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the origin of the ASL-STEM Forum.  It was developed by researchers at the University of Washington, not Gallaudet University.  Researchers at Gallaudet and the National Institute for the Deaf work with the University of Washington to provide content and help the forum grow.

Read More..

Stocks little changed as budget talks continue

Stocks were little changed Wall Street in midday trading Tuesday as budget talks continued in Washington.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 18 points to 12,986 as of noon Eastern. The Standard and Poor's 500 was down one point at 1,408. The Nasdaq composite was down nine points at 2,992.

Investors are waiting on developments from Washington in the budget talks aimed at avoiding the “fiscal cliff,” a series of sharp government spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to start Jan. 1 unless an agreement is reached to cut the budget deficit. The measures, if implemented, could push the U.S. into recession, economists say.

Republicans, led by House Speaker John Boehner, have balked at President Barack Obama's proposal of $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade, a possible extension of the temporary Social Security payroll tax cut and heightened presidential power to raise the national debt limit. The GOP on Monday proposed its own 10-year blueprint to President Barack Obama that calls for increasing the eligibility age for Medicare and lowering cost-of-living increases for Social Security benefits.

“Politicians are doing their negotiating dance. They both start out on their extreme positions. The question is how long until they get into the middle,” said Rex Macey, Chief Investment Officer at Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors, in Atlanta. “The markets have discounted the information, so we're not seeing much movement.”

Among stocks making big moves, Darden Restaurants fell $5.19 to $47.23 after the owner of the Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse restaurant chains revised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2013. Separately, analysts at Credit Suisse said that restaurant goers would “quickly lose their appetite,” if the U.S. went over the “cliff,” because the job cuts that would likely follow would curb discretionary spending.

Bill Gross, the managing director of fund manager PIMCO, told investors in his regular newsletter that they should expect annualized bond returns of 3 to 4 percent at best in the future and equity returns that are “only a few percentage points higher.” The S&P 500 index has risen 12 percent so far this year. High debt levels and slowing global growth will weigh on the economy, Gross said.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell 1 basis point to 1.61 percent.

Other stocks making big moves;

— Big Lots gained $2.23 to $30.28 after the discount retailer reported a loss that wasn't as bad as analysts had forecast. The company also raised its full-year earnings forecast.

— Pep Boys fell $1.33 to $9.35 after posting a loss on weak sales at the company's auto stores and reporting rising costs.

— MetroPCS fell 79 cents to $9.98 after Reuters reported that Sprint isn't currently considering making a counter offer for the cellphone business. MetroPCS and T-Mobile said in October that they had agreed to combine their businesses.

Read More..