Hugh Hefner's Engagement Ring to Crystal Harris Revealed















12/11/2012 at 07:00 PM EST



The wedding's back on – though it may be a good idea to save that gift receipt.

Hugh Hefner, 86, officially confirms that he is once again engaged to Crystal Harris, 26, telling his Twitter followers, "I've given Crystal Harris a ring. I love the girl."

And to prove it, Harris posted photos of the big diamond sparkler, calling it "my beautiful ring."

Neither announced a wedding date, though sources tell PEOPLE they're planning to tie the knot at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve.

Whether that still happens remains to be seen.

This is the plan they had in 2011 – a wedding at the mansion – except that Harris called it off just days before the nuptials were scheduled to happen in front of 300 invited guests.

Hugh Hefner's Engagement Ring to Crystal Harris Revealed| Engagements, Crystal Harris, Hugh Hefner

Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris

David Livingston / Getty

The onetime Playmate of the Month then ripped Hef's bedroom skills, calling him a two-second man, to which Hefner replied, "I missed a bullet" by not marrying her.

A year later, Hefner's "runaway bunny" bounded back to him.

Reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency


AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.


No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.


That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.


"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.


Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.


His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."


Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.


Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.


Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.


"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.


Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.


Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.


Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.


The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.


"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.


Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.


Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.


Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.


Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.


Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.


"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.


Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.


___


Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber


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Asian shares hit new highs, Fed outcome pressures dollar

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Wednesday buoyed by strength in global equities markets, hopes of a deal from U.S. budget talks and expectations for more stimulus from the Federal Reserve when it ends its two-day policy meeting later in the day.


Oil, copper and gold prices were also underpinned while the dollar remained broadly pressured, but the yen weakened against the dollar on expectations the Bank of Japan will take additional easing steps at its policy meeting next week.


European shares were expected to climb, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> will open as much as 0.4 percent higher. But a 0.1 percent drop in U.S. stock futures hinted at a soft Wall Street open. <.l><.eu><.n/>


MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> gained 0.5 percent to a 16-month peak. The index has hit successive 16-month highs since December 5.


Australian shares <.axjo> were up 0.2 after touching a nearly 17-month peak, as higher commodities prices lifted the resources sector.


London copper steadied at $8,103.50 a metric ton (1.1023 tons), near two-month highs, while spot gold inched up 0.1 percent to $1,710.65 an ounce. U.S. crude futures were little changed at $85.81 a barrel and Brent rose 0.2 percent to $108.25.


"No doubt about it, the liquidity from the U.S. Fed is a good driver for prices," said Henry Liu, head of commodity research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong, adding that copper is also supported by a recovery in China and the United States.


While mainland markets remained sluggish, Hong Kong shares <.hsi> rose to a 16-month high, underpinned by foreign investors' optimism on China.


In China, "it's tough to get a clear picture of what's happening on the ground but you can infer that domestic investors remain relatively pessimistic," a Hong Kong-based fund manager said.


South Korean shares <.ks11> added 0.6 percent, shrugging off news that North Korea launched the second rocket this year earlier on Wednesday.


Japan's Nikkei share average <.n225> rose 0.6 percent to end at its highest in nearly eight months, led by gains in tech shares and other exporters on the weak yen. <.t/>


The euro popped back above $1.3000, pulling away from a two-week low of $1.2876 plumbed on Friday.


The Fed is expected to announce a fresh round of bond buying as part of its efforts to support a fragile economic recovery threatened by political wrangling over the government's budget. The central bank looks certain both to extend its purchases of mortgage-backed debt and replace another expiring stimulus program with a new bout of money creation.


Against the yen, the dollar rose 0.2 percent to 82.65 yen.


Data on Wednesday showed Japan's core machinery orders rose 2.6 percent in October from the previous month, up for the first time in three months but below a 3 percent rise forecast, highlighting how uncertainty over the global outlook continued to weigh on business investment and the broader economy.


India's industrial production, in contrast, soared by 8.2 percent in October from a year earlier, government data showed on Wednesday, well above a 4.5 percent rise forecast.


Investors also closely followed developments in U.S. budget talks to avert the "fiscal cliff," some $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to start in January, which economists have warned could send the U.S. economy into recession and drag down the fragile global economy.


Negotiations to avert the "fiscal cliff" ahead of a year-end deadline intensified as President Barack Obama and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner spoke by phone on Tuesday after exchanging new proposals, in a possible sign of progress ahead of the end-of-year deadline [ID:nL1E8NB6UF]


A group of high-profile chief executives urged President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders on Tuesday to strike a deal, reflecting mounting urgency to resolve the issue with time running out.


"Definitely the momentum is to the upside," said Stan Shamu, a market analyst at IG Markets. "Everyone seems to be pricing in a fairly positive outcome to the fiscal cliff negotiations as well."


(Additional reporting by Maggie Lu Yueyang in Canberra and Vikram Subhedar in Hong Kong and Melanie Burton in Singapore; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)



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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Dec. 12

NEWS North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Wednesday morning that appeared to reach as far as the Philippines, an apparent success for the country’s young and untested new leader, Kim Jong-un, and a step toward the nation’s goal of mastering the technology needed to build an intercontinental ballistic missile. Choe Sang-hun reports from Seoul, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

Soldiers carried out a late-night arrest of Mali’s prime minister at his home in Bamako, forcing his resignation early Tuesday and casting new doubt on plans to chase out radical Islamists who control much of this troubled West African nation. Adam Nossiter reports from Bamako.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted a uniform patent system for Europe. If the plan goes into effect as expected by early 2014, it would try to remedy the country-by-country approach whose time and costs have long been an impediment to innovation across the European Union. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

The competing business dealings of former high-ranking United States officials in Kosovo may present a special ethical quandary. So many former American officials have returned to Kosovo for business — in coal and telecommunications, or for lobbying and other lucrative government contracts — that it is hard to keep them from colliding. Matthew Brunwasser reports from Pristina, Kosovo.

According to the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, an independent Scotland would have to apply for membership in the European Union. Stephen Castle reports from London.

Three weeks into an impasse over who won a leadership vote in France’s center-right opposition party, François Fillon — who was declared the loser, though he has refused to concede — proposed on Tuesday that a new election be held next spring in which he most likely would not run. Nicola Clark reports from Paris.

ARTS An all-female version of “Julius Caesar” in at the Donmar Warehouse packs a believable wallop, while two other London shows stretch credibility to breaking point and beyond. Matt Wolf on theater.

A disappointing and oddly chosen “Lohengrin’’ opens the season at La Scala, while in Rome, a fine Verdi opera is presented in regal style by Riccardo Muti. George Loomis reviews.

SPORTS There would be lots of hurdles if the 2020 European Championship soccer tournament were to be expanded to six host countries, but previous events have shown that soccer is capable of overcoming such challenges. Rob Hughes reports from London.

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Panasonic may sell Sanyo digital camera business: source






TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp may sell its Sanyo digital camera business to Japanese private equity fund Advantage Partners by the end of March, a source familiar with the plan said.


A final decision on the sale will be made by the end of the year, the source said on condition he was not identified.






Advantage Partners will pay several hundreds of millions of yen for the business, which makes digital cameras for other companies, including Olympus Corp, the Nikkei business daily reported earlier.


Panasonic declined to comment saying it had not announced the plan.


The Japanese company aims to sell 110 billion yen ($ 1.34 billion) of assets, including buildings and land by the end of March to boost free cashflow to 200 billion yen for the business year. The company expects an annual net loss of close to $ 10 billion as it writes off billions in deferred tax assets and goodwill.


Panasonic acquired rival Sanyo, a leading maker of lithium ion batteries and solar panels, in 2010. Sales of compact digital cameras are under pressure from increasingly powerful smartphones.


Panasonic’s shares gained as much as 4 percent in early trading in Tokyo, compared with a 0.5 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index. ($ 1 = 82.3900 Japanese yen)


(Reporting by Reiji Murai; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Hayden Panettiere Splits with Scotty McKnight















12/10/2012 at 07:50 PM EST







Hayden Panettiere and Scotty McKnight


Splash News Online


Is there a tear in her beer?

Nashville star Hayden Panettiere has broken up with her boyfriend of more than a year, New York Jets wide receiver Scotty McKnight, a source confirms to PEOPLE.

But the split doesn't appear to be the stuff of a sad country song. The actress, 23, is still friends with McKnight, 24, and one source tells TMZ that their pals wouldn't be surprised if they got back together.

This is Panettiere's second go at a relationship with an athlete. Before dating McKnight she was with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko for about two years.
Julie Jordan

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Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law


WASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.


The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.


Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a "sleeper issue" with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.


"Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, (companies will) be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it," said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.


Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.


The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.


Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.


The program "is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all," the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to "contributions" without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.


Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.


The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama's expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000. People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.


But the insurance fee had been overlooked as employers focused on other costs in the law, including fines for medium and large firms that don't provide coverage.


"This kind of came out of the blue and was a surprisingly large amount," said Gretchen Young, senior vice president for health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a group that represents large employers on benefits issues.


Word started getting out in the spring, said Young, but hard cost estimates surfaced only recently with the new regulation. It set the per capita rate at $5.25 per month, which works out to $63 a year.


America's Health Insurance Plans, the major industry trade group for health insurers, says the fund is an important program that will help stabilize the market and mitigate cost increases for consumers as the changes in Obama's law take effect.


But employers already offering coverage to their workers don't see why they have to pony up for the stabilization fund, which mainly helps the individual insurance market. The redistribution puts the biggest companies on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.


"It just adds on to everything else that is expected to increase health care costs," said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.


The fee will be assessed on all "major medical" insurance plans, including those provided by employers and those purchased individually by consumers. Large employers will owe the fee directly. That's because major companies usually pay upfront for most of the health care costs of their employees. It may not be apparent to workers, but the insurance company they deal with is basically an agent administering the plan for their employer.


The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.


It will phase out completely in 2017 — unless Congress, with lawmakers searching everywhere for revenue to reduce federal deficits — decides to extend it.


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Asia shares up despite Fed uncertainty, fiscal fears

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares edged up to a 16-month high on Tuesday and the euro firmed, but prices were capped as investors waited for the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy decision this week and any progress in U.S. budget talks.


European shares were likely to crawl higher too, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> will open as much as 0.3 percent higher. But a 0.2 percent drop in U.S. stock futures hinted at a soft Wall Street open. <.l><.eu><.n/>


MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> nudged up 0.3 percent to a 16-month high. The index has hit successive 16-month highs since December 5.


Australian shares <.axjo> gained 0.4 percent to a seven-week high, supported by higher commodities prices on bets that the Fed will adopt fresh economic stimulus measures.


"It seems the Christmas rally (in commodities prices) is about getting ahead of the FOMC meeting and staying ahead of any potential Chinese stimulus early next year," said Ben Taylor, sales trader at CMC Markets.


Hong Kong shares <.hsi> added 0.2 percent, after earlier hitting a 16-month high. Shanghai shares <.ssec> were little changed as investors turned cautious ahead of the Fed and also took profits from Monday's rally, partly in response to data showing China's banks lent more slowly than expected in November and the pace of total financing eased.


Japan's Nikkei share average <.n225> was the region's laggard, closing down 0.1 percent but staying above a key 9,500 level. Investors booked profits on signs that the market is overbought after a 10 percent rally in the past month. <.t/>


"The 9,500-level is still an important psychological line for both support and resistance purposes," said Yutaka Miura, a senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities.


After a two-day meeting ending Wednesday, the Fed is expected to announce it will buy $45 billion per month of longer-dated Treasuries beginning in January on top of the $40 billion in mortgage-backed security purchases it announced in September. The new buying will replace the Fed's current program, Operation Twist, which expires at the end of December.


Under Operation Twist, the Fed sells shorter-dated U.S. government debt and buys longer-dated Treasuries to extend the duration of its balance sheet.


The prospects of Fed stimulus weighed on the dollar and helped to underpin the euro, which traded up 0.1 percent at $1.2956, following a Monday low of $1.2880.


The dollar steadied at 82.32 yen. The yen has also been pressured by expectations for more easing from the Bank of Japan, which meets next week.


The euro rose from Monday's lows after Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti played down market fears over his decision to resign. He said there was no danger of a vacuum ahead of an election in the spring.


"I think people at this point are not sure whether there really will be the risk of Italy not pursuing its fiscal reforms pursued under Monti. So it's hard to really price that news in yet," said Takao Hattori, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo.


FISCAL WORRIES


European partners urged the next Italian government on Monday to stick to Monti's reform agenda, after his decision to resign early and Silvio Berlusconi's return to frontline politics rattled financial markets.


Monti had earned market confidence over the past year in indebted Italy, as he spearheaded a reform agenda to rescue the euro zone's third-largest economy from the threat of a Greek-style collapse.


The prospects that Italy's reform agenda could move off track in the absence of Monti at the helm have weighed on markets. Investors also worry about the impact on neighboring Spain, which is struggling with high debt and studying the need for outside help.


Economists have warned that a failure by the U.S. Congress to avert the "fiscal cliff," some $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to start in January, could send the economy into recession and weigh on the fragile global economy.


The White House and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's office held more negotiations on Monday on ways to break the budget stalemate. The talks picked up pace after Boehner met with President Barack Obama on Sunday, raising hopes of progress.


U.S. crude futures inched up 0.1 percent to $85.65 a barrel and Brent also rose 0.1 percent to $107.40.


(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo and Victoria Thieberger in Melbourne; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)



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Euro Watch: Bonds in Spain and Italy Shaken by Italian Politics





ROME — Italian stock and bond prices fell on Monday after a weekend of political turmoil in Italy gave rise to fears that the country was headed for renewed instability.




Shares of Italian banks, which are big holders of the government’s bonds, were among the hardest hit.


The action occurred in the first day of trading after Prime Minister Mario Monti said over the weekend that he would soon step down after his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, withdrew his party’s support from Mr. Monti and said he would again seek election as prime minister.


Mr. Berlusconi, who was elected prime minister three times, left office a year ago as markets pushed Italy to the brink of financial collapse. Mr. Monti, an economist who was appointed as his temporary successor, has restored Italy’s credibility with investors, who have given the country a break on its borrowing costs. But those gains have come at the cost of painful austerity measures that have worsened the country’s economic situation and given Mr. Berlusconi an opening to attack.


The Milan benchmark index, MIB, fell more than 2 percent on Monday. Italian banks, which remain sensitive to declines in the country’s bond prices, were among the big losers. Intesa Sanpaolo, the most active stock, fell 5.2 percent, as did UniCredit.


Mr. Monti, who joined other leaders in Oslo on Monday to receive the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the European Union, said at a news conference that the market reactions “need not be dramatized.”


“I am confident,” he said, that the Italian elections would result in a government “that will be responsible and oriented toward the E.U. and this will be in line with efforts the Italian government has made so far.”


The decline in bond prices sent their yields, or interest rates, higher — an indicator of the Italian government’s borrowing costs. The spread between interest rates on Italian 10-year sovereign bonds and equivalent German securities, the European benchmark for safety, grew to 3.5 percentage points on Monday. That was up from 3.25 percentage points late Friday, suggesting that investors were growing more wary of holding Italian debt.


The yield on Italian 10-year bonds, which breached 7 percent this year, ended trading on Monday at 4.8 percent, up 29 basis points. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percent.


Bonds of Spain, which is the other big economy of concern in the euro zone, also came under renewed pressure on Monday after Mr. Monti’s announcement.


The spread between Spanish 10-year bonds and equivalent German bonds widened to 4.27 percentage points from 4.16 points on Friday. The yield on the benchmark Spanish 10-year rose 10 basis points, to 5.5 percent; it reached 7.1 percent in July amid concerns that Spain would be forced into a full bailout after having to negotiate a 100 billion euro, or $129 billion, rescue package for its banks in June.


Luis de Guindos, the Spanish economy minister, warned that Italy’s political turmoil would affect his country.


“When doubts emerge over the stability of a neighboring country like Italy, which is also seen as vulnerable, there’s an immediate contagion for us,” he said Monday morning on Spanish national radio.


Asked whether Spain would itself seek further European rescue funding, he instead said, “The help that Spain needs is that the doubts over the future of the euro be removed.”


Speaking before the Nobel ceremony on Monday, the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, said Italy must “continue on the road of structural reforms.” The elections, Mr. Barroso said on Sky News, “must not be used to postpone reforms.”


A dismal economic report on Monday served as a reminder that despite Mr. Monti’s success with investors, the real economy continues to suffer. Italian industrial production fell a seasonally adjusted 1.1 percent in October from September, and by 6.2 percent from a year earlier, Istat, the national statistics agency, said.


Some analysts said they thought that Mr. Berlusconi’s re-emergence as a political leader was as responsible for unnerving investors as Mr. Monti’s unexpected decision to resign. Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, a research firm, wrote on Monday in a note that Mr. Berlusconi remained “the boogeyman of investors,” who “epitomizes the dysfunctional nature of Italian politics.”


Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was to meet on Monday with Mr. Monti on the sidelines of the Nobel ceremony, said Georg Streiter, a spokesman for the chancellor.


Ms. Merkel pushed to have Mr. Monti succeed Mr. Berlusconi. But she ended up facing Mr. Monti’s own ideas for economic change, which focused more on growth and job creation than on the austere fiscal discipline championed by Ms. Merkel.


As a rule, the German government does not comment on its partners’ domestic politics, but Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned that an attempt to scale back Italy’s reform push could result in further destabilization in the euro zone.


“Italy cannot remain stagnant on two-thirds of its reform process,” Mr. Westerwelle said through a spokesman. “This would throw not only Italy but the rest of Europe into turbulence.”


Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Rome and David Jolly from Paris. Raphael Minder contributed reporting from Madrid and Melissa Eddy from Berlin.



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Google’s Gmail service suffers disruption






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Several Google Inc Web products, including the popular Gmail service, appeared to go dark for users on several continents on Monday.


Google confirmed that “service disruptions” had affected Gmail and Google Drive, its online storage service. The two products are part of Google’s Apps suite, a Microsoft Office rival that caters to both consumers and businesses.






By 10:10 a.m. Pacific Time (1.10 p.m. EST), Google’s Apps Dashboard monitoring service reported that Gmail and Drive service had resumed. The company did not specify how many users were affected, or where, but the outage prompted widespread complaints on social media on both coasts in the U.S. and other major markets, from the United Kingdom to Brazil.


Some users additionally reported that the outage had affected Google Docs, the company’s word-processing and spreadsheet programs, while Chrome, Google’s Internet browser, also crashed unexpectedly.


“We are currently experiencing an issue with some Google services,” Google spokeswoman Andrea Freund said in a statement. “For everyone who is affected, we apologize for any inconvenience you may be experiencing.”


Firmly entrenched in the consumer market, Gmail is one of Google’s most popular and important product offerings. The search giant, which has been pushing a corporate version of the email service and its Apps suite to businesses to compete with Microsoft, said this month that the package will no longer be free to business customers.


(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Andrew Hay and Nick Zieminski)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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