Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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Immigration Arrests Lead to Online Outcry, and Release

PHOENIX — Immigration agents arrested the mother and brother of a prominent activist during a raid at her home here late Thursday, unleashing a vigorous response on social media and focusing new attention on one of the most controversial aspects of the Obama administration’s policies on deportation.

The agents knocked on Erika Andiola’s door shortly after 9 p.m., asking for her mother, Maria Arreola.

Ms. Arreola had been stopped by the police in nearby Mesa last year and detained for driving without a license. Her fingerprints were sent to federal immigration officials as part of a controversial program called Secure Communities, which the Obama administration has been trying to expand nationwide.

That routine check revealed that Ms. Arreola had been returned to Mexico in 1998 after she was caught trying to illegally cross the border into Arizona with Erika and two of her siblings in tow. As a result, she was placed on a priority list for deportation.

After being seized on Thursday, she could have been sent back to Mexico in a matter of hours, but Obama administration officials moved quickly to undo the arrests. Officials had been pressured by the robust response from advocates — through phone calls, e-mails and online petitions, but primarily on Twitter, where they mobilized support for Ms. Andiola, a well-known advocate for young illegal immigrants, under the hashtag #WeAreAndiola.

The reaction offered the Obama administration a taste of what it might expect when it gets into the thick of the debate over an immigration overhaul, which Congress is expected to tackle this year. President Obama has already been under harsh criticism for the number of illegal immigrants deported since he took office — roughly 400,000 each year, a record unmatched since the 1950s.

Ms. Andiola, 25, posted a tearful video on YouTube shortly after her mother and brother were handcuffed and driven away. “I need everybody to stop pretending that nothing is wrong,” she said in the video, “stop pretending that we’re all just living normal lives, because we’re not. This could happen to any of us anytime.”

She is the co-founder of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, one of the groups pushing for a reprieve for immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, as she was. She has been arrested while camped in front of Senator John McCain’s office here, protested outside the United States Capitol, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in June under the headline, “We are Americans — just not legally.”

In November, Ms. Andiola got a work permit under a program begun by the Obama administration last year that gives certain young illegal immigrants temporary reprieve from deportation. She graduated from Arizona State University in 2009.

On Friday afternoon, her mother returned home from a detention center in Florence, 70 miles southeast of Phoenix and usually the last stop for certain illegal immigrants before they are deported. Her brother, Heriberto Andiola Arreola, 36, who had been kept in Phoenix, was let go earlier, at 6 a.m.

Their swift releases underline the power of the youth-immigrant movement and their social media activism, which was critical in spreading Ms. Andiola’s story overnight.

In a statement, Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a preliminary review of the case revealed that it contains some of the elements outlined in the agency’s “prosecutorial discretion policy” and would “merit an exercise of discretion.” Advocates have long argued that the policy has done little to keep families from being broken apart by deportations.

Ms. Andiola said in an interview that she told her mother to go to her room before opening the door Thursday night; she suspected the men standing outside worked for immigration. By the time the men came in, her brother, who was outside talking to a neighbor, was already in handcuffs, she said.

“Where’s Maria?” the men asked her, she recalled.

Ms. Arreola walked out of the room and, in Spanish, the men asked her to accompany them outside, where they placed her under arrest.

Though she and her son are free, their future is uncertain, as they could be arrested again while their cases are under review or deported should the eventual ruling go against them, said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups helping the family.

Stories like this, Ms. Hincapié went on, “happen every day, in every state,” outside of the media spotlight. What made it different this time is that Ms. Andiola had connections and wasted no time mobilizing them. There are others, she said, whom “you never hear about.”

Julia Preston contributed reporting from New York.

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Why We Hate the Word ‘Phablet’ So Much

It appears we have reached Peak Phablet — and not just because sales are up and the big-screen cellphones were all over the Consumer Electronics Show this week. No, we have also reached Peak “Phablet” — the term for the popular (and quite awkward) devices has also this week been called ”horrible,” “stupid,” and ”worst word of the year” (to which we’re about two weeks in). The name itself has become as popular to loathe as the gadgets have to buy. Even linguists says so:

RELATED: Smackdown: Is There a Right Way to Speak English?

Problem No. 1: A Poor Blend

RELATED: Exploring the Character of a Bad Word

“A satisfying blend is derived from two words that overlap in their sounds, such as motor+hotel = motel, where the ‘o’ is shared,” University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Gene Buckley wrote to us Friday. “But phone and tablet don’t share any sounds at all, so that might be why it sounds clumsy.”

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Problem No. 2: A Bad “ph” Scale

RELATED: The Evolution of the Emoticon

English words generally use “ph” as eff for words from Greek origin, Ben Zimmer explained today in his Word Routes column. Now “phablet” obviously isn’t Greek, but the Greek words it conjures sound kind of gross, Stanford linguistics PhD candidate Lelia Glass told us; a lot of “ph” words followed by the letter “a” happen to be body parts — ”like ‘phallus’ and ‘phalanges,’ which perhaps grosses people out,” Glass said.

RELATED: Auto-Correct Is Not Ruining Spelling

Zimmer has a different theory. “Phablet” isn’t the first non-Greek word we’ve made up with a “ph” making an eff sound, but unlike other modern word innovations — like “phat” — it doesn’t have a sense of humor, or at least not a very good one. Zimmer wrote to The Atlantic Wire:

Historically, “ph” has represented the /f/ sound only in words of Greek origin, and extensions of that spelling have been made playfully — think of the Phillie Phanatic, or “phat” in hiphop usage. In the tech world, “phreak(ing)” led the way (with the “ph-” from “phone”), and then other playful respellings such as “phishing” followed suit. But in “phablet” the “ph-” on its own isn’t really enough to suggest the “phone” component of the blend, so it ends up looking like a silly version of “fablet” (a fabulous tablet?). Of course, when the word is spoken, the connection to the “ph-” of “phone” is lost entirely.

Yes, those macho tech writers would not find a fab tablet very funny — it makes their manly gadgets sound wussy. Glass notes that the suffix “-et” or “-ette” is often used to signify cute/little things, which give “phablet“ another strike against manliness. 

Problem No. 3: A Bad Subconscious 

Face it, Zimmer adds: “Phablet” sounds too much like “flab” and “phlegm” and other words that remind us of things we don’t like. But, as we’ve noted, phablets look kind of awkward when you hold them up to your ear, despite their many other benefits. An ugly word for an ugly product, no?

Problem No. 4: A Thing Thing

Glass says we might just have “thing discrimination,” with everyone disliking the term because it represents the coming of a gadget of which they don’t approve. The techies seem to have it out for the big phones, even as people are buying them. 

Problem No. 5: A Pure Hatred

“Ultimately, such word aversion is rather arbitrary (look at the hostility against “moist,” for instance),” Zimmer told us. “Some people have a big problem with another techie blend, ‘webinar,’ but that one seems completely innocuous to me.”  

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Audrey Hepburn: Remembering the Private Legend

By Elizabeth McNeil

01/10/2013 at 07:35 PM EST

Audrey Hepburn with her son, Luca Dotti, in 1985

Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund

She captivated the world with her doe-eyed beauty, but behind the Givenchy glamour, there was an Audrey Hepburn few people knew.

She thought her nose too big, her feet too large and her neck too long. She loved to shop for groceries (but not clothes), didn't wear makeup at home, never went to the gym and enjoyed two fingers of Scotch every night. 

"She was not this ethereal creature," says Robert Wolders, 76, the Dutch actor who was her companion for the last 13 years of her life. "She was an earthy woman with a ribald sense of humor."

What Hepburn had, adds Wolders, "was more than beauty. It was this extraordinary mystique."

Hepburn left Hollywood at age 34 at the height of her fame, moving into a 1732 farmhouse in Tolochenaz, a small Swiss village, where she found happiness raising two sons and purpose in her charity work for UNICEF. 

Two decades after her death from abdominal cancer at 63 on Jan. 20, 1993, her children and her last love remember the Audrey they adored. 

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Flu season strikes early and, in some places, hard

NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.

Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.

While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30 of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.

Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.

"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say. It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people sicker and really lay them low.

David Smythe of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even get up," he said.

Also, the flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.

"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.

Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.

"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.

The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.

One hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.

On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by people with flu-like symptoms.

All the flu activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line with what's been seen in other years.

The vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.

In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years. She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.

But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.

Europe is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has seen a surge in cases of norovirus.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. That's an estimate — the agency does not keep a running tally of adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so far.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.

___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.

___

Online:

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

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Asian shares, Brent retreat after China CPI; yen slides

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares and Brent crude futures fell on Friday as a pick-up in Chinese inflation prompted profit-taking, although an improving outlook for global economies curbed losses, while the yen slid on renewed expectations for bold monetary easing in Japan.

China's annual consumer inflation rate accelerated to a seven-month high of 2.5 percent in December on rising food prices, narrowing the scope for the central bank to boost the economy by easing monetary policy. The producer price index fell 1.9 percent in December from a year earlier, marking the 10th consecutive month of declines, but improved from November's 2.2 percent annual drop.

Brent crude futures fell 0.4 percent to $111.50 a barrel and U.S. crude trimmed earlier rises to trade nearly flat at 93.86.

"China's inflation was hotter than expected which might add a little bit of downside risk and some investors may be cashing in profits," said Ben Le Brun, market analyst at OptionsXpress.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> eased 0.2 percent, erasing morning gains that brought the index near its highest level since August 2011 hit last week. The index looked set to end the week virtually flat after starting the first week of 2013 with a 2.4 percent jump.

Shanghai shares <.ssec> tumbled 1.3 percent, dragging Hong Kong shares <.hsi> into negative territory, while Australian shares <.axjo> ended down 0.3 percent.

"It's not the end of the world. We have been trending in overbought territory for more than a week anyway, so this higher headline inflation is a trigger for some profit-taking. We are in a consolidation phase," said Hong Hao, Bank of Communication International's chief equity strategist, based in Hong Kong.

Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo, said the China inflation data offered some positive signs but, given the market's rapid rally over the past month, it was probably used as an excuse to book profits.

"The slight pickup in inflation is still well below the 3.5 percent forecast by China, and may also reflect recovery in consumption," he said, adding that the data was unlikely to significantly dent an overall trend in improving risk appetite.

Unexpectedly strong Chinese trade data on Thursday buoyed hopes that demand from the world's second-largest economy will rise, while cautiously optimistic comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi eased anxiety over the euro zone debt problems.

European markets will likely sustain optimism. Financial spread-betters predicted London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open as much as 0.3 percent higher. U.S. stock futures were little changed, hinting at steady Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>

EPFR Global noted that equity mutual funds have brought in $6.8 billion of inflows over the last four business days, with equity flows exceeding bond flows.

In a sign of some stability, South Korea's central bank held interest rates steady for a third consecutive month on Friday as expected, to assess the effect from two cuts last year. However, the bank also revised down its outlook for South Korea's GDP growth in 2013 to 2.8 percent from 3.2 percent, which along with a sharp rise in the won hurt Seoul shares.

ABE FUELS NIKKEI BUYING

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> closed up 1.4 percent at a 23-month high as the yen's further slide boosted exporters. Japanese financial markets will be closed on Monday for a public holiday. <.t/>

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "is seen seriously committed to making the economy better as he is becoming more detailed, and investors are feeling it is possible under his government," said Kyoya Okazawa, head of global equities at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.

Japan's cabinet approved on Friday an economic stimulus package in the biggest spending boost since the financial crisis as Abe pursues an ambitious agenda to spur growth and end stubborn deflation.

The dollar jumped to 89.35 yen, its highest since June 2010, on strengthening speculation Abe will exert strong pressure on the Bank of Japan to pursue aggressive easing steps. Abe said in an interview with the Nikkei newspaper on Friday that the BOJ should consider maximizing employment as a monetary policy goal to help boost the economy.

The euro surged to 118.58 yen, its highest since May 2011.

The yen selling gained momentum after data on Friday showed Japan had logged a current account deficit in November for the first time in 10 months at 222.4 billion yen ($2.5 billion), overshooting a 3.5 billion yen deficit forecast.

"Fresh short-term players, who know nothing about Japan and have never traded the yen before, are now joining the yen selling, and these fresh faces are responding to headlines," said Yunosuke Ikeda, a senior FX strategist at Nomura Securities.

The euro was last at $1.3261 after earlier hitting a one-week high of $1.3280, helped by a smooth first bond sale of the year from Spain on Thursday, which pushed benchmark 10-year Spanish government bond yields to a 10-month low of 4.90 percent.

As the yen fell, Tokyo gold futures rallied to a record high on Friday to as high as 4,820 yen per gram, exceeding the previous record of 4,754 yen marked on September 7, 2011.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo, Clement Tan in Hong Kong and Ramya Venugopal in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Paul Tait and Chris Gallagher)

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India Ink: Lessons From India: How to Promote the Polio Vaccine in Pakistan

India currently is observing a significant public health milestone: two full years without a new case of poliomyelitis, the paralyzing and sometimes deadly virus that has robbed so many millions of our children of productive futures.

The last reported polio case – a young girl in West Bengal – was recorded on Jan. 13, 2011. In February 2012, the World Health Organization removed India from the list of polio-endemic countries, a historic achievement given that until very recently, India was considered the epicenter of the disease and had been predicted to be the last country to stop polio.

Today, the wild polio virus circulates in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and our neighbor, Pakistan, where the polio eradication campaign has been in the news lately, but, unfortunately, not because of the impressive 65 percent reduction in cases Pakistan has achieved since 2011. Sadly, the news out of Pakistan has focused on a recent spate of violence targeting polio vaccinators, the dedicated army of health workers and volunteers who go door-to-door to reach the most at-risk children with the oral polio vaccine. Their dedication and hard work are largely responsible for the tremendous progress in the war against polio, with only 218 cases reported worldwide so far in 2012,  a record low, down from 350,000 cases a year in the 1980s.

During December’s sub-national immunization days in Pakistan, nine frontline health workers, six of them women, were shot and killed. The media have linked the violence to lingering suspicions within some segments of the Muslim community that polio eradication is some sort of Western conspiracy to sicken or sterilize Muslim children.

Cultural misconceptions are one of many challenges we face as we close in on our goal of global eradication, along with poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, poor sanitation, extreme population densities, inadequate infrastructure, geographical isolation — the list goes on.

Members of India’s Rotary clubs are very familiar with all of these challenges, including the problem of vaccination refusals by parents in Muslim communities. Over the last year we have been sharing our experiences with our friends in Pakistan in the hope our success can contribute to successful resolution of the issue there.

In a nutshell, our approach in India has been to reach out to the local and regional religious leaders and scholars to inform them about polio eradication and why reaching every child with the vaccine is so important. We openly discuss the misconceptions and suspicions that some people harbor – such as the notion that the vaccine contains swine or monkey cells — and explain why they are false.  Rotarians, as fellow members of the community, have an element of innate credibility that perhaps outside authorities lack at first. We can talk about “our” children, not “your” children.

The Rotary Club has a long history in Pakistan, as it does in India: the Rotary Club in Karachi was chartered in 1933, and there are presently 151 Rotary Clubs in Pakistan.

I have been involved in this issue since 1997, when I was appointed to India’s National PolioPlus Committee of Rotary International. (PolioPlus is the polio prevention program started by Rotary International in 1985, three years before the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative now led by Rotary, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)

At that time, Mumbai was at high risk for polio, especially in areas with large Muslim communities. I sought and was granted repeated meetings with the leading imam, who, finally convinced, went so far as to reprimand parents of children who were not immunized. At his request, we put up hundreds of pro-vaccination posters and banners around the periphery of the main shrine and mosque three days before a scheduled National Immunization Day. The posters at those religious places sent a message to his followers that if the imam approves polio immunization, they should also. Over time, community resistance declined and Mumbai became polio free.

We continued successfully along this path on a more-or-less informal basis as India made great gains against polio, recording only 66 cases in 2005. But in 2006, an alarming number of infections in western Uttar Pradesh and Bihar threatened to derail our progress. Of the 676 cases in India in 2006, 548 were in Uttar Pradesh and 59 percent of those were from the Muslim community.
Our response was to call for a meeting of the leading Muslim imams, ulemas, scholars, physicians, and educators in New Delhi in August 2006. Out of this came Rotary International’s State Level Committee of Muslim Ulemas in Uttar Pradesh. This, for us, was one of the biggest achievements in the effort to engage the Muslim community.

The state Muslim Ulema Committee thereafter played a significant role in bringing about a metamorphosis, successfully persuading hitherto resistant and unwilling sections of the community to accept the oral polio vaccine. Committee members issued appeals on behalf of polio eradication and walked with Rotarians, health workers, and vaccinators to booths and homes to ensure children received the vaccine. Several of them personally administered the vaccine drops to their own children to demonstrate to their followers that it was harmless.

The numbers soon demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach. In 2008, Muslim children accounted for 37 percent of polio infections in Uttar Pradesh, down from 70 percent the previous year. The concept was quickly expanded with the formation of district level ulema committees throughout the state. Rotarians in these regions continuously follow up to ensure that the campaign remains up to the mark. Last month, I met with a top administrator at Aligarh Muslim University to garner the support of doctors associated with the university to promote the campaign.

Ulema Committee members are now sought by the Health Ministry and other agencies to advocate not just for polio, but other health and sanitation needs in the Muslim community.  Rotary is organizing free camps to reach the community with basic health care services. With the Ulema Committee, Rotary created a partnership that will endure and yield benefits far beyond the eradication of a single disease.

This is not to say that the India experience provides the perfect template needed to address the situation in Pakistan. There are of course major differences between the two countries, the most obvious being that Islam is a minority religion in India. The respective political landscapes also are vastly different. But one common denominator is the presence of Rotary and the commitment of Pakistani Rotarians to rid their country of this terrible disease.

What we did in India shows that by working hand-in-glove with the true faith leaders of the communities at risk — by gaining their trust and support through sincere dialogue and by keeping the focus always on the well-being of the child – polio eradication is achievable even under the most challenging conditions.

Ashok Mahajan, a member of the Rotary Club of Mulund, Maharashtra, is a Trustee of The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, a spearheading partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

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Three witnesses won’t be charged in Ohio football rape case: documents

(Reuters) – At least three members of a high school football team in Steubenville, Ohio, received word they would not be prosecuted just days before testifying against teammates accused of raping a 16-year-old girl, according to documents obtained by Reuters.

In letters from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office addressed to each student’s lawyer, the state committed to not prosecuting Evan Westlake, Anthony Craig and Mark Cole, three witnesses for the prosecution.

But DeWine said on Thursday his office had made no deal with any of the witnesses involved in the case.

“We have offered nothing, made no promises to any witness in this case. … No deals have been cut with anybody,” DeWine told WTOV television in comments confirmed by his spokesman.

The case has unsettled Steubenville, a city of 19,000 near the Pennsylvania border where football has a powerful influence.

Community leaders have criticized authorities, voicing suspicion they have avoided charging more players who could have been involved in order to protect the school’s beloved football program.

Days after the letters were sent, all three players testified at a pre-trial hearing against teammates Ma’lik Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16, who were charged with raping a classmate at a party attended by many teammates last August. Richmond and Mays were set to be tried as juveniles in February.

Although evidence in the criminal case showed each player “may not have conducted himself in a responsible or appropriate manner, his behavior did not rise to the level of any criminal conduct,” all three letters say. “Therefore, we will not prosecute your client for his actions on August 11-12, 2012.”

Walter Madison, an attorney who represents one of the students charged with rape, verified the letters’ authenticity, but declined to comment further.

The letters can protect the players from criminal charges, said John Burkoff, a criminal law professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

“If the government says that it won’t prosecute you and then changes its mind, you can argue that it can’t go back on that,” he said. “It’s constitutional estoppel (an impediment).”

The letter to Westlake, dated September 28, was signed by Ohio Associate Attorney General Marianne Hemmeter. The other two letters were signed by Ohio Associate Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Brumby and dated October 9, three days before the trio testified against their teammates. Brumby and Hemmeter conducted the questioning at that hearing.

Attorney General spokesman Dan Tierney said the state decided the students would go uncharged only for the crime of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

“We would stand by the attorney general’s previous comments,” he told Reuters on Thursday.

The case shot to national prominence last week when the online activist group Anonymous made public a picture of the purported rape victim being carried by her wrists and ankles by two young men. Anonymous also released a video that showed several other young men joking about an assault.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Peter Cooney)

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Sandra Bullock Honored at People's Choice Awards for New Orleans Support

By Alison Schwartz

01/09/2013 at 10:45 PM EST

Sandra Bullock at the People's Choice Awards

Jason Merritt/Getty

Sandra Bullock took home big honors for her work in the Big Easy Wednesday night.

The People's Choice Awards crowned the Oscar-winning actress the favorite humanitarian for her career-spanning philanthropic efforts, including her dedication to New Orleans's Warren Easton Charter High School

"I'm not at all being modest when I say I'm not doing anything compared to what they do on a daily basis," Bullock, 48, told the crowd gathered at Los Angeles's Nokia Theatre.

Just six months after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the actress showed her support by adopting the school, which sustained $4 million in damages during the storm. She donated hundreds of thousands of dollars for renovations, telling PEOPLE years later that she "felt such a profound need to do something for them."

Her generosity helped the charter school – the first public high school for boys in Louisiana – afford renovations, new band uniforms, athletic equipment and a new health clinic in a city that's close to her heart. After all, she adopted her son, Louis, from New Orleans in 2010 and also has a home in the Garden District.

She pointed to the tireless dedication of the school's students, teachers and tough principal. "I've seen her," she joked. "Yeah, you don't want to go into that office."

Bullock then gave a shout-out to her son, who was sick as home, she said.

"[The students] compete, but they never cut each other down," she added. "And all that happens not because it's easy, but because they do not allow themselves any other option than to succeed."

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.

Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.

How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in the ovaries or the lining of the uterus, and float down to rest in the cervix, where Pap tests are performed. These cells are too rare to recognize under the microscope. But researchers from Johns Hopkins University used some sophisticated DNA testing on the Pap samples to uncover the evidence — gene mutations that show cancer is present.

In a pilot study, they analyzed Pap smears from 46 women who already were diagnosed with either ovarian or endometrial cancer. The new technique found all the endometrial cancers and 41 percent of the ovarian tumors, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

This is very early-stage research, and women shouldn't expect any change in their routine Paps. It will take years of additional testing to prove if the so-called PapGene technique really could work as a screening tool, used to spot cancer in women who thought they were healthy.

"Now the hard work begins," said Hopkins oncologist Dr. Luis Diaz, whose team is collecting hundreds of additional Pap samples for more study and is exploring ways to enhance the detection of ovarian cancer.

But if it ultimately pans out, "the neat part about this is, the patient won't feel anything different," and the Pap wouldn't be performed differently, Diaz added. The extra work would come in a lab.

The gene-based technique marks a new approach toward cancer screening, and specialists are watching closely.

"This is very encouraging, and it shows great potential," said American Cancer Society genetics expert Michael Melner.

"We are a long way from being able to see any impact on our patients," cautioned Dr. Shannon Westin of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She reviewed the research in an accompanying editorial, and said the ovarian cancer detection would need improvement if the test is to work.

But she noted that ovarian cancer has poor survival rates because it's rarely caught early. "If this screening test could identify ovarian cancer at an early stage, there would be a profound impact on patient outcomes and mortality," Westin said.

More than 22,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and more than 15,000 die. Symptoms such as pain and bloating seldom are obvious until the cancer is more advanced, and numerous attempts at screening tests have failed.

Endometrial cancer affects about 47,000 women a year, and kills about 8,000. There is no screening test for it either, but most women are diagnosed early because of postmenopausal bleeding.

The Hopkins research piggybacks on one of the most successful cancer screening tools, the Pap, and a newer technology used along with it. With a standard Pap, a little brush scrapes off cells from the cervix, which are stored in a vial to examine for signs of cervical cancer. Today, many women's Paps undergo an additional DNA-based test to see if they harbor the HPV virus, which can spur cervical cancer.

So the Hopkins team, funded largely by cancer advocacy groups, decided to look for DNA evidence of other gynecologic tumors. It developed a method to rapidly screen the Pap samples for those mutations using standard genetics equipment that Diaz said wouldn't add much to the cost of a Pap-plus-HPV test. He said the technique could detect both early-stage and more advanced tumors. Importantly, tests of Paps from 14 healthy women turned up no false alarms.

The endometrial cancers may have been easier to find because cells from those tumors don't have as far to travel as ovarian cancer cells, Diaz said. Researchers will study whether inserting the Pap brush deeper, testing during different times of the menstrual cycle, or other factors might improve detection of ovarian cancer.

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