Algeria toll rises as attack claimed for al Qaeda


ALGIERS, Algeria (Reuters) - The death toll has risen to at least 48 hostages killed during a four-day siege at a gas plant deep in the Sahara as a veteran Islamist fighter claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for the attack.


Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal is expected to give details at a Monday news conference about one of the worst international hostage crises in decades, which left American, British, French, Japanese, Norwegian and Romanian workers dead or missing.


A security source said on Sunday Algerian troops had found the bodies of 25 hostages, raising the number of militants and their captives killed to at least 80. He said six militants were captured alive and troops were still searching for others.


One-eyed veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility on Sunday for the attack on behalf of al Qaeda.


"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," he said in a video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. He said about 40 attackers participated in the raid, roughly matching the government's figures for fighters killed and captured.


The fighters swooped out of the desert and seized the base on Wednesday, capturing a plant that produces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas exports, as well as a nearby residential barracks.


They demanded an end to French air strikes against Islamist fighters in neighboring Mali that had begun five days earlier. However, U.S. and European officials doubt such a complex raid could have been organized quickly enough to have been conceived as a direct response to the French military intervention.


The siege turned bloody on Thursday when the Algerian army opened fire saying fighters were trying to escape with their prisoners. Survivors said Algerian forces blasted several trucks in a convoy carrying both hostages and their captors.


Nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreigners escaped, mainly on Thursday when the fighters were driven from the residential barracks. Some captors remained holed up in the industrial complex until Saturday when they were overrun.


The bloodshed has strained Algeria's relations with its Western allies, some of whom have complained about being left in the dark while the decision to storm the compound was being taken. Nevertheless, Britain and France both defended the Algerian military action.


"It's easy to say that this or that should have been done. The Algerian authorities took a decision and the toll is very high but I am a bit bothered ... when the impression is given that the Algerians are open to question," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. "They had to deal with terrorists."


British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a televised statement: "Of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack.


"We should recognize all that the Algerians have done to work with us and to help and coordinate with us. I'd like to thank them for that. We should also recognize that the Algerians too have seen lives lost among their soldiers."


Algeria had given a preliminary death toll of 55 people killed - 23 hostages and 32 militants - on Saturday and said it would rise as more bodies were found.


The security source said that toll did not include the bodies of 25 hostages found on Sunday, which meant the total number of captives killed - foreign and local - was at least 48. The search was not over, and more could yet be found, he said.


Among foreigners confirmed dead by their home countries were three Britons, one American and two Romanians. The missing include at least 10 Japanese, five Norwegians, three other Britons, and a British resident. The security source said at least one Frenchman was also among the dead.


LAST WORDS?


Alan Wright, now safe at home in Scotland, said he had escaped with a group of Algerian and foreign workers after hiding for a day and a night. While hiding inside the compound, he managed to call his wife at home with their two daughters.


"She asked if I wanted to speak to Imogen and Esme, and I couldn't because I thought, I don't want my last ever words to be in a crackly satellite phone, telling a lie, saying you're OK when you're far from OK," he recalled to Sky News.


Despite the incident, Algeria is determined to press on with its energy industry. Oil Minister Youcef Yousfi visited the site and said physical damage was minor, state news service APS reported. The plant would start back up in two days, he said.


The Islamists' assault has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world and exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara.


Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, insisted from the start of the crisis there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.


France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to crush Islamist rebels in northern Mali.


(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris and Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Sophie Hares and Myra MacDonald)



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Google CEO Page on Apple’s ‘thermonuclear’ Android war: ‘How well is that working?’







Google (GOOG) CEO Larry Page seems unimpressed by Apple’s (AAPL) “thermonuclear war” against his company’s operating system. In an interview with Wired posted Thursday, Page was asked to respond to reports about the late Steve Jobs being “competitive enough to claim that he was willing to ‘go to thermonuclear war’ on Android.” Page responded with one sentence: “How well is that working?” Wired followed up by asking Page whether he though that “Android’s huge lead in market share is decisive” in the battle between the companies and Page only responded that “Android has been very successful, and we’re very excited about it.”


[More from BGR: Cable companies called ‘monopolies that stifle competition and innovation’]






While Apple’s strategy of suing Android vendors has had some notable successes for the company — particularly this past summer when it won a $ 1 billion patent verdict against rival Samsung (005930) — it still hasn’t stopped Android’s rise in both the smartphone and tablet markets, and devices such as the Galaxy S III and the Nexus 7 have proven to be among the most popular released over the past year. So when Page dismisses the significance of Apple’s legal war against Android, he’s got a good point: Some high-profile Apple victories have done very little to hurt consumer interest in Google’s open-source mobile OS so far.


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News




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Five Things to Know About The Lumineers















01/19/2013 at 06:00 PM EST







From left: Wesley Schultz, Neyla Pekarek and Jeremiah Fraites


Alan Poizner/PictureGroup


You already know their hit song "Ho Hey" with its catchy shout-it-out chant that sticks in your head – but what's behind Denver-based band The Lumineers' cool blend of indie rock and Americana?

Here are five things to know about the trio – Wesley Schultz (lead vocals, guitar), 30; Jeremiah Fraites (guitar), 27; and Neyla Pekarek (cello, piano), 26 – who are up for two Grammys (best new artist and best Americana album) and are also performing on Saturday Night Live this week alongside host Jennifer Lawrence.

1. Most people think that 'Ho Hey' – which reached No. 1 on three different charts – is about a romantic relationship, but that's not the whole story.
"The essence of the song was that I was really struggling to make ends meet in the big city when I was living in Brooklyn and working in New York. It was a myth, this idea that you'd go there and get discovered and it would be this great place for music," explains Schultz, who, like Fraites, hails from New Jersey and moved to Denver in recent years, where they met Pekarek.

"It's about a lost love in some ways, but it's also a lost dream. It's funny that a lot of people play it at their weddings because it was written from a different place. But it's kind of a beautiful thing, actually, that people can take something I was feeling really, really down about and turn it into a message of hope."

2. They've only recently been able to quit their day jobs.
"I was working as a busser, a bartender, a barista, a guitar teacher, caterer – a lot of service industry jobs, because it allows you to get away and tour if you need to or take a night off to play," explains Schultz.

"Jer was bussing tables right along beside me. And Neyla was a hostess and a substitute teacher. She'd been offered a full-time teaching position while we were in the midst of touring – and losing a lot of money – and she still stuck with it. Somehow she chose this over that, which is absurd, but we're glad she did!"

3. They named their hit song carefully.
Were they ever concerned people might call it "Hey Ho" in a derogatory way? "Yeah, at some point we laughed about it," says Schultz. "We specifically named it 'Ho Hey' instead of 'Hey Ho' [for that reason]. If people searched for it online, we'd rather it not be something that takes you in that direction."

Do they mind when people get the title wrong? "Oh no, that would be a little pretentious!" says Schultz with a chuckle. "It's kind of a silly name to begin with."

4. That's Schultz's mom on the cover of their debut, self-titled album.
"It's my mom, Judy, as a child, and her mother," he explains. "I'd asked my mom if she had any old photos that I could look through a while back, and I fell in love with it. You know if you set up a child for a picture then can't get out of the frame in time? My mom had a funny take on it: It's our first album, kind of our baby, like this child."

Schultz thanked his mom for all her years of emotional support with some heavy metal when their album went gold. "I had the plaque sent to my mom, because she'd been really supportive of us and believed in us when a lot of people were pretty concerned. And now she's got a platinum one!"

5. Their band name has more than one meaning.
While Schultz and Fraites have been playing music together for more than eight years (previous band names include Free Beer, 6Cheek, and Wesley Jeremiah), they've only been known as The Lumineers for the last four thanks to a mistake.

"We were playing a small club in Jersey City, N.J.," explains Schultz, "and there was a band out there at the time called Lumineers who were slotted for the same time, same day, the next week. The person running the show that night [mistakenly] announced us as The Lumineers."

The name stuck. "It doesn't mean anything literally. It's a made-up word," says Schultz. Another strange coincidence they learned? "It's also the name of a dental veneer company," he adds.

So how are Schultz's teeth? "I have a pretty good smile," he says with a big laugh. "I won 'Best Smile' in high school. It's a pretty big deal."

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study


Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.


The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.


Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.


"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.


She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.


In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.


Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.


About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.


___


Online:


Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov


Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.


The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.


Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.


Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.


"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.


Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.


Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.


Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.


Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.


CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP


Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.


The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.


"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.


"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."


Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.


Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.


The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.


The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.


Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.


The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.


"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.


"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Algerian army stages "final assault" on gas plant


ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - The Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a siege by Islamist militants at a desert gas plant on Saturday in which 23 hostages were killed, many of them believed to be foreigners, the interior ministry said.


Thirty-two al Qaeda-linked militants were killed in the army operation to recapture the complex, according to a provisional toll from the ministry. A statement said 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages had survived.


Militants seized the remote compound in the Sahara desert before dawn on Wednesday, taking a large number of hostages, including foreigner workers, and booby-trapped the compound with explosives.


The crisis marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


The gas plant near the town of In Amenas was home to expatriate workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others. One American and one British citizen have been confirmed dead.


British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday he feared for the lives of five British citizens still unaccounted for. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.


"We feel a deep and growing unease ... we fear that over the next few days we will receive bad news," Statoil Chief Executive Helge Lund said on Saturday. "People we have spoken to describe unbelievable, horrible experiences."


The Islamists' attack has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.


British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed that Algerian military operations at the plant had been concluded.


"We understand that the site is not yet fully safe because of hazards such as booby traps and so they are still working on that," Hague said.


Some Western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. Algeria's response to the raid will have been conditioned by the legacy of a civil war against insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives.


HOSTAGES FREED


As the army closed in, 16 foreign hostages were freed, a source close to the crisis said. They included two Americans and one Portuguese.


BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.


The captors said their attack on the Algerian gas plant was a response to the French offensive in Mali. However, officials say the elaborate raid would have been planned well before France launched its strikes.


Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified gas compound when it was seized on Wednesday.


Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.


Before the interior ministry released its provisional death toll, an Algerian security source said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said nobody was going to attack the United States and get away with it.


"We have made a commitment that we're going to go after al Qaeda wherever they are and wherever they try to hide," he said during a visit to London. "We have done that obviously in Afghanistan, Pakistan, we've done it in Somalia, in Yemen and we will do it in North Africa as well."


BURNED BODIES


Earlier on Saturday, Algerian special forces found 15 unidentified burned bodies at the plant, a source told Reuters.


The field commander of the group that attacked the plant is a fighter from Niger called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, according to Mauritanian news agencies. His boss, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of fighting in Afghanistan and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s, appears not to have joined the raid.


Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed irritation that the army assault was ordered without consultation and officials grumbled at the lack of information.


But French President Francois Hollande said the Algerian military's response seemed to have been the best option given that negotiation was not possible.


"When you have people taken hostage in such large number by terrorists with such cold determination and ready to kill those hostages - as they did - Algeria has an approach which to me, as I see it, is the most appropriate because there could be no negotiation," Hollande said.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.


Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.


Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.


The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.


France says the hostage incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary. Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year.


(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Rosalind Russell)


(This story was refiled to correct Algerian hostages)



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RIM offers Android developers up to $2,000 to port apps to BlackBerry 10 this weekend







RIM (RIMM) really wants Android developers to bring their apps over to BlackBerry 10, and it’s got the cash to prove it. Via AndroidGuys, it seems that RIM will hold a “BlackBerry 10 Last Chance Port-A-Thon” that will pay Android developers $ 100 for every approved app they port over to BlackBerry 10, with a limite of 20 different paid apps per developer. RIM says that the “port-a-thon” will start at noon Friday and run for the following 36 hours. App developers have shown some strong interest in BlackBerry 10 so far as RIM announced this week that it had received 15,000 app submission over just two days during the last port-a-thon, although the company didn’t mention how much influence its “really cool” SDK had in convincing companies to develop for its new platform.


[More from BGR: Samsung’s latest monster smartphone will reportedly have a 5.8-inch screen]






This article was originally published on BGR.com


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News




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This Sundance Cheeseburger Recipe Is Missing One Thing: The Burger!



It's a cheeseburger, but it's only made out of cheese – stinky cheese.  

The award-winning chef dubbed the "impresario of pop-up dining" by The New York Times, Ludovic or 'Ludo' Lefebvre, will be dishing up at least 600 of them next week at the Samsung Galaxy Lounge at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. But as his demonstration at the Bulthaup kitchen in Beverly Hills showed, it's not your mama's grilled cheese sandwich.

"I decided to do this cheeseburger recipe for all the stars at Sundance because it's very comforting," the new One Blind Taste judge tells PEOPLE.

"From growing up in France, I always remember that after a big day of skiing in the very cold mountains we always wanted some comforting food. It would always be cheese, bread and a bottle of wine. Cheese and bread are the most comforting foods for me. So this is a fancy, and vegetarian, version of this, and I am going to make at least 600 of these at Sundance, easy!"

While the recipe is almost a reconstructed fondue, Lefebvre – whose talent was featured at two of Los Angeles's most prestigious restaurants, Bastide and L'Orangerie – said he was also inspired by the one of the first epicurean wonders he saw when he initially came to the U.S. 16 years ago – soup served in a bread bowl.

"I've never seen a more perfect meal, just fantastic," he gushed.

Ludo says the herb garnishes can be whatever your favorites are, or whatever looks best at the market that day. And the agar-agar (a thickening agent for the mousse) can be substituted with cornstarch and you can use whatever your favorite mushroom is. He stresses that the recipe is a jumping-off point and can be adjusted to personal taste:

Reblochon Cheeseburger, Tomato Jam, Chanterelles

Ingredients
• 4 Small Brioche Buns

Tomato Jam Ingredients
• 4 whole hot house tomatoes
• 1 shallot, peeled and chopped finely
• 1 garlic clove, peel and chopped finely
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig of thyme
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. aged balsamic vinegar (12 year)
• Kosher salt
• Fresh ground black pepper

Reblochon Mousse
• 20 cl. (7 oz.) heavy cream
• 10 cl. (3.5 oz.) vegetable stock
• 30 grams (2 Tbsp) grated parmesan
• 80 grams (¾ cup) Reblochon (other soft cheese such as Brie or Camembert can be substituted)
• 1 tsp. agar-agar
• 4 oz. fresh whipped cream
• Kosher salt (to taste)
 

Chanterelles
• 100 grams (4 oz.) chanterelle mushrooms
• Kosher salt (to taste)
 

Garnish
• 4 mustard green leaves (washed; lettuce can be substituted)
• 4 swiss chard leaves (washed; lettuce can be substituted)
• 4 Tbsp. sesame oil
• Aged balsamic vinegar (12 year)
• Fleur de Sel
• 4 borage flowers

Directions

Tomato Jam process
1. Blanche the tomatoes in boiling water and transfer to cold water bath.
2. Remove skin from tomatoes
3. Cut tomatoes into quarters and remove seeds
4. Dice tomatoes
5. In a medium saucepan, add the olive oil and warm over medium heat, add garlic and shallots and cook for 5 minutes. Add died tomatoes, tomato paste, bay leaf, thyme and sugar. Cover with lid and let cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Remove bay leaf and thyme. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add Balsamic and cook for 10 minutes. Let cool.
 

Reblochon Cheese Mousse Process
1. In a medium sauce pan combine all ingredients, EXCEPT whipped cream.
2. Cook slowly until the mixture reaches 85 degrees C.
3. Pass the mixture through a chinois into a medium metal bowl. Place the bowl on top of another bowl filled with ice. Cool down.
4. Once the mixture is completely cooled, fold in the whipped cream with a plastic spatula.
 

Chanterelle Mushroom Process
1. Clean the chanterelles in cold water and pat dry with a paper towel.
2. In a non-stick pan, sauté the chanterelles for 2 minutes. Season with salt.
3. Slice the chanterelles thinly.
 

Assembly Instructions
1. Cut brioche buns in half. Scoop out bottom of bun.
2. Line bottom of bun with one mustard leaf and one swiss chard leaf.
3. Place one larger rounded scoop of reblochon mousse on top of leaves.
4. Add one teaspoon of tomato jam.
5. Add a slice of chanterelle.
6. Drizzle with balsamic and sesame oil.
7. Top with a borage flower.

• Optional: Add brioche bun top. Ludo prefers to serve open face.
 

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Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says


The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.


The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.


New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.


Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.


The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.


So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.


"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.


About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.


If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.


Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.


To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.


"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.


This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.


About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.


Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.


"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.


Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.


___


Online:


Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov


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


___


AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.


The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.


Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.


Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.


"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.


Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.


Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.


Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.


Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.


CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP


Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.


The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.


"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.


"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."


Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.


Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.


The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.


The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.


Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.


The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.


"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.


"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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