RIM stock rises after Goldman Sachs upgrade

TORONTO (AP) — Research In Motion rose Thursday after Goldman Sachs upgraded the phone maker’s shares, saying there’s a “30 percent chance” RIM‘s much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones will be a success.

THE SPARK: Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski lifted RIM to “Buy” from “Neutral,” the latest analyst to voice a slightly more optimistic view for the troubled company. Goldman lifted its 12-month price target to $ 16 from $ 9.

THE BIG PICTURE: RIM was once Canada’s most valuable company, with a market value of more than $ 80 billion in 2008, but shares have sunk due to ground lost to Apple Inc.‘s iPhone and phones running Google Inc.‘s Android system.

Now the company’s new BlackBerrys, expected sometime after Jan. 30, are considered critical to its survival. The new system includes a touch screen and the apps experience that customers now expect.

THE ANALYSIS: Jankowski noted positive early reviews for the new operating system and broad-based support by carriers who are looking to sell a third operating system beyond Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

She predicted that RIM will become profitable in the year ending in February 2014. Analysts polled by FactSet expect a loss. Still, she expects RIM to revert to a loss the next year.

Last week, National Bank Financial Kris Thompson increased his price target to $ 15 from $ 12, while Jefferies analyst Peter Misek doubled his price target from $ 5 to $ 10, saying the BlackBerry 10 operating system has a 20 to 30 percent chance of succeeding.

SHARE ACTION: Shares of Research In Motion added 67 cents, or 6.4 percent, to $ 11.77 in midday trading on the Nasdaq. The stock is up 78 percent since late September — but it’s down 23 percent this year through Wednesday’s close, and has lost more than 90 percent from its 2008 high.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Katie Holmes Plants Her Stake on Broadway - and Succeeds

By Tom Gliatto

11/30/2012 at 09:45 AM EST

Katie Holmes and Norbert Leo Butz at the curtain call of Dead Accounts on opening night

Andrew H. Walker/Getty

    

You'll want to know what sort of performance Katie Holmes gives in Theresa Rebeck's Dead Accounts, which marks the actress's second Broadway appearance and her first since she slipped out of the orbit of That Superstar Who Declared His Love by Jumping on a Sofa.

She's good.

That’s a lot, considering there's not much meat to this comedy, and that most of it has been thrown into the sizable, eager mandibles of Tony-winner Norbert Leo Butz. It's a showcase role, and he's up for it. The performance is so full of outbursts, jokes, feints and tics he could have marked every moment with Post-it notes left across the set, a middle-class kitchen in Cincinatti: Here is where he manically gobbles his way through cartons of ice cream. Here is where he falls to the floor in a (very convincing) burst of hysterical laughter. And here, here, here and here are moments in which his manic comedy seems to be shading off into something closer to a genuine breakdown.

I don't think audiences would really be ready to see Katie Holmes have to go through all that.

Butz plays Jack, a Wall Street type who has returned to – fled back to? – the family home in Ohio, bringing with him a whirlwind of confusion. Why are his pockets full of prescription pills? Where did he get those wads of money he keeps throwing on the kitchen table? Why does he keep joking that he's murdered his wife? Why, in general, does he behave like Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

Holmes plays Jack’s unmarried, sad-sack sister, Lorna, who is helping their father (unseen offstage) through a bout of kidney stones. In the first act, the role consists mostly of moving to and from the kitchen table and filling in a lot of expositional and background details that don't seem necessary. If your brother had turned up late at night, possibly out of his mind and yammering about how Cincinnati makes the best ice cream, would you and your mother spend the next morning discussing Catholicism and whether or not Jack should go to Mass? No.

However, Holmes gets her moments in the second act: Lorna is given a simple, tender monologue about planting a tree when she was a child, followed by a full-throttle, over-the-top tirade against money, banks and fiduciary wickedness.

Holmes gets a big laugh there, but you have the nagging realization that the little memory about the tree slipped by without registering emotionally – that it was a lot more meaningful than the tirade, and that Holmes should have been directed to dig deeper. Or that Rebeck, creater of NBC’s Smash, should have written deeper.

Apart from being unhappy – and who isn't? – is Lorna pathetic, depressed, neurotic, stupid? We never know.

By this point, we've found out Jack's secret, and the puncturing of that mystery leaves us with little more than a tangle of themes messily duking it out: death, family, money, New York vs. Cincinnati and, toward and right up to the end, more and more about that symbolic tree.

Based on a rather pretty stage effect at the finale, I would say the tree wins.

I would even speculate that the play would have been better if it had actually have been about trees, about their beauty, their cycle of renewal, their longevity through time.

But then (1) Rebeck would have had to abandon her thin sitcom plot, or (2) Holmes would have had to learn to be a tree.

I doubt audiences are ready to see Holmes play a tree.

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

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

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Wall Street climbs on optimism over fiscal deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose in early trading on Thursday on optimism that Congress was progressing toward a fiscal agreement in Washington that would avert a possible recession.

Market participants are focused on discussions in Congress over avoiding big spending cuts and tax hikes, known as the "fiscal cliff," beginning in January. Still, equities may retreat, as they did Tuesday, if the upbeat negotiation environment in Washington deteriorates.

"There will be a deal before December 31 to avert the economy facing disaster," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

"We're back on track for a year-end rally to continue," he said.

The yield on Italy's 10-year bonds fell to the lowest in two years at an auction, amid relief that immediate risks over Greece had diminished.

"The fact that the bond sales in Europe went well suggest confidence is beginning to reenter some of the peripheral nations and that is a good sign," Cardillo said.

The euro briefly touched the $1.30 level and is near its highs for November, boosting commodity prices. The S&P materials sector index <.gspm> led gains with a 0.8 percent advance.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 50.15 points, or 0.39 percent, to 13,035.26. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 7.07 points, or 0.50 percent, to 1,417.00. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 20.21 points, or 0.68 percent, to 3,011.99.

Equity markets may also be supported by data showing the U.S. economy grew faster than first reported between July and September. Separate data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped for a second week, and a larger-than-expected 3.3 percent advance in third-quarter corporate profits.

Due for release later Thursday are pending home sales for October, at 10:00 a.m. (1500 GMT), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City November manufacturing survey at 11:00 a.m.

Kroger , the biggest U.S. supermarket operator, added 3.3 percent to $25.89 after reporting earnings.

Tiffany shares slumped 7.9 percent to $58.72 after the upscale jeweler reported quarterly results and cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts.

Top retailers said weak sales in early November, after superstorm Sandy, were a drag on the month. Target fell 2 percent and Kohl's Corp dropped 10.3 percent.

U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion surged 8.5 percent to $12.06 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral."

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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U.N. set to implicitly recognize Palestinian state, despite U.S., Israel threats

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly is set to implicitly recognize a sovereign state of Palestine on Thursday despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding much-needed funds for the West Bank government.

A resolution that would change the Palestinian Authority's U.N. observer status from "entity" to "non-member state," like the Vatican, is expected to pass easily in the 193-nation General Assembly.

Israel, the United States and a handful of other members are planning to vote against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians, which takes place on the 65th anniversary of the assembly's adoption of resolution 181 on the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for the resolution, and over a dozen European governments have offered him their support after an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose his efforts toward a negotiated peace.

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and U.S. Middle East peace envoy David Hale traveled to New York on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to get Abbas to reconsider.

The Palestinians gave no sign they were turning back.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated to reporters in Washington on Wednesday the U.S. view that the Palestinian move was misguided and efforts should focus instead on reviving the stalled Middle East peace process.

"The path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York," she said. "The only way to get a lasting solution is to commence direct negotiations."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland reiterated U.S. warnings that the move could cause a reduction of U.S. economic support for the Palestinians. The Israelis have also warned they might take significant deductions out of monthly transfers of duties that Israel collects on the Palestinians' behalf.

Despite its fierce opposition, Israel seems concerned not to find itself diplomatically isolated. It has recently toned down threats of retaliation in the face of wide international support for the initiative, notably among its European allies.

"The decision at the United Nations will change nothing on the ground," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Jerusalem. "It will not advance the establishment of a Palestinian state. It will delay it further."

'SLAP IN THE FACE'

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it would allow them access to the International Criminal Court and some other international bodies, should they choose to join them.

Hanan Ashrawi, a top Palestine Liberation Organization official, told a news conference in Ramallah that "the Palestinians can't be blackmailed all the time with money."

"If Israel wants to destabilize the whole region, it can," she said. "We are talking to the Arab world about their support, if Israel responds with financial measures, and the EU has indicated they will not stop their support to us."

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world.

In the draft resolution, the Palestinians have pledged to relaunch the peace process immediately following the U.N. vote.

As there is little doubt about how the United States will vote when the Palestinian resolution to upgrade its U.N. status is put to a vote sometime after 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday, the Palestinian Authority has been concentrating its efforts on lobbying wealthy European states, diplomats say.

With strong support from the developing world that makes up the majority of U.N. members, the resolution is virtually assured of securing more than the requisite simple majority. Palestinian officials hope for more than 130 yes votes.

Abbas has been trying to amass as many European votes in favor as possible.

Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland all pledged to support the Palestinian resolution. Britain said it was prepared to vote yes, but only if the Palestinians fulfilled certain conditions.

Diplomats said the Czech Republic was expected to vote against the move, potentially dashing European hopes to avoid a three-way split in the vote. Germany and the Netherlands said they planned to abstain, like Estonia and Lithuania.

Ashrawi said the positive responses from European states were encouraging and sent a message of hope to all Palestinians.

"This constitutes a historical turning point and opportunity for the world to rectify a grave historical injustice that the Palestinians have undergone since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948," she said.

A strong backing from European nations could make it awkward for Israel to implement harsh retaliatory measures. But Israel's reaction might not be so measured if the Palestinians seek ICC action against Israel on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity or other crimes the court would have jurisdiction over.

Israel also seems wary of weakening the Western-backed Abbas, especially after the political boost rival Hamas received from recent solidarity visits to Gaza by top officials from Egypt, Qatar and Tunisia.

Hamas militants, who control Gaza and have had icy relations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, unexpectedly offered Abbas their support this week.

One Western diplomat said the Palestinian move was almost an insult to recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama.

"It's not the best way to convince Mr. Obama to have a more positive approach toward the peace process," said the diplomat, who was planning to vote for the resolution. "Three weeks after his election, it's basically a slap in the face."

(This story corrected name of Palestine Liberation Organization)

(Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Michelle Nichols in New York, and Reuters bureaux in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Peter Cooney and Xavier Briand)

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Past hosts teaming for Spike Video Game Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Spike Video Game Awards are assembling past hosts.

The cable network announced Thursday that the gaming extravaganza’s previous emcees would join “The Avengers” star and four-time VGAs host Samuel L. Jackson at next week’s show.

Previous hosts Zachary Levi, Snoop Lion, Jack Black and Neil Patrick Harris are set to appear at the 10th annual ceremony.

The show will also feature debut footage from upcoming games “BioShock Infinite,” ”Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2″ and “Tomb Raider,” and from downloadable content “Spartan Ops” for “Halo 4″ and “The Tyranny of King Washington” for “Assassin’s Creed III.”

“Assassin’s Creed III,” ”Dishonored,” ”Journey,” ”Mass Effect 3″ and “The Walking Dead: The Game” are vying for the best game trophy.

The VGAs will air live on Spike on Dec. 7 from Sony Picture Studios in Culver City, Calif.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jude Law: I'm Okay Not Being 'That Young Pretty Thing' Anymore

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/29/2012 at 09:15 AM ET

Courtesy T, The New York Times Style Magazine

While most people dread getting older, Jude Law is actually thrilled about it. And not for any reason you’d expect.

“In a weird way, it’s kind of a relief to think, ‘Oh, I know I’m not that young sort of pretty thing anymore,’” Law tells T, The New York Times Style Magazine. And at 39 years old, the actor admits he’d much rather reflect on his heartthrob days than relive them. “It’s quite nice talking about what it was like to be the young pretty thing, rather than being it.”

And though Law might not consider himself pretty anymore, he was still a bit too good looking for his role in Anna Karenina, in which he plays Anna’s older controlling husband (below). The director, Joe Wright, reveals in the T Magazine cover story, “I had to stop him [from] doing his ‘handsome face.’”

Another part of himself that Law had to change? His hair. Law’s character is almost bald. And while some actors would choose to wear a bald cap and wig, Law embraced the look. “[I was] surprised when he chose to actually cut his hair that way and not just wear a wig,” his co-star Keira Knightley admits in the feature.

To read more of Law’s cover story, pick up T, The New York Times Style Magazine Holiday 2012 edition, available this weekend, or click over to nytimes.com. Tell us: Do you prefer Law now or back in his heartthrob days (think 1997′s Gattaca)?

Laurie Sparham/Focus Features

–Jennifer Cress

PHOTOS: FEAST YOUR EYES ON MORE GOOD-LOOKING GUYS!

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.

Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns

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Wall Street opens lower on "cliff" worry

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened lower on Wednesday, putting the S&P 500 on track for a third consecutive decline, as investors remained on edge given the lack of details on U.S. budget, or so-called fiscal cliff, talks.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 53.22 points, or 0.41 percent, to 12,824.91. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 7.44 points, or 0.53 percent, to 1,391.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 15.70 points, or 0.53 percent, to 2,952.09.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Egypt protests continue in crisis over Mursi powers

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of demonstrators were in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a sixth day on Wednesday, demanding that President Mohamed Mursi rescind a decree they say gives him dictatorial powers, while two of Egypt's top courts stopped work in protest.

Five months into the Islamist leader's term, and in scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that unseated predecessor Hosni Mubarak last year, police fired teargas at stone-throwers following protests by tens of thousands on Tuesday against the declaration that expanded Mursi's powers and put his decisions beyond legal challenge.

Protesters say they will stay in Tahrir until the decree is withdrawn, bringing fresh turmoil to a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring and delivering a new blow to an economy already on the ropes.

Egypt's Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree, which has further damaged Mursi's already testy relationship with the country's judges.

In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.

A spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which declared the Islamist-led parliament void earlier this year, said on Wednesday that it felt under attack by the president.

"The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court," said the spokesman Maher Samy.

Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers, while protesters want him to dissolve an Islamist-dominated assembly that is drawing up a new constitution and which Mursi protected from legal review.

Any deal to calm the street will likely need to address both issues. But opposition politicians said the list of demands could grow the longer the crisis goes on. Many protesters want the cabinet, which meets on Wednesday, to be sacked, too.

Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.

"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, who has not had a job for two years. He is one of many in the square who are as angry over economic hardship as they are about Mursi's actions.

"We want the scrapping of the constitutional declaration and the constituent assembly, so a new one is created representing all the people and not just one section," he said.

The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length. The United States, a big donor to Egypt's military, has called for "peaceful democratic dialogue".

Two people have been killed in violence since the decree, while low-level clashes between protesters and police have gone on for days near Tahrir. Violence has flared in other cities.

WRANGLES

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges in talks.

That should limit it to issues such as declaring war, but experts said there was much room for interpretation. The judges themselves are divided, and the broader judiciary has yet to back the compromise. Some have gone on strike over the decree.

The fate of the assembly drawing up the constitution has been at the centre of a wrangle between Islamists and their opponents for months. Many liberals, Christians and more moderate Muslims have walked out, saying their voices were not being heard in the body dominated by Islamists.

That has undermined the work of the assembly, which is tasked with shaping Egypt's new democracy. Without a constitution in place, the president's powers are not permanently defined and a new parliament cannot be elected.

For now, Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. His decree says his decisions cannot be challenged until a new parliament is in place. An election is expected in early 2013.

"If Mursi doesn't respond to the people, they will raise their demands to his removal," said Bassem Kamel, a liberal and former member of the now dissolved parliament that was dominated by Mursi's party, a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He said Tuesday's protest showed that Egyptians "understood that the Brotherhood isn't for democracy but uses it as a tool to reach power and then to get rid of it".

Protecting his decisions and the constituent assembly from legal review was a swipe at the judiciary, still largely unreformed since Mubarak's era.

One presidential source said Mursi wanted to re-make the Supreme Constitutional Court after it declared the parliament void, which led to its dissolution by the then ruling military.

Both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, but Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.

The courts have dealt a series of blows to Mursi and the Brotherhood. The first constituent assembly, also packed with Islamists, was dissolved. An attempt by Mursi in October to remove the unpopular general prosecutor was also blocked.

In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack the prosecutor general and appoint a new one, which he duly did.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman)

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