Wall Street sours on weak domestic factory data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks struggled to extend the previous week's gains, dropping on Monday as disappointing U.S. factory numbers dampened optimism about China's economic growth.

The declines broke a three-day streak of gains for the S&P 500, keeping it shy of its 50-day moving average of about 1,420, a level that the index has been below since October 22, and now serving as a key resistance point for investors.

Manufacturing activity in the United States surprisingly contracted in November, the Institute for Supply Management said, dropping to its lowest level in more than three years. Economic data has been mixed in recent months, fanning worries about the pace of growth at a time when investors are already concerned about the "fiscal cliff" issue in Washington.

The ISM number "was below expectations that were already conservative, and that puts an exclamation point on the concern many of us have about the cliff's impact on the economy," said Leo Grohowski, chief investment officer at BNY Mellon Wealth Management in New York.

Markets had opened higher as output by China's factories grew in November for the first time in more than a year, data showed. Investors look to strength from China, the world's second-largest economy, to offset weak growth in the United States and Europe.

Still, the fiscal cliff remains investors' primary focus, with political haggling continuing over how to deal with large automatic spending cuts and tax hikes scheduled to kick in next year. The worry is that the combination of reduced spending and higher taxes could tip the U.S. economy back into recession.

While off its highs for the year, the S&P 500 is still up 12.1 percent for 2012.

"This could be the last opportunity for investors to take profits" after an unexpectedly strong year, said Grohowski, who helps oversee about $170 billion in assets.

Materials were the weakest sector on Monday, led lower by Newmont Mining after the company said its CEO resigned. Newmont's stock fell 3 percent to $45.69. Dow component DuPont dropped 1.7 percent to $42.39. An S&P materials index <.gspm> lost 1.8 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 59.98 points, or 0.46 percent, to 12,965.60 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> declined 6.72 points, or 0.47 percent, to 1,409.46. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 8.04 points, or 0.27 percent, to end at 3,002.20.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pushed Republicans on Sunday to offer specific ideas to cut the deficit. He predicted that they would agree to raise tax rates on the rich to obtain a year-end deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Among other factors serving to offset the ISM report on U.S. factories were two developments in the euro zone: Spain formally requested the disbursement of more than $50 billion of European funds to recapitalize its crippled banking sector, while Greece said it would spend 10 billion euros ($13 billion) to buy back bonds in a bid to reduce its ballooning debt.

The PHLX Europe sector index <.xex> added 0.1 percent.

Dell shares gained 4.4 percent to $10.06. The stock was one of the biggest percentage gainers in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" from "sell.

Advanced Micro Devices was the S&P's top gainer, rising 7.3 percent to $2.36. Options traders appeared to be betting on further gains ahead. Early options order flow was focused on upside April calls, including a sweep of 3,594 April $3.50 strike calls for 16 cents per contract when the market was 14 cents to 16 cents, said WhatsTrading.com options strategist Frederic Ruffy.

Retail stocks were among the weakest of the day, with J.C. Penney Co off 3.2 percent at $17.36 and Staples Inc off 2.3 percent at $11.43. Consumer discretionary names tend to underperform during periods of economic uncertainty as consumers focus on core purchases.

Volume was light, with about 5.58 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, well below last year's daily average of 7.84 billion.

Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a ratio of 3 to 2, while on the Nasdaq, about 14 stocks fell for every 11 that rose.

(Additional reporting by Doris Frankel; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Top American Commander in Africa Warns of Al Qaeda Influence in Mali

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa is operating terrorist training camps in northern Mali and providing arms, explosives and financing to a militant Islamist organization in northern Nigeria, the top American military commander in Africa said on Monday.

The affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, has used the momentum gained since seizing control of the northern part of the impoverished country in March to increase recruiting across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Europe, said the commander, Gen. Carter F. Ham.

General Ham’s assessment is the most detailed and sobering American military analysis so far of the consequences of the Qaeda affiliate and associated extremist groups seizing the northern part of Mali to use as a haven.

“As each day goes by, Al Qaeda and other organizations are strengthening their hold in northern Mali,” General Ham said in remarks at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. “There is a compelling need for the international community, led by Africans, to address that.”

In addition to the risks inside Mali, General Ham also said that members of Boko Haram, an extremist group in northern Nigeria, had traveled to training camps in northern Mali and have most likely received financing and explosives from the Qaeda franchise. “We have seen clear indications of collaboration among the organizations,” he said.

Radical Islamists have turned northern Mali into an enclave for Qaeda militants and for the imposition of harsh Shariah law, which has been used to terrorize the population, particularly women, with amputations, stonings, whippings and other abuses.

The Qaeda North Africa affiliate is now considered one of the best armed and wealthiest of the Qaeda franchises across the world, largely because of millions of dollars gained in kidnapping ransoms, drug proceeds and illicit trafficking in fuel and tobacco, General Ham said.

Last week, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, recommended that the Security Council endorse a plan by the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States to deploy a security force at the request of the Mali government to reclaim the north from the extremists. But the action did not offer financial support from the United Nations.

“Northern Mali is at risk of becoming a permanent haven for terrorists and organized criminal networks where people are subjected to a very strict interpretation of Shariah law and human rights are abused on a systematic basis,” Mr. Ban said in his report.

While a detailed military plan has yet to be drafted, the idea has been for about 3,300 troops from Nigeria and other African countries to help Mali’s military mount a campaign against the militants. France, the United States and other countries would help with training, intelligence and logistics.

General Ham acknowledged that Qaeda fighters would probably solidify their gains in northern Mali — an area the size of France — in the months that it would take to train and equip an African force to help Mali’s fractured military oust the militants from the north.

General Ham said that pursuing a diplomatic solution should be the first avenue for resolving the conflict. Malian diplomats have recently met with some ethnic Tuareg rebels in neighboring Burkina Faso in an attempt to resolve some long-standing complaints by the Tuareg people and isolate the Arab foreign fighters from the Qaeda franchise.

General Ham, a former Iraq war commander who oversaw the initial American-led air campaign against Libya last year, identified hurdles that an African force would face in evicting the extremists. Most of the African militaries likely to participate in such an operation have largely been trained and equipped for peacekeeping missions, not offensive operations, he said.

The region’s desert terrain, vast distances and the likelihood of an extended conflict also pose significant challenges to an African force, as well as to any Western militaries playing supporting roles, he said.

Mr. Ban identified even more basic issues to address before an African-led force would be ready to deploy. “Fundamental questions on how the force would be led, sustained, trained, equipped and financed remain unanswered,” he said in his 39-page report to the Security Council last Wednesday.

Islamists seized control of the long-unstable north after a coup d’état in the Malian capital of Bamako last March. The Malian Army collapsed after the coup, fleeing the main cities of the north in the wake of the rebel advance, and power in Bamako has since been uneasily shared by weak civilian leaders and the military, which has been accused of serious human rights abuses.

The fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya prompted Tuareg fighters from northern Mali, who had been fighting alongside Colonel Qaddafi’s forces, to return home with weapons from Libyan arsenals. They joined with Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militants who had moved to the lightly policed region from Algeria, and the two groups easily drove out the weakened Malian army in late March and early April. The Islamists then turned on the Tuaregs, routing them and consolidating control in the region in May and June.

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Euro zone crisis drags down European ad spending: report

LONDON (Reuters) – The euro zone crisis has left Western Europe the only world region to see a fall in advertising spending this year, market research group ZenithOptimedia said.

The forecasting group said advertising expenditure in Western Europe fell 2.2 percent to $ 106.8 billion this year compared with an average increase of 3.3 percent worldwide.

North American ad spending rose 4.1 percent to $ 171.9 billion and Asia’s expenditure was up 6.1 percent to $ 140.1 billion this year.

“Developing markets, social media and online video are all growing rapidly, supporting continued expansion in global ad expenditure despite stagnation in the eurozone,” said Steve King, global chief executive of ZenithOptimedia Group.

The company, part of advertising agency Publicis, also said European ad spending would be flat next year before growing by about 2 percent in 2014 and 2015.

This leaves Europe lagging faster-growing regions such North America, which will grow by 3.5 percent next year, as well as Asia (5.5 percent) and Latin America (10 percent).

“The euro zone crisis is dragging down economic growth at the moment,” ZenithOptimedia said on Monday.

“Because the eurozone is in recession, its imports from other countries are slowing down or shrinking, and the risk of eurozone collapse adds to global uncertainty, leading companies to hoard cash instead of investing in growth,” the firm said in an emailed statement.

Ad spending generally tracks economic growth, so recessions tend to hit the shares of advertising agencies, including market leaders WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic Group and Publicis.

ZenithOptimedia said global ad expenditure would rise 4.1 percent next year to reach $ 518 billion, driven largely by faster growth in the developing markets.

(Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Kellan Lutz, Hugh Jackman Take Bites and Swipes &#38; More Casting News

By Julia Haskins

12/02/2012 at 07:00 PM EST

Kellan Lutz (left) and Hugh Jackman

Christopher Polk/Getty, Han Myung-Gu/WireImage

It's comeback time. Whether seeking revenge or reprising beloved roles, a fresh crop of movies shows that the best characters always come back for more.

Twilight's Kellan Lutz feasts on others as a vampire, but this time, he's utilizing his own body for powers, Zimbio reports.

The actor will star in Tatua as a tattooed assassin whose weapons are extracted from the ink on his body. The process is a strain on the hit man, but he must put that aside when his son is kidnapped by a dangerous foe.

Hugh Jackman is set to reprise his role as Wolverine in
X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Hollywood Reporter. Ian McKellen (Magneto) and Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier), will also be joining Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Nicholas Hoult.

Charlize Theron will star in an adaptation of the final installment of a South Korean revenge trilogy, the Hollywood Reporter also says. The original movie revolves around a woman wrongfully imprisoned for 13 years who then sets out to seek her long-awaited revenge. Writer William Monahan says the English-language remake will be "very American – and very unexpected."

The made-for-TV Disney channel movie Life-Size is getting a sequel, Variety reports. Tyra Banks will reprise her role as Eve, the doll who comes to life, and also executive produce the movie. No word yet on whether Lindsay Lohan, who played Eve's owner, will be making a return.

Also coming soon:

Beyoncé won't be slowing down after her Super Bowl performance in February. Just a couple weeks later, she'll introduce her still untitled, feature-length documentary on HBO, Deadline reports. The documentary airs Feb. 16.

Bridesmaids' Rose Byrne will be going through the motions as a newlywed in I Give it a Year, Zimbio reports. As if being newly married wasn't tough enough, the "too perfect" ex Anna Faris will be shaking up an already teetering balance.

Cate Blanchett will be stirring up her wicked ways as the evil stepmother in a live-action adaptation of Disney's Cinderella, also according to Zimbio.

And George Clooney is sticking to his winning formula by joining forces with his Argo team to produce an untitled crime drama, Variety reports.

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Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

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

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Cliff fight may knock out December rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In normal times, next week's slew of U.S. economic data could be a springboard for a December rally in the stock market.

December is historically a strong month for markets. The S&P 500 has risen 16 times in the past 20 years during the month.

But the market hasn't been operating under normal circumstances since November 7 when a day after the U.S. election, investors' focus shifted squarely to the looming "fiscal cliff."

Investors are increasingly nervous about the ability of lawmakers to undo the $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin in January; those changes, if they go into effect, could send the U.S. economy into a recession.

A string of economic indicators next week, which includes a key reading of the manufacturing sector on Monday, culminates with the November jobs report on Friday.

But the impact of those economic reports could be muted. Distortions in the data caused by Superstorm Sandy are discounted.

The spotlight will be more firmly on signs from Washington that politicians can settle their differences on how to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"We have a week with a lot of economic data, and obviously most of the economic data is going to reflect the effects of Sandy, and that might be a little bit negative for the market next week, but most of that is already expected - the main focus remains the fiscal cliff," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

Concerns about the cliff sent the S&P 500 <.spx> into a two-week decline after the elections, dropping as much as 5.3 percent, only to rally back nearly 4 percent as the initial tone of talks offered hope that a compromise could be reached and investors snapped up stocks that were viewed as undervalued.

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 gained more than 20 points from its intraday low after House Speaker John Boehner said he was optimistic that a budget deal to avoid big spending cuts and tax hikes could be worked out. The next day, more pessimistic comments from Boehner, an Ohio Republican, briefly wiped out the day's gains in stocks.

On Friday, the sharp divide between the Democrats and the Republicans on taxes and spending was evident in comments from President Barack Obama, who favors raising taxes on the wealthy, and Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, who said Obama's plan was the wrong approach and declared that the talks had reached a stalemate.

"It's unusual to end up with one variable in this industry, it's unusual to have a single bullet that is the causal factor effect, and you are sitting here for the next maybe two weeks or more, on that kind of condition," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago.

"And that is what is grabbing the markets."

BE CONTRARY AND MAKE MERRY

But investor attitudes and seasonality could also help spur a rally for the final month of the year.

The most recent survey by the American Association of Individual Investors reflected investor caution about the cliff. Although bullish sentiment rose above 40 percent for the first time since August 23, bearish sentiment remained above its historical average of 30.5 percent for the 14th straight week.

December is a critical month for retailers such as Target Corp and Macy's Inc . They saw monthly retail sales results dented by Sandy, although the start of the holiday shopping season fared better.

With consumer spending making up roughly 70 percent of the U.S. economy, a solid showing for retailers during the holiday season could help fuel any gains.

Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, believes the recent drop after the election could be a market bottom, with sentiment leaving stocks poised for a December rally.

"The concerns on the fiscal cliff - as valid as they might be - could be overblown. When you look at a lot of the overriding sentiment, that has gotten extremely negative," said Detrick.

"From that contrarian point of view with the historically bullish time frame of December, we once again could be setting ourselves up for a pretty nice end-of-year rally, based on lowered expectations."

SOME FEEL THE BIG CHILL

Others view the fiscal cliff as such an unusual event that any historical comparisons should be thrown out the window, with a rally unlikely because of a lack of confidence in Washington to reach an agreement and the economic hit caused by Sandy.

"History doesn't matter. You're dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances that could very well end up in the U.S. economy going into a recession," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York.

"And the likelihood of that is exclusively in the hands of our elected officials in Washington. They could absolutely drag us into a completely voluntary recession."

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: charles.mikolajczak(at)thomsonreuters.com )

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Suspected Gaza Collaborators Face a Grisly Fate

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — When Fadel Shalouf’s family went to pick up his body at the morgue the day after he was executed on a busy Gaza street corner, they found his hands still cuffed behind his back. Hamas, the militant faction that rules Gaza, did not provide a van to carry the body to burial, so they laid him on two men’s laps in the back of a sedan.

It was an undignified end to a short, shrouded life. Mr. Shalouf, his family insisted, was an illiterate fisherman with a knack for designing kites when he was arrested at 19 by Gaza’s internal security service. Yet he was convicted in a Hamas court in January 2011 of providing Israel with information that led to the 2006 assassination of Abu Attaya, commander of the Popular Resistance Committees.

During last month’s intense eight-day battle with Israel, the military wing of the Hamas government brutally and publicly put an end to Mr. Shalouf, 24, and six other suspected collaborators. The vigilante-style killings by masked gunmen — with one body dragged through a Gaza City neighborhood by motorcycle and another left for crowds to gawk over in a traffic circle — highlighted the pathetic plight of collaborators, pawns preyed on by both sides in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Fadel lived poor and died poor,” said his cousin Ahmed Shalouf, 28. “They left the bodies for a few hours in the streets, people spitting on them, throwing stones. They did not execute only Fadel. They executed all of us.”

For Israel, despite its advanced technology for tracking terrorists, human sources remain an essential intelligence tool that allows for pinpoint strikes like the one that felled Ahmed al-Jabari, operations commander of Hamas’s Al Qassam Brigades, at the start of the recent escalation. To Hamas, they are the enemy within, and vigorous prosecution as well as the occasional high-profile lynching are powerful psychological tools to enforce loyalty and squelch dissent.

Former intelligence officials and experts on the phenomenon said many collaborators are struggling souls who are blackmailed into service by an Israeli government with great leverage over their lives. Some are enlisted when they apply for permits to seek medical treatment in Israel, for example, or in exchange for better conditions or early release from Israeli jails. Others are threatened with having behavior shunned in their religious Islamic communities — alcohol use, perhaps, or adultery — exposed.

“There is no substitute to a human source, because a human source goes into their house, sometimes even into their minds,” said Yaakov Peri, a former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. “With all the technology — drones, you name it — you need a background, and you need the assistance from a human source.”

Mr. Peri said Palestinian collaborators might be given money for expenses or a small salary, but “you’ll never be a rich guy.”

Hillel Cohen, a research fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who has written two books on the subject, said some Gaza collaborators “do it just for some money” and “some to be part of a big story”; few are actually supportive of Israel, he said, but many have problems with Hamas.

“I interviewed a lot of collaborators, and they have a kind of inferiority complex,” Mr. Cohen explained. “They see the West, Israel, as much better than the Arab. I hear expressions like, ‘We’re worth nothing.’ Sometimes it comes from there, and sometimes it’s part of what the Israeli officers put in their minds.”

Collaboration has underpinned Israeli-Palestinian relations since before there was a modern state of Israel, dating back at least to the Jewish underground that operated during the British Mandate era in the 1930s. The Oslo Accords signed by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in 1994 even made two villages — one in Gaza, one in the West Bank — safe refuges for about 1,500 Bedouins suspected of spying.

The very definition of collaboration has expanded in recent years. Some in Hamas and more militant groups consider the Palestinian Authority to be aiding the enemy when it coordinates security services in the West Bank with Israel. Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 after winning elections, members of the rival Fatah faction who live here have almost universally been under suspicion. Selling land to Jews can be punishable by death.

Fares Akram contributed reporting from Gaza, and Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem.

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App of the Week: Hooked

App Name: Hooked

Price: Free

Available Platforms: Android

What does this app do? Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Mahjong Connect – these are just a few of the popular apps in the Google Play Store for Android devices. For game app lovers, wading through the possibilities can be daunting.

Hooked, a game recommendation app developed by Hooked Media Group, can help.

“There are hundreds of thousands of apps out there people may really enjoy,” says Pita Uppal, CEO of the San Francisco based company.

Uppal, who recognizes people like to play with variety game apps but may have no idea what to try, likens Hooked to Netflix and Pandora rolled into one.

Once you download the app, Hooked analyses more than 40 factors, such as device type, the kinds of games a user has on his or her device, and usage statistics. By looking at what a consumer already has and how he or she is using those games, Hooked aims to offer users intelligent suggestions.

From the homescreen, select the menu button at the top and then search categories such as “Top Picks for You,” which provides a customized, star-rated list of recommendations. Press the tools key in the upper right hand corner and customize your recommendations by category, such as puzzle and racing, or by price.

Select “My Games”, and the app displays a dashboard of icons to help you understand your game activity. A folder icon, for example, shows what and how many games you have installed, and a clock icon tells you the amount of time you’ve spent playing a particular game. I spent an entire minute playing “Stupid Zombies.”

Logging in through Facebook or Google+ allows you to see what your friends and connections are playing, too.

Is it easy to set up? Yes, the 2.1MB app installs quickly. Log in with your account and go.

Should I try it? Hooked is like a personal shopper for game-loving app users, and the more you use it the more it understands what you might like. For the moment, it is only available for Android, but Uppal says the company plans to launch Hooked for iOS in the coming months.

Also Read
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum Are Married

People Exclusive

By Monica Rizzo

12/01/2012 at 06:15 PM EST

J.P. Rosenbaum and Ashley Hebert

Victor Chavez/Getty

It’s official: Bachelorette star Ashley Hebert and her fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum tied the knot Saturday afternoon in Pasadena, Calif.

Surrounded by family, friends and fellow Bachelor and Bachelorette alumni like Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick, the couple said "I do" in an outdoor ceremony officiated by franchise host Chris Harrison.

"Today is all about our friends and family," Hebert, whose nuptials will air Dec. 16 on a two-hour special on ABC, tells PEOPLE. "It's about standing with J.P., looking around at all the people we love in the same room there to celebrate our love."

The 28-year-old dentist from Madawaska, Maine, met New York construction manager Rosenbaum, 35, on season 7 of The Bachelorette. The couple became engaged on the season finale.

Hebert and Rosenbaum are the second couple in the franchise's 24 seasons to make it from their show finale to the altar, following in the footsteps of Bachelorette Trista Rehn, who married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.

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Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

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

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