The strangely amazing Twitter poetry of Sen. Charles Grassley






Some people just have a way with words. A poetic retrospective of the haiku-like 140-character musings of Iowa‘s senior Republican


On Nov. 26, 2007, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) joined the still-young Twitter revolution, tweeting the simple-yet-direct message “Attending events in Iowa.” Since then he has racked up more than 2,400 tweets, 65,500 followers, and a strangely loyal fan base. “If you’re on Twitter and not following Sen. Chuck Grassley, you’re not using Twitter correctly,” says Elahe Izadi at National Journal. “Twitter just speaks to some people,” says Virginia Heffernan at Yahoo News, and Grassley is definitely one of them. Iowa’s senior senator says he took to Twitter to bypass the “liberal” media filter, but he’s turned mundane musings into a sort of minimalist poetry. So here, some of the haiku-like 140-character (or less) musings of the Bard of New Hartford, starting with his greatest hit:







Fred and I hit a deer on hiway 136 south of Dyersville. After I pulled fender rubbing on tire we continued to farm. Assume deer dead



SEE ALSO: A long-lost pet


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 26, 2012



U hv herad saying:”deer in headlight look”. It is a frightening xperience when a real deer is there



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) December 1, 2012



I was doing morning run at farm. Deer killed by car in ditch. He was dead. I didn’t have to”assume” anything about his condition



SEE ALSO: The church of veganism


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) December 1, 2012



Seen dead deer on way church. They didn’t hit my car Unsafe if u drive in area where deer congregateIowa needs longerseason to kill more



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 19, 2012



My local steak house serves nothing but vegetarian bc cows are vegetarian



SEE ALSO: Don’t blame gerrymandering for our political paralysis


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) July 26, 2012



Michele Obama in DsMoines to fight obesity Good Tell the Pres to bk off stupid child farm labor rules Farm children workin at home is good



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 9, 2012



The govt food police came around to local school said”no catchup” so kids bring their own catchup. What’s accomplished? Too much govt?



SEE ALSO: Eau de bébé


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 26, 2012



Iowa legislators and staff drink lots soft drink but are too carefree what they do w empty cans. Always recycle Deposit 5cents. Inflation?



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 1, 2012



2of us new Hartford lions wanted to be ambassadors Reinbeck lions. Found out Reinbeck not meeting So we ended up eating w AmLegion Auxiliary



SEE ALSO: Call me, maybe


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 21, 2012



Mother nature certified Hamburg levee last summer. Corps shld leave Hamburg alone. save $ and use common sense.



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) July 19, 2012



There will b weather in Iowa todaySo I’m flying bk to DC early



SEE ALSO: No kids for you!


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) January 27, 2013



A team that is punting all the time isn’t scoring.The senate dem teams been punting all yr: No budget/No approps/ no tax reform/All timeouts



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2012



Evrybody asking how Romney”relates”to avg person Me thinks”no problem” but if so I hv answer “just lv starch out of shirt”



SEE ALSO: The cost of commuting


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 4, 2012



Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a “hammer” u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) June 7, 2009



C me intrvud by greta van sunshine on FOX tonite at 9pm central. Fast and furious and white house stonewall my investigation



SEE ALSO: Will Congress force the USPS to deliver mail on Saturdays?


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 29, 2012



Just turned to history channel.No history. I used to get history. Why do we h v such a channelwhen it doesntdo history



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 20, 2012



History. No history. Axe manTimberNothing historical.Back to FOX.Sigh. Suggest name to change channel name



SEE ALSO: Ahmadinejad is a monkey, and 6 other examples of John McCain’s peculiar sense of humor [Updated]


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 19, 2012



Turned to history channel.No.HIstory again



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 11, 2012



Since History channel doesnt hv history anymore i advise National Geographic channel. At least that channel has some history



SEE ALSO: Just dessert


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 25, 2012



Wondering if No History Channel would be interest in covering my axe and chain saw work at my farm for Axeman. At least it would b new



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) April 1, 2012



I can’t blieve itThere is actually history on history channelAbout ex presidents



SEE ALSO: Gunning for love


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 6, 2012



If



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 16, 2012



U



SEE ALSO: Sweet revenge


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) January 30, 2013



Test



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 3, 2012



A



SEE ALSO: Why are Millennials so optimistic about the future?


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) January 20, 2012



#



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 9, 2012



Test



SEE ALSO: No mail on Saturday: Will five-day-a-week delivery save the U.S. Postal Service?


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 3, 2012



#9



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 16, 2012



P



SEE ALSO: A winning loser


— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) April 7, 2012



@



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 3, 2012



3



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 3, 2012



I now h vaniphone



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 13, 2012



Welcome to Twitter Pope Benedict. U will find it useful and interesting



— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) December 3, 2012


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Adele: These Days, I'm Only Singing Lullabies




Celebrity Baby Blog





02/10/2013 at 09:31 PM ET



Adele Best Pop Performance Grammy Awards 2013
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP


Adele may have started her day off at dawn, but the early morning wake up call came courtesy of her son — not her glam squad.


“I’ve been up since 6 a.m. so I’m quite tired, but it’s nice,” Adele, who won best pop solo performance for her hit, “Set Fire to the Rain,” told reporters backstage at the Grammy Awards Sunday.


“I haven’t been as stressed out,” she said. “In life you have to prioritize what you stress about and worry about when you have a child.”


And just as her primping for the big show took a backseat to baby boy — reportedly named Angelo — Adele admits any upcoming albums are coming along at a much more slower pace than usual.



“I’ve been having lots of meetings and I’ve been out of the loop really,” the new mom, who arrived in Los Angeles before the Golden Globes, explains. “I’ve been singing my baby nursery rhymes so I don’t really know what’s cool and what’s not.”


– Anya Leon with reporting by Melody Chiu


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After early start, worst of flu season may be over


NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.


The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.


The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.


"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.


But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.


For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.


Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.


"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.


In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.


Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications


But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.


So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.


Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.


The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says


On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.


According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.


Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.


___


Online:


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


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US Air, AMR near $11 billion merger, deal seen within week : sources


NEW YORK (Reuters) - US Airways Group Inc and AMR Corp are nearing an $11 billion merger that would create the world's largest airline and could announce a deal within a week, after resolving key differences on valuation and management structure, people familiar with the matter said.


Under terms of a deal that are still being finalized, US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker would become CEO, while AMR's Tom Horton would serve as non-executive chairman of the board until spring of 2014, when the combined company holds its first annual meeting, the sources said.


The deal would come more than 14 months after the parent of American Airlines filed for bankruptcy in November 2011, and would mark the last combination of legacy U.S. carriers, following the Delta-Northwest and United-Continental mergers.


The all-stock merger is expected to value the combined carrier at between $10.5 billion and $11 billion, and would give AMR creditors 72 percent of the ownership in the new company and US Airways shareholders the rest, they said.


The board of each airline is expected to meet in the middle of the coming week to vote on the proposed deal, and an announcement would likely come in the latter part of the week, the sources said, asking not to be named because the matter is not public.


Negotiations are continuing and could still be delayed or fall apart, they cautioned.


The companies had initially tried to schedule board meetings for Monday, the day that AMR's creditors committee planned to convene, and had aimed to announce a deal as soon as Tuesday, sources told Reuters previously.


But AMR needed more time to finalize details and the boards of the two airlines are now not expected to gather until around Wednesday, the sources said.


The AMR creditors committee is still meeting on Monday in New York, as initially scheduled, and will continue discussions as the airlines finalize negotiations, they added.


A lawyer for the creditors committee declined to comment. Representatives for AMR and US Airways declined to comment.


A combination with US Airways would create the world's top airline by passenger traffic and help the two carriers better compete with rivals United Continental Holdings and Delta Air Lines Inc .


A near-$11 billion valuation of the combined American-US Airways compares to some $12.4 billion market capitalization for Delta, and $8.7 billion for United Continental.


The currently planned equity split ratio between AMR creditors and US Airways shareholders implies a roughly $3 billion valuation for US Airways and some $7.5 billion to $8 billion valuation for AMR.


NEW AMERICAN AIRLINES


US Airways will follow through on its agreement with AMR labor unions last year that the combined carrier would be branded American Airlines and be based in Fort Worth, Texas, where AMR is currently based, sources said. US Airways has its headquarters in Tempe, Arizona.


As part of the merger, US Airways will also leave the Star Alliance to join the oneworld global airline alliance, of which American Airlines is an anchor member along with British Airways, the people familiar with the matter said.


The airlines are estimating that a merger will bring about $1 billion in revenue and cost benefits, they said.


Horton rebuffed an aggressive takeover push from US Airways early in the bankruptcy process, saying the airline preferred to exit court protection on its own and consider a deal later. But after several months of talks with its own creditors as well as with US Airways, Horton has softened his approach and agreed to consider all options.


A combined American-US Airways would provide the scale to match bigger rivals that are upgrading service and expanding international routes. The merged company would have revenue of $38.69 billion based on 2012 figures, ahead of United Continental which had revenue of $37.15 billion last year.


The new American would have a solid presence on the important U.S. East and West coasts and on North Atlantic routes, given American's revenue-sharing joint venture with British Airways and Iberia.


(Reporting by Soyoung Kim in New York, additional reporting by Nick Brown and Karen Jacobs; Editing by Sandra Maler)



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Syrian War Closes In on the Heart of Damascus


Goran Tomasevic/Reuters


Fighters from the Free Syrian Army's Tahrir al Sham brigade look at a Syrian Army base in the Arabeen neighborhood of Damascus.







DAMASCUS, Syria — Unkempt government soldiers, some appearing drunk, have been deployed near a rebel-held railway station in the southern reaches of this tense capital. Office workers on 29th of May Street, in the heart of the city, tell of huddling at their desks, trapped inside for hours by gun battles that sound alarmingly close.




Soldiers have swept through city neighborhoods, making arrests ahead of a threatened rebel advance downtown, even as opposition fighters edge past the city limits, carrying mortars and shelling security buildings. Fighter jets that pounded the suburbs for months have begun to strike Jobar, an outlying neighborhood of Damascus proper, creating the disturbing spectacle of a government’s bombing its own capital.


On Sunday, the government sent tanks there to battle rebels for control of a key ring road.


In this war of murky battlefield reports, it is hard to know whether the rebels’ recent forays past some of the capital’s circle of defenses — in an operation that they have, perhaps immodestly, named the “Battle of Armageddon” — will lead to more lasting gains than earlier offensives did. But travels along the city’s battlefronts in recent days made clear that new lines, psychological as much as geographical, had been crossed.


“I didn’t see my family for more than a year,” a government soldier from a distant province said in a rare outpouring of candor. He was checking drivers’ identifications near the railway station at a checkpoint where hundreds of soldiers arrived last week with tanks and other armored vehicles.


“I am tired and haven’t slept well for a week,” he said, confiding in a traveler who happened to be from his hometown. “I have one wish — to see my family and have a long, long sleep. Then I don’t care if I die.”


For months, this ancient city has been hunched in a defensive crouch as fighting raged in suburbs that curve around the city’s south and east. On the western edge of the city, the palace of the embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, sits on a steep, well-defended ridge.


In between, Damascus, with its walled Old City, grand diagonal avenues and crowded working-class districts, has remained the eye of the storm. People keep going to work, even as electric service grows sporadic and groceries dwindle, even as the road to the airport is often cut off by fighting outside the city, and even as smoke from artillery and airstrikes in suburbs becomes a regular feature on the horizon.


But after rebels took the railway station 10 days ago in a city district called Qadam and attacked Abassiyeen Square on an approach to the city center on Wednesday, a new level of alarm and disorder has suffused the city. Rebels have pushed farther into the capital than at any point since July, when they briefly held part of a southern neighborhood.


Near the Qadam railway station last week, many of the government soldiers, their hair and beards untrimmed, wore disheveled or dirty uniforms and smelled as if they had not had showers in a long time. Some soldiers and security officers even appeared drunk, walking unsteadily with their weapons askew — a shocking sight in Syria, where regimented security forces and smartly uniformed officers have long been presented as a symbol of national pride.


The deployment appeared aimed at stopping the rebels from advancing past Qadam, either across the city’s ring road and toward the downtown or to suburbs to the east to close a gap in the opposition’s front line.


But even stationed here in Damascus, the heart of the government’s power, the soldier at the checkpoint — who was steady on his feet — said he felt vulnerable.


“It is very scary to spend a night and you expect to be shot or slaughtered at any moment,” he said. “We spend our nights counting the minutes until daytime.”


The government has hit back hard, striking Qadam with artillery and airstrikes. It has also made pre-emptive arrests in Midan, the neighboring district, closer to downtown, where rebels gained a temporary foothold in July and which they said was their next target.


Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, Lebanon.



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Game not over: Zynga, Take-Two Interactive up






NEW YORK (AP) — Battered shares of Zynga Inc. showed some improvement on Wednesday after the “FarmVille” maker’s fourth-quarter earnings surpassed muted expectations. Old-school video game maker Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., the maker of “Grand Theft Auto,” also saw its stock rise after strong quarterly results.


GameStop Corp., meanwhile, fell nearly 7 percent after new rumors surfaced on the gaming blog Edge that the new Xbox won’t play used games. GameStop, the world’s largest video game retailer, relies on used games for some of its revenue so if the report is true, it would hurt its business.






Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said while it is possible that Microsoft could include some type of validation in the console that could limit used game sales, “they have no incentive to do so.”


“If they do it alone, they would alienate gamers and Sony would gain share,” he said in an email. “If Sony does it alone, the same thing happens. If they act in concert, there is arguably an antitrust suit in the making.”


Microsoft Corp., the maker of the Xbox, declined to comment. It has not announced plans about the next version of the Xbox. Sony is expected to unveil the next PlayStation at an event in New York City later this month.


Shares of Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop dropped $ 1.82, or 6.8 percent, to $ 24.99 in midday trading. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $ 15.32 to $ 28.35.


Zynga, meanwhile, added 27 cents, or 9.7 percent, to $ 3.01. The San Francisco-based online game maker reported a smaller loss and flat revenue that nonetheless exceeded analysts’ expectations. The company also indicated that it’s doubling down on mobile games. Zynga’s games are mostly played on Facebook’s web site, but Facebook’s users are mostly checking in to the social network on smartphones and tablet computers.


After a promising initial public offering in December 2011, Zynga’s stock lost 75 percent of its value in 2012 as demand for its games faded. It’s up about 29 percent year-to-date compared with 6 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.


Shares of Take-Two jumped $ 1.51, or 11.9 percent, to $ 14.17, closer to the high end of its 52-week trading range of $ 7.37 and $ 16.35. The New York-based company said strong sales of “NBA 2K3″ and “Borderlands 2″ helped push the quarter’s results ahead of expectations. Investors dismissed guidance that fell short of estimates for the current quarter. That’s because Take-Two is launching the next installment of its biggest game, “Grand Theft Auto,” in September.


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Tiger Woods & Lindsey Vonn Are 'Spending More Time' Together: Source






Buzz








02/09/2013 at 06:00 PM EST







Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn


Mick Tsikas/Reuters/Landov; Luis Guerra/Ramey


It was quite the gesture.

After Lindsey Vonn suffered a devastating injury during the Alpine World Championships in Austria, she got a bit of help from Tiger Woods. Walking on crutches, Vonn – who tore two ligaments in her right knee and fractured her shin when she crashed on Tuesday ­– boarded Woods's private jet to return home.

Is it a sign that the rumored relationship between Woods and Vonn is heating up?

"Tiger and Lindsey have been friends for a while, and nothing started out romantically at all," a source tells PEOPLE. "But they really have a lot in common and got closer and closer. He still refers to her as 'my very good friend,' but he's been spending more and more time talking to her – and talking about her."

Last month, Vonn's reps kept mum about the rumored relationship, telling PEOPLE that her "focus is solely on competing and on defending her titles and thus she will not participate in any speculation surrounding her personal life at this time."

But the source close to Woods tells PEOPLE that Woods, 37, and Vonn. 28, talk and text frequently.

"Tiger really does want a woman who he can have good conversations with," he says. "He wants shared interests and outlooks. He is finding that with [Lindsey]."

Woods made international headlines in 2009 when he was linked to dozens of women while still married to his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren.

Since then, he has dated sporadically, but struggled to find someone who wanted a relationship for the right reasons.

"She's not freaked out by his past, and that's really appealing to him," says the source. "He really does deserve to be happy. He has been flogging himself for three years, and it's good to see him moving forward."

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over


NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.


The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.


The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.


"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.


But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.


For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.


Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.


"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.


In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.


Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications


But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.


So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.


Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.


The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says


On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.


According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.


Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.


___


Online:


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


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Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.


The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.


The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.


Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.


AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.


Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.


"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.


Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.


The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.


"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.


For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.


Shares of Dell closed at $13.63, up 0.7 percent, after briefly trading above a buyout offering price of $13.65 during the session.


Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.


Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.


Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.


Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.


Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.


The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.


"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."


Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by almost 5 to 3.


(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Barry and Andrew Hay)



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Israeli Says Syria Twisted Comments by Rebel Supporter





BEIRUT, Lebanon — A public relations controversy erupted Saturday after a leading Israeli newspaper published comments from a brief interview with the leader of Syria’s main exile opposition group.




The news media outlets of the Syrian government, and its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, reported that the opposition leader had declared that Israel had “nothing to fear” from a rebel-led Syrian government. Moreover, the reports said, the opposition was working with other countries to keep Syria’s chemical weapons away from Hezbollah, which he called a “son of the devil.”


But the opposition leader, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, never said any of that, according to the article in the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, and its author, a prominent Israeli defense expert, Ronen Bergman.


Sheik Khatib was quoted in the article reiterating the opposition’s promise to keep Syria’s chemical arsenal out of “the hands of unauthorized elements,” and it was the international community, he said, not Israel, that had “nothing to fear.”


When Sheik Khatib realized that Mr. Bergman was an Israeli — after glancing at his business card — he abruptly ended the conversation, Mr. Bergman said in a Skype interview, repeating what he had written.


The original article was published only in Hebrew — and only in print — so it was the Arabic and English versions put out by the Syrian government and Hezbollah that raced around the Internet on Saturday, provoking outrage from government supporters and opponents at Sheik Khatib, who posted a message on his Facebook page denying that he had given the interview.


Yet the episode appeared to have been more than a simple misunderstanding. Syria’s conflict is not only a shooting war but also a propaganda war. Pro-government media apparently could not resist the chance to bolster their contention that the rebellion had been promoted by Israel and the West to punish Syria and its president, President Bashar al-Assad, for taking uncompromising positions against Israel.


“Unfortunately, the original text was less exciting,” Mr. Bergman said. “I would be happy if he would say something like, ‘Yes, we will make peace with Israel’ — then I would get the front page.” As it was, the article elicited little reaction in Israel.


But misrepresentation of the article suggested that it hit a nerve on one issue. An unnamed opposition member, not Sheik Khatib, called Hezbollah “sons of the devil,” according to Mr. Bergman, and said the rebel coalition was working with other countries to ensure that “not one piece of military equipment, not chemical weapons and not any other item, will pass into their hands.”


Syria is Hezbollah’s main conduit for arms, and Hezbollah has backed Mr. Assad’s bloody crackdown at great cost to its popularity in the wider Arab world.


Although Mr. Bergman said the opposition member was offering his own opinion and not presenting official policy, his comments bolstered the widely held view that a rebel-led government might halt the shipment of Iranian arms through Syria to Hezbollah. Hezbollah, a Shiite group and political party, is also concerned about the rise within the rebel movement of extremist Sunni jihadists who view Shiites as apostates.


The misleading reports appeared to be an attempt to further divide the opposition. Sheik Khatib found himself fending off critics from within the anti-Assad movement who objected to his even speaking with an Israeli reporter, though by all accounts he did not initially realize that Mr. Bergman was an Israeli.


It was the second time in a month that Sheik Khatib found himself on the defensive. He recently proposed talks with members of Mr. Assad’s government, but had not built political support for the proposal.


On Friday, Syria’s information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, gave the first official response to the proposal, saying that the government would negotiate with any opposition members who agreed to lay down their arms.


On Saturday, Mr. Assad named new cabinet ministers for oil, finance, social affairs, labor, housing, public works and agriculture, as Syria faces growing economic problems and shortages of electricity, fuel and bread.


Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut.



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