Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life


The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.


There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.


"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.


Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.


When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."


One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.


The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."


In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."


"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.


Experts on aging agreed.


"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."


Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.


But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.


"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.


"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.


Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.


In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.


Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.


The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.


Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.


Other leaders who are still working:


—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.


—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.


—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.


—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.


__


Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.


___


Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Wall Street ends flat as investors seek new catalysts

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended a quiet session with slight moves on Monday as investors found few reasons to keep pushing shares higher following a six-week advance, though the longer-term trend was still viewed as positive.


The benchmark index is up more 6.4 percent in 2013, putting both the S&P 500 and Dow industrials near multi-year highs. The S&P is less than 4 percent from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09, hit in October 2007.


"This is still a market that looks terrific, but when you're up for six weeks in a row, everyone is going to want to take a pause going into the seventh week even if there is no bad news out there," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management in Chicago.


Volume was light, with about 4.812 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, well below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.


Wall Street was modestly lower throughout the session but regained some ground in the final hour of trading as Google Inc rebounded off earlier losses. Shares of the Internet search giant dipped 0.4 percent to $782.42, recovering from earlier declines of 1 percent after the company said in a filing former chief executive Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his stake in the company.


Also in the tech space, Apple Inc rose up 1 percent to $479.93 after the New York Times reported the iPhone maker was experimenting with the design of a device similar to a wristwatch.


The Federal Reserve's Vice Chair Janet Yellen, seen as a potential successor to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke next year, said the Fed is still aggressively stimulating an anemic U.S. economic recovery that has failed to bring rapid progress on employment.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 21.81 points, or 0.16 percent, at 13,971.16. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.92 points, or 0.06 percent, at 1,517.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 1.87 points, or 0.06 percent, at 3,192.00.


Upbeat U.S. and Chinese data last week helped the S&P 500 extend its weekly winning streak to six. The index gained about 8 percent over that period.


Equities have been strong performers lately and many investors have used any declines in the market as opportunities to buy.


"Everyone wants to buy on a dip in this market, but if you're on the sidelines right now, the decline we're seeing today just isn't the kind you would jump in on," Kuby said.


President Barack Obama will describe his plan for spurring the economy in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. He is expected to offer proposals for investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education.


Opposition has grown to the $24.4 billion buyout of Dell Inc , the No. 3 personal computer maker, as three of the largest investors joined Southeastern Asset Management on Friday in raising objections. Dell said in a regulatory filing it had considered many strategic options before opting to go private in a buyout led by Chief Executive Michael Dell.


Dell shares hovered near $13.65, the buyout offer price.


Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc shares rose 2.7 percent at $170.35 after it said longtime drug development partner Sanofi plans to boost its stake.


Moody's Corp was one of the strongest percentage gainers on the S&P 500, rising 4.9 percent to $45.49. Last week the stock plunged 22 percent after the U.S. government launched a civil lawsuit against the company. The sell-off marked the stock's worst week since October 2008.


About 53 percent of stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed lower while slightly more Nasdaq-listed stocks closed in negative territory.


(Editing by Nick Zieminski)



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Militant Threats Test Pentagon’s Role in Africa


Pool photo by


Gen. William E. Ward, left, departed as Africa Command leader under a cloud, succeeded by Gen. Carter F. Ham in 2011.







NIAMEY, Niger — Created five years ago to focus on training the armed forces of dozens of African nations and strengthening social, political and economic programs, the Pentagon’s Africa Command now finds itself on a more urgent mission: confronting a new generation of Islamist militants who are testing the United States’ resolve to fight terrorism without being drawn into a major conflict.




Some military and Congressional critics question whether the command is up to dealing with its dual mission, and some influential lawmakers warn that Africom, with its headquarters in Germany, is understaffed and poorly financed for challenges that include countering Al Qaeda’s fighters in Mali, Islamic extremists in Libya, drug traffickers in West Africa and armed rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.


The leader of the command, Gen. Carter F. Ham, must straddle the new and the old missions, as he demonstrated one day last month when he flew to the northern reaches of this largely desert nation to watch United States troops train Niger’s fledgling border corps in basic skills to help combat Al Qaeda’s branch in North and West Africa. Then, within hours, he was back here in the capital for an urgent secure phone call from Washington to weigh what kind of advanced military support or surveillance the Pentagon could provide a French-led operation to blunt an Islamist offensive in neighboring Mali.


“The command is searching to find the right balance between the press of current military operations and the vision of longer-term engagement, helping Africans develop greater capacity for themselves,” said Christopher W. Dell, a former United States ambassador to Angola and Zimbabwe, who is General Ham’s deputy for civil-military activities.


Africom has an annual budget of about $300 million and 2,000 employees worldwide — an operation that Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, calls “an ‘economy of force’ effort.” By comparison, the military’s Central Command, which oversees Afghanistan and the Middle East, has a yearly budget of about $800 million and 5,000 employees.


With no assigned forces in the region except for those at a base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, the command was caught napping last Sept. 11, critics contend, when it had no military forces poised to respond to the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. An independent review of the attack concluded that events had unfolded too quickly for any American forces to make a difference.


Still, controversy has dogged the command since its creation in 2008. Initial statements about its mission and scope of activity alarmed some African leaders and State Department officials, who feared that the Pentagon was trying to militarize diplomacy and development on the continent. These concerns led the command to set up its headquarters in Stuttgart.


The command’s first boss, Gen. William E. Ward, left two years ago under a cloud. Pentagon investigators later found that General Ward had lavishly overspent on official trips. He was ordered to repay the government $82,000 and was forced to retire as a lieutenant general, a one-rank demotion.


Enter General Ham, who turns 61 this week and is the rare Army officer to have risen from private to four-star commander in a 40-year career. He has led troops in northern Iraq, overseen military operations at the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and helped lead reviews into the Defense Department’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and the fatal shootings at Fort Hood, Tex.


His combat mettle was tested almost immediately. Within days of assuming command in March 2011, General Ham was leading the initial phase of the Libya air campaign, for which he earned high marks from his civilian bosses at the Pentagon and the White House.


But the general, who will retire this spring, acknowledged in one of three interviews during his recent trip to Niger that the command’s ability to address the terrorist threat in Africa had been “mixed.”


His grades? “Pretty good” in Somalia, where the Shabab, Islamist militants, have been dealt several setbacks in the past year. “Less good” in Libya, Mali and other parts of North and West Africa, where the United States is hunting Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a militant leader who claimed responsibility for the attack on a gas field in Algeria last month. And lacking in Nigeria, where an Islamist extremist group, Boko Haram, poses a major threat.


“Frankly, the intelligence community has not focused a lot on this part of the world,” General Ham said. “But we are starting to, out of necessity.”


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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






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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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