Stock markets closed as storm hobbles New York

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Stock markets closed as storm hobbles New York

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock and options markets will be closed on Monday, and possibly Tuesday, as regulators, exchanges and brokers worry about the integrity of markets and the safety of employees in the face of Hurricane Sandy.

Market participants and regulators decided late on Sunday to shut the market, reversing a plan to keep electronic trading going on Monday. Bond markets will remain open, but will close at noon, a trade group said. World Hot Topics Blog

The decision to close stock and options markets came after regulators, exchanges, and dealers discussed the unknowns that would have been tested if the markets opened on Monday, three sources familiar with the situation said.

For example, NYSE Euronext's New York Stock Exchange had initially planned to shut its physical trading floor, which would have meant operating as an all-electronic exchange for the first time.

The decision to shut down the stock markets came after Wall Street had prepared to open for business on Monday with limited staffing after a mass transit shut-down in New York, booking hotel rooms for key employees and leaning on offices in other cities.

Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc, activated their emergency plans, which many firms put in place after the September 11, 2001, attacks. It was not immediately clear if those plans had also changed. World Hot Topics Blog

Some bank offices in lower Manhattan's Financial District are in evacuation zones and most non-critical staff and employees who don't rely on high-speed systems, including some investment bankers, were asked to work from home.

"SUPER STORM"
The storm is expected to slam into the U.S. East Coast on Monday night, bringing torrential rain, high wind, severe flooding and power outages. The rare "super storm" - created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm - could be the biggest to hit the U.S. mainland, forecasters said.

The scramble started early as the threat of the storm forced the New York mass transit system to shut down on Sunday evening, leaving tens of thousands of employees stuck at home.

About 8.5 million commuters use the Metropolitan Transit Authority's transit lines daily, meaning most Wall Street employees would be unable to get to work. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also closed public schools and ordered an evacuation of 375,000 people in coastal areas, including downtown offices of banks such as Citigroup. World Hot Topics Blog

The major exchanges and most big trading firms have alternate trading facilities if downtown Manhattan is inaccessible, but the storm's wide path may affect a number of sites in the New York metropolitan area. Authorities have warned of possible widespread power outages that could last for days.

Wall Street was spared the worst of Hurricane Irene in August last year. Officials had feared Hurricane Irene would flood lower Manhattan and cripple business in the world's financial capital, but the flooding was minor and there were no major disruptions at the exchanges.

All of the U.S. exchanges, as well as major broker-dealers, and regulators were involved in the decision to close the markets, according to several executives at exchanges and financial firms.

The U.S. markets have seen three high-profile snafus this year, beginning with the failed IPO of BATS Global Markets, the No. 3 U.S. equities exchange, on its own exchange; Facebook Inc's botched markets debut on Nasdaq's exchange; and a software glitch that cost trading firm Knight Capital well over $400 million, nearly forcing it into bankruptcy. World Hot Topics Blog

BOND MARKETS
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said earlier on Sunday it is recommending an early close of noon EDT on Monday for the trading of U.S. dollar-denominated, fixed-income securities. It said its member firms should decide for themselves whether their fixed-income departments remain open for trading.

The foreign exchange market's activity generally follows the fixed income markets.
The New York Federal Reserve has calls scheduled for early Monday morning with dealers to see what each dealer is doing to cope with the storm, and will modify its market activities accordingly.

In Washington, the Commerce Department said it would post its report on personal income and spending for September on its website at 8:30 a.m. as scheduled, even though the federal government was closed.
The Federal Reserve said it would postpone its regularly scheduled releases, including its weekly report on selected interest rates and daily commercial paper data. The Fed said it would release the data when federal offices in the Washington area reopened. World Hot Topics Blog

CME Group Inc said it will be closing its U.S. equity index futures and equity index options on futures markets on the trading floor and on CME Globex at 8:15 a.m., Central Time, on Monday. All other CME Group futures and options on futures markets will remain open.

IntercontinentalExchange Inc said trading in the ICE Futures Russell equity index futures and options will close early, at 9:15 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday. It said ICE Clear Credit will close at noon Eastern Time on Monday, with the U.S. fixed income markets. It said all other ICE markets and clearing houses will remain open and follow regular market hours.

WORK FROM HOME
Goldman, whose office in lower Manhattan is in one of the areas to be evacuated, told employees earlier on Sunday that it would open for business, with some staff working from offices in Greenwich, Connecticut, and in Princeton, New Jersey. It also plans to use teams in London and other locations around the world for support.

Citigroup, which has three buildings in the evacuation zone, said "non-critical personnel should invoke their work-from-home strategies." World Hot Topics Blog

JPMorgan Chase & Co said its buildings were still open Monday and the bank was planning to be fully operational, using resources in the United States, Europe and Asia.

For many investment bankers and private equity executives, working from home will make the most sense. Blackstone Group planned to close its office on Monday.

Hurricane Sandy also led to some events being canceled or postponed. Citigroup Prime Brokerage postponed a hedge fund event that had been scheduled for Tuesday.

(Reporting by John McCrank, David Gaffen, Caroline Humer, David Henry, Charles Mikolajczak, Richard Leong, Edward Krudy, Lauren LaCapra, Dan Wilchins and Rick Rothacker; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Jennifer Merritt, Tiffany Wu, Maureen Bavdek, Dale Hudson, Gary Crosse and Robert Birsel)

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US govt sues Bank of America on allegations of mortgage fraud

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US govt sues Bank of America on allegations of mortgage fraud

WASHINGTON: The US government has sued Bank of America for $1 billion on allegations of a multi-year mortgage fraud.

In a complaint filed in a New York court, the department of justice alleged that from 2007 through 2009, Countrywide, and later Bank of America after it acquired Countrywide, implemented a new loan origination process called the Hustle, which was intentionally designed to process loans at high speed and without quality checkpoints.

This generated thousands of fraudulent and otherwise defective residential mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that later defaulted, causing over $1 billion in losses and countless foreclosures.

This is the first civil fraud suit brought by the department of justice concerning mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. World Hot Topics Blog

"For the sixth time in less than 18 months, this office has been compelled to sue a major US bank for reckless mortgage practices in the lead-up to the financial crisis," said US attorney Preet Bharara.

"Countrywide and Bank of America systematically removed every check in favour of its own balance - they cast aside underwriters, eliminated quality controls, incentivised unqualified personnel to cut corners and concealed the resulting defects.

"These toxic products were then sold to the government sponsored enterprises as good loans.

"This lawsuit should send another clear message that reckless lending practices will not be tolerated," Bharara said in a statement. World Hot Topics Blog
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This is an act of tiny margins relative to the size of the organisations and relative to the fraud committed, William K Black, a former bank regulator who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, told The Washington Post.

"Prosecutors can't argue that these cases will serve as a deterrence when there have been no criminal indictments of senior executives," he said.

"At some point, Bank of America can't be expected to compensate every entity that claims losses that actually were caused by the economic downturn," said the Bank of America spokesman, Lawrence Grayson.

Bank of America "acted responsibly to resolve legacy mortgage matters", Grayson said.

"The claim that we failed to repurchase loans from Fannie Mae is simply false," he added.

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Family discovers doorstop is 4 billion-year-old meteorite

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Family discovers doorstop is 4 billion-year-old meteorite

The doorstop on Donna and George Lewis' porch traveled a long way to get there.

The 33-pound rock, something of a family heirloom, was found in a cow pasture near Tazewell, Tenn., in the 1930s by Donna Lewis' grandfather, the late Tilmon Brooks.

The object of curiosity, which long served as a doorstop and a garden ornament and had even been painted green, turns out to be a very rare and very real meteorite, possibly 4.5 billion years old.

It wasn't until George Lewis put a metal detector to the object—and it read off the charts—that the couple realized this was no ordinary rock. World Hot Topics Blog

When the Lewis family brought the object to Jerry Cook, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Eastern Kentucky University, he suspected it was special.

According to the school's press release, "tests at the University of Tennessee confirmed the object's origins: it was probably part of a known meteorite strike that had first turned up evidence in Tazewell in 1853."

The university has since purchased the meteorite, the remains of a meteor that fell to Earth, from the family. The former doorstop will now be on display. It already made its debut at a science fair on the campus over the weekend. World Hot Topics Blog

"We don't want to lock it up somewhere," Cook said in a statement. "We want kids to be able to touch it, lift it, and understand what it is. Part of our job is to get kids interested in science, and this ... will stir their curiosity."

Cook added, "We're extremely lucky to find something like this, and to find one locally is a real plus for us."
The discovery is the second-largest known meteorite from the Tazewell strike. The first weighed in at 100 pounds.

For her part, Donna Lewis is thrilled that the space rock will be available to students for study.

The school secretary said, "I saw how excited kids at our school got when they saw it. It's good to know that Eastern will keep it in one piece and students will be able to study it."

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Bullied Teen's Death Spurs Fake Sites

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Bullied Teen's Death Spurs Fake Sites

Money-seeking vultures are attempting to profit from the enormous public outcry in support for bullied teen Amanda Todd by setting up fraudulent websites that claim to be fundraising for the girl's family.

"Taking advantage of a family's grief is despicable," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Peter Thiessen said in a statement. "We want to get the word out that there is one real account and anyone who is interested can make a donation at any RBC branch to the Amanda Todd Trust Account."

Thiessen said that the intense attention to the case has led to a number of fake websites and accounts that say they are fundraising for the family.

Todd, 15, posted the video called "My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm" on Sept. 7 and was found dead in her home town of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia on Oct. 10. Since her death, the video has been viewed more than 4 million times.

Dozens of tribute pages for the teen have been created on Facebook. The most popular one has over one million supporters and several others have hundreds of thousands of supporters.

"The outpouring of support, emotion and information is literally overwhelming," Thiessen said. "The internet and social media were central to Amanda's story and they are central to our investigation as well."

Authorities are "sifting through thousands of tips" they have received since Todd's death.

"One of our big challenges right now, is false information that is being spread by people who appear to be trying to use Amanda's story to do harm or make a profit," Thiessen said in the release.

Police have opened a probe into Todd's death and "anyone that had contact with her" before she died. Of particular interest is a man who convinced Todd to flash her breasts, took a screen grab of the moment and used the photo to cyber-bully her for years.

Earlier this week, Anonymous, an online hacking and activist group, posted the name and address of a British Columbia man in his 30's who they claimed was the culprit.

Police called the allegation "unfounded" and said investigators had to spend "considerable" time responding to the rumors.

The man identified by Anonymous denied being her bully to the Vancouver Sun and pointed to a man in Wisconsin. Anonymous has since posted the name and address of the second man.

Thiessen urged "everyone who has been touched by Amanda's story" to respect her memory by being a responsible citizen of the Internet and thinking critically about information before passing it along.

In her video, Todd described using webcam chats to meet and talk to new people online as a seventh grade student, including a man who pressured her to flash her chest. One year later, she did and the man took a photo of her chest.

Todd said that the man put the photo online and sent it to everyone she knew. Even after moving towns and schools multiple times, the man continued to follow her online and use her photo, she said. The photo and the bullying online and in school drove her to depression, drugs, alcohol, cutting and a suicide attempt with bleach.

"I can never get that photo back," she wrote. "It's out there forever."

Teenager Documents Bullying and Abuse Before Her Death

Authorities have not officially called the death a suicide, but Cpl. Jamie Chung of the Coquitlam Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement earlier this week, "At this time it has been determined that the teen's death was not suspicious in nature and that foul play was not a factor."

The nearly nine-minute, black and white video showed Todd silently telling her story through a series of white cards with black marker writing on them. She can only be seen from her nose down for most of the video, occasionally moving around so that her face is visible.

"Hello, I've decided to tell you about my never ending story," the video begins.
She described the events leading up to the photo of her chest and how she felt after the photo was posted online.

"I then got really sick and got anxiety, major depression and panic disorders," she wrote. "I then moved and got into drugs and alcohol."

She described being called names, eating lunch alone and resorting to cutting herself. She also told the story of an incident where she made a "huge mistake" and "hooked up" with a boy at her school who had a girlfriend, but who she believed really liked her, which led to being beaten up at school.

Todd said she "wanted to die so bad" when her dad found her in a ditch. She drank bleach when she went home and had to be rushed to the hospital to have her stomach pumped, she said.

"After I got home, all I saw was on Facebook--'She deserved it. Did you wash the mud out of your hair? I hope she's dead,'" she wrote.

Todd said in her video that she did not want to press charges against the girl who beat her up because she wanted to move on when she moved to another city and school.

She moved to another school in another city, but said the torture followed her through Facebook. Students posted photos of ditches and suggested she try another bleach.

Todd was in the tenth grade at the Coquitlam Alternate Basic Education School when she died. School officials would not release the name of her previous school.

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Extra sleep may improve kids conduct

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Extra sleep may improve kids' conduct

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Letting kids sleep a little longer may help improve their behavior and make them less restless in school, according to a new study.

On the flip side, cutting back on kids' time asleep seems to make them more likely to cry, lose their temper and become frustrated, according to the researchers, who published their findings in the journal Pediatrics on Monday.

"You can think about it from a lot of different angles. What we are showing here is that it can go both ways in terms of behavior and academic performance," said Reut Gruber, of Montreal's McGill University and Douglas Research Center, who led the study. World Hot Topics Blog

While Gruber's team is not the first to link sleep and behavior, few studies have looked at whether more sleep actually leads to better behavior in school children.

For the study, they recruited 33 children between seven and 11 years old to be followed over two weeks.

For the first week, the researchers monitored how long the kids slept - about 9.3 hours, which is short of the 10 hours suggested by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The children were then split into two groups for the second week.

One group's parents were told to add an hour to their kids' usual time asleep, while the other group was told to cut their kids' sleep by an hour.
Half of the children did lose an hour of sleep each night, but the other group was only able to add about 30 minutes. World Hot Topics Blog

Still, that half hour seemed long enough for teachers to notice an improvement in the kids' behavior.
After the first week of monitoring, the teachers answered questions that rated the children's emotions, moodiness and restlessness at school on a scale from zero to 100, with higher scores indicating worse behavior and scores above 60 signaling a behavioral problem.

The baseline score for both groups of kids before the sleep manipulation began was about 50.
After a week of the experimental sleep changes, teachers - who did not know which group any of the children were in - rated the kids again.


The children who got that extra 30 minutes of sleep during the second week scored, on average, about 47, meaning their behavior had improved.

Meanwhile, teachers rated the kids who lost an hour of sleep each night at about 54, indicating their behavior had gotten worse. World Hot Topics Blog

Neither of those changes signals an extreme difference in the children's behaviors, said Gruber. But, she added, it would be enough of a difference to make the teachers notice.

Unsurprisingly, the parents of those who got an extra 30 minutes of sleep also said their children weren't as tired throughout the day, while the opposite was true for parents in the other group.

ELIMINATE INTERFERENCES

"The thing that was surprising was how little sleep extension could affect functioning on a day-to-day basis," said Dr. Umakanth Khatwa, sleep lab director at Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts, who was not involved with the new study.

Gruber told Reuters Health that while the study only included 33 kids, it was still able to show more sleep leads to better behavior. 

However, the researchers do write that not all of the study's participants were blinded as to which children lost or gained an hour of sleep, because the parents had to be in the know. That may have influenced the parents' reporting of sleepiness throughout the day, they say. World Hot Topics Blog

Gruber said that it can be hard for parents to add time to their kids' sleep schedule, but she said one of the keys is to eliminate interferences, such as late-night sports practice.

Khatwa agreed. "A lot of practices are going into evening now… And by the time you're done, your body is riled up and you need time to wind down," he said.
Gruber said one way to add the extra sleep could be to add 15 extra minutes of sleep at night and in the morning.

"Once it becomes a routine, the children won't really care about it," she said.
But Khatwa said it's also important for parents to know their children's specific sleep needs.
"I don't want parents to take this and force their kids to sleep longer… Parents need to have realistic expectations," he added. "You need to let them sleep long enough so they can function normally."

Gruber said that it's important for schools to educate children that getting enough sleep is just as important as eating right and getting enough exercise.

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Texas Mom Who Glued Daughter's Hands to Wall Gets 99 Years in Prison

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Texas Mom Who Glued Daughter's Hands to Wall Gets 99 Years in Prison

The Texas mom who beat her 2-year-old daughter and glued her hands to a wall was sentenced today to 99 years in prison.

Judge Larry Mitchell gave the life sentence to a tearful Elizabeth Escalona, 23, because "you savagely beat your child to the edge of death."

The sentence came down after five days of painful testimony in the case, as prosecutors showed pictures of the beaten toddler to Escalona and asked her if she was a "monster."

"A monster did this," prosecutor Eren Price told Escalona, according toABC News affiliate WFAA..

Escalona, who had pleaded guilty in July, nodded and replied, "Yes." World Hot Topics Blog

The attack on the child came after Escalona became frustrated with potty training. Testimony from the girl's siblings revealed that Escalona kicked the girl in the stomach and hit her with a milk judge before gluing her hands to the wall. The girl was hospitalized in a coma from the beating and some skin had been torn off her hands, doctors testified.

The mother of three pleaded for leniency during her sentencing hearing, begging the judge to consider that she had been sexually abused as a child. But cross-examination by the prosecutors pointed out that Escalona was a consistently abusive mother who did drugs and beat her children.

Escalona admitted to using drugs since the age of 13, smoking marijuana while she was pregnant, and doing drugs and drinking while out on bond for a prior felony charge. World Hot Topics Blog

The prosecution projected the words "LIAR" and "MONSTER" on a screen above Escalona's head during cross-examination.

Escalona said she did not clearly remember the beating she gave to her daughter in 2011 that left the toddler hospitalized. She could not recall where she got glue and had no idea why she glued her child's hands to the wall.

Escalona's family cried out as Mitchell announced the sentence, later hanging their heads in their laps and crying, according to the Dallas Morning News. Escalona showed little emotion.

Escalona will be eligible for parole in 30 years. Her children are now in the custody of the state.

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Can a Scare Cure the Hiccups ?

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Can a Scare Cure the Hiccups ?

The recent death of a Fort Hood U.S. Army soldier in Killeen, Texas, shows that a belief in the folk cure of scaring away hiccups can have tragic effects when taken to the extreme, but does the cure have any basis if administered within reason?

Pfc. Isaac Lawrence Young, 22, died after allegedly being shot and killed by a fellow soldier trying to startle him out of a case of hiccups while the two men watched a football game. The accused shooter, Pfc. Patrick Edward Myers, 27, claims he thought his gun was loaded with blanks and is charged with manslaughter, Reuters reported. World Hot Topics Blog

There is no solid scientific proof to pair with the centuries of anecdotes that prop up the hiccup scare cure, but there are a number of reasons that the home remedy's value might go beyond the placebo effect.

Though hiccups' purpose remains elusive, their mechanism is well understood. They occur when rhythmic spasms of the diaphragm result in a noisy contraction of the vocal chords. Most of the common folk cures for hiccups seem to try to confront this phenomenon in one of two ways: by diverting the brain's resources away from the nerves responsible for the hiccups (for example, asking a sufferer "What did you have for breakfast two days ago?"); or by directly interfering with or stimulating the parts of the body involved in the hiccup (for example, massaging the throat, drinking water or eating a spoonful of peanut butter).

World Hot Topics Blog

Some cures have the possible advantage of combining these two approaches, as when breath-holding interrupts the normal motion of the diaphragm while also increasing the body's level of carbon dioxide, which may cause the brain to neglect hiccup upkeep and focus instead on the pressing matter of resuming oxygen supply, according to the website of the NYU Medical Center's Department of Otolaryngology.

A sudden scare is another potential dual threat, capable of jump-starting the breath pattern while also giving an overriding stimulus to the sympathetic nervous system, which activates the fight-or-flight stress response.

In a case report published in the journal Canadian Family Physician in 2000, Aya Peleg and Dr. Roni Peleg discuss a 40-year-old man who was suddenly cured of a four-day case of the hiccups when he ejaculated during intercourse with his wife. World Hot Topics Blog

The authors speculated the unexpected cure worked for the same reason as the scare method: "A mechanism similar to this occurs when someone is startled, resulting theoretically in sympathetic stimulation that might lead to a cessation of hiccups," they wrote.

They concluded the report by adding another potential remedy to the archive: "Under circumstances in which sexual intercourse with a partner is not possible, masturbation might be tried as a means of stopping intractable hiccups."

Be Fit and Healthy

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Romney close behind Obama after debate, jobs report

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Romney close behind Obama after debate, jobs report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stayed within striking distance of President Barack Obama in a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Sunday, coming in two points behind the Democrat for the third straight day after winning last week's debate in Denver.

The online survey found 47 percent of likely voters saying they would vote for Obama and 45 percent for Romney if the November 6 election were held now. That solidifies an improvement by the Republican who had trailed his opponent by six points in the same daily poll going into the debate. World Hot Topics Blog

"Romney's performance in the debate I think has improved his share of the vote for now ... It's a significant change from where we were a couple of weeks ago," said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.

But the upside for Romney from the debate, the first of three with Obama this month, appears limited.

"I would say that if the debate was a game-changer, we would see Romney continue to make gains," she said. "He's narrowed the race but he doesn't seem to be overtaking Obama."

The division among likely voters was exactly the same in the rolling poll on Saturday and 46 percent to 44 percent on Friday.

Fifty-five percent of registered voters thought Romney did better at the debate, where he was aggressive in attacking the White House's economic record. Obama's muted performance at the podium received approval from less than 25 percent.  World Hot Topics Blog

The pool of voters Obama and Romney are fighting for is narrowing.
In Sunday's poll, 8 percent of registered voters said they have already voted early in person or by absentee ballot, while 84 percent said they have "definitely" decided which candidate to vote for, leaving only 16 percent saying they may change their mind. And even fewer will actually do so, Clark said.

In a positive move for Obama's campaign, however, Friday brought a surprisingly strong report on U.S. employment. On Saturday, the campaign announced raising $181 million in September - a record so far for the 2012 election.

But Clark said the polls are unlikely to reflect the more positive jobs report.
"Americans don't change their views on how things are doing economically based on jobs numbers," but focus on their personal experience, she said.  World Hot Topics Blog

This week, the focus of the campaign shifts to the debate on Thursday between Vice President Joe Biden and the Republican nominee to replace him, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan.

The precision of Reuters/Ipsos polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points for registered voters and 2.9 points for likely voters. It was conducted October 3-7.

The poll interviewed 1,745 registered voters and 1,490 likely voters over the previous four days.

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US presidential poll debate gives new hope to Republicans

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US presidential poll debate gives new hope to Republicans

Challenger Mitt Romney used Wednesday's debate to put President Barack Obama on the defensive on health care, jobs and other issues. The President's reluctance to fire back harshly gave new hope to Republican partisans.

Romney managed to highlight his top campaign themes - calling for lower tax rates, less regulation, the repeal of "Obamacare" - while largely fending off Obama's demands for details on how to pay for his proposals or safeguard Americans' health and well-being. World Hot Topics Blog

Neither Obama nor the debate's moderator, meanwhile, pressed Romney on some of his most vulnerable points. They included Romney's claim that 47 percent of Americans are docile dependents on the government, a topic heavily featured in TV ads and public conversations the past two weeks.

The 90-minute debate in Denver may have been too wonky to captivate millions of American viewers and change the campaign's overall arc. Polls show Obama leading in key battleground states.

But it delighted Republicans who felt Romney was the aggressor without going overboard, and who were surprised by Obama's cautious, at times listless demeanor.

Even some Democratic partisans grudgingly acknowledged that Romney had a good debate.

"I think he won, unfortunately," said Karl Amelchenko, 36, a lawyer from Raleigh, N.C., who supports Obama. "Romney was aggressive. He attacked." World Hot Topics Blog

The nominees have two more debates this month, and a government jobs report on Friday could reshape the contest. Obama has aired more TV ads than Romney in several key states, and it's unclear whether Romney can follow his solid debate performance with the type of incisive message that has eluded him so far.

Obama and moderator Jim Lehrer repeatedly failed to force Romney to detail how he would cut tax rates at every income level without expanding the deficit or forcing middle-income people to pay a higher total tax bill.

"If you believe that we can cut taxes by $5 trillion and add $2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for," Obama said, "and you think that by closing loopholes and deductions for the well-to-do, somehow you will not end up picking up the tab, then Gov. Romney's plan may work for you."

"Virtually everything he just said about my tax plan is inaccurate," Romney retorted. "I'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut."  World Hot Topics Blog

As Romney all but accused Obama of lying about his tax plan, the president alternated between looking directly at his Republican rival and bowing his head to take notes. "Now he's saying his big bold idea is `never mind,'" Obama said.

Romney held his ground. He said he would reduce income tax rates without adding to the deficit and without reducing "the share paid by high-income individuals."

Economists say Romney has yet to explain how he can manage that feat.

Obama seemed frustrated but almost resigned. He said Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, "put forward a budget that reflects many of the principles that Gov. Romney's talked about. And it wasn't very detailed. This seems to be a trend."  World Hot Topics Blog

But rather than press Romney any harder for details, the president moved on.

Obama seemed eager not to appear prickly or angry. He flashed his familiar smile often, and it's possible that many viewers saw him as relaxed and unshaken.

But the president also failed to follow through on some openings, such as when he noted that Romney once said he would reject a deficit-reduction plan even if it called for only $1 in new tax revenues for every $10 in spending cuts.

Obama said he wants "a balanced approach" that would include $2.50 in spending cuts for every $1 in new revenue.

Obama used the debate's early moments to put the best light on his handling of the economy. He mentioned that the U.S. car industry is rebounding, and the housing market is growing.

Romney replied: "We've got 23 million people out of work or looking for work."
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Both men spoke to middle America, making few references to issues that fire up the right and left fringes.

Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak said Romney "was on offense most of the night, holding Obama accountable for massive investments in green energy, the growing national debt and weak economic recovery. Obama never asked Romney to defend the Bain Capital record, his decision to release only two years of tax returns or the `47 percent' comment."

Democratic strategist Doug Hattaway said Romney "did fine, as expected. But fine doesn't get the job done." He said Romney failed to "change the dynamics of the race."

With a month remaining until the election, and early voting under way in many states, Republican partisans hope Hattaway is wrong.

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How to stay safe from clever new 'phishing' emails

World Hot Topics Blog

How to stay safe from clever new 'phishing' emails

When an email arrives saying you’ve ordered a pizza and it’s on its way, most people think, ‘I’ve got to stop it, it’s a mistake.’ But it isn't a mistake - it's a clever new 'phishing' attack.

When an email arrives saying you’ve ordered a pizza and it’s on its way, most people think, ‘I’ve got to stop it, it’s a mistake.’

But it isn’t a mistake.

It’s just a new generation of ‘phishing’ email, where cleverly targeted emails fool even cautious internet users into revealing personal details online. World Hot Topics Blog

The pizza order will prompt users to click on order details - in the process downloading software that can ‘breach’ their computer, handing control to cyber criminals.

Other cyber-crooks will then install software to steal bank details, or even to use the PC to send further spam.

If you’ve fallen victim to such an attack, it’s worth checking your email ‘Sent’ box to see if your PC has been corrupted into spamming others.

As web users have got smarter about emails purporting to be from banks, cyber criminals have turned to more effective lures.

Today’s phishing emails are more likely to be packaged as invoices, documents that many of us might open just to check the details, even if they ARE from an unexpected source.

Others are ‘order details’ from real-life pizza restaurants, using their letterhead - or package orders from delivery firms, which users panic and try to cancel. World Hot Topics Blog

But as with visiting a fake bank website, the emails will instead deliver a payload of malicious software into the user’s computer.

And the emails are set to go on getting smarter.

Other email attacks include a new trend for emails from people web users might know, claiming that they have been mugged abroad, have lost their phone and need money.

As soon as cyber criminals get the password to someone’s email account, they can send an email to all their contacts. If, by chance, the person happens to travel a lot, the attack can be highly effective, making concerned friends email back. World Hot Topics Blog

‘‘Hackers are in a perfect environment to ‘tune’ their attacks. If they send one email saying ‘Click on this funny cat video,’ and people don’t fall for that, they just try again,’ says Kevin Haley, Norton’s Director of Security Response.

Cyber criminals still rely on emails as a tried-and-true method to lure new victims - despite the arrival of new, hi-tech approaches such as ‘drive-by downloads’, where entire websites are ‘poisoned’ to infect visitors.

‘A lot of infections still come from emails,’ says Orla Cox of Symantec, ‘The social engineering has got cleverer. It will be a fake package order, or fake invoices. The key is still to not click on the attachment.’

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How to stay safe from clever new 'phishing' emails

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