Al Shabaab says enemies closed its Twitter account

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Al Shabaab on Friday said its Christian enemies had closed its Twitter account, which the Somali militant group used to parade hostages, mock rivals and claim responsibility for bombings and assassinations.

The group’s official Twitter account, which has thousands of followers, was offline on Friday with a message saying “Sorry, that user is suspended”.

It was not immediately clear why the account, which was created in 2011 under the HSM PRESS Twitter handle, was suspended. The account was still unavailable as of 1233 GMT.

On Wednesday the al Qaeda-aligned rebels used the social media site to threaten to kill several Kenyan hostages and on January 17 announced the execution of a captive French agent after a French commando mission to rescue him failed.

“The enemies have shut down our Twitter account,” al Shabaab‘s most senior media officer, who refused to be named, told Reuters.

“They shut it down because our account overpowered all the Christians’ mass media and they could not tolerate the grief and the failure of the Christians we always displayed (online).”

Al Shabaab wants to impose their strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, across Somalia. However, it has lost significant territory in the southern and central parts of the country in the face of an offensive by African Union troops.

Twitter said it does not comment on individual accounts and the Kenyan government denied it had filed any request for the account to be taken down.

“It’s an emphatic no. We would not try to negotiate or have anything to do with the Al Shabaab. We didn’t even know the account was suspended,” said government spokesman Muthui Kariuki.

Al Shabaab posted on the account on Wednesday a link to a video of two Kenyan civil servants held hostage in Somalia, telling the Kenyan government their lives were in danger unless it released all Muslims held on “so-called terrorism charges” in the country.

“Kenyan government has three weeks, starting midnight 24/01/2013 to respond to the demands of HSM if the prisoners are to remain alive,” the group said.

Despite the closure of the Twitter account, al Shabaab said it would continue to “display the loss and grief of Christians no matter what means we use,” al Shabaab’s spokesman said.

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Adrienne Maloof's New Beau Has a Las Vegas Feast ... Without Her!

Caught in the Act

01/25/2013 at 11:00 AM EST

Sean Stewart

Mr Photoman/Splash News Online

Sean Stewart, who has been dating Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Adrienne Maloof recently, popped up in Las Vegas Wednesday night without his reality star companion.

And he apparently brought his appetite!

Stewart, 32 and the son of rock icon Rod Stewart, who has drawn attention for dating Maloof, who at 51 is almost 20 years his senior, dined at the Planet Hollywood restaurant Meatball Spot with the hotel's CEO Robert Earl. Top Chef contestant Carla Pellegrino prepared Italian delights for the pair, which included starters such as baby arugula salad, the eatery's popular Garbage Salad (which features salami, pepperoni and two different cheeses), mushroom risotto and macaroni and cheese.

For the main course, the men enjoyed chicken meatballs with classic tomato sauce, classic meatballs with spicy meat sauce, veggie meatballs with pesto sauce and a half-tray of pizza topped with artichokes, parmesan, prosciutto and black olives. Stewart also took a half-tray of margherita pizza to-go.

Maloof, who finalized a divorce with former husband Dr. Paul Nassif in November after a contentious split, has said her connection with Stewart started as a business relationship and then it evolved into something more, telling PEOPLE their burgeoning relationship is "casual, real casual."
– Mark Gray

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Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.

The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.

For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration. But older smokers could face a heavy hit on their household budgets at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses tend to emerge.

Workers covered on the job would be able to avoid tobacco penalties by joining smoking cessation programs, because employer plans operate under different rules. But experts say that option is not guaranteed to smokers trying to purchase coverage individually.

Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don't come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung problems and cancer, contributing to nearly 450,000 deaths a year.

Insurers won't be allowed to charge more under the overhaul for people who are overweight, or have a health condition like a bad back or a heart that skips beats — but they can charge more if a person smokes.

Starting next Jan. 1, the federal health care law will make it possible for people who can't get coverage now to buy private policies, providing tax credits to keep the premiums affordable. Although the law prohibits insurance companies from turning away the sick, the penalties for smokers could have the same effect in many cases, keeping out potentially costly patients.

"We don't want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage," said California state Assemblyman Richard Pan, who is working on a law in his state that would limit insurers' ability to charge smokers more. The federal law allows states to limit or change the smoking penalty.

"We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment," added Pan, a pediatrician who represents the Sacramento area.

Obama administration officials declined to be interviewed for this article, but a former consumer protection regulator for the government is raising questions.

"If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don't want in your pool, the ones you really don't want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years," said Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "You would have the flexibility to discourage them."

Several provisions in the federal health care law work together to leave older smokers with a bleak set of financial options, said Pollitz, formerly deputy director of the Office of Consumer Support in the federal Health and Human Services Department.

First, the law allows insurers to charge older adults up to three times as much as their youngest customers.

Second, the law allows insurers to levy the full 50 percent penalty on older smokers while charging less to younger ones.

And finally, government tax credits that will be available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the cost of penalties for smokers.

Here's how the math would work:

Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama's law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can't be used to offset the penalty, the smoker's total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That's considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

"The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.

In today's world, insurers can simply turn down a smoker. Under Obama's overhaul, would they actually charge the full 50 percent? After all, workplace anti-smoking programs that use penalties usually charge far less, maybe $75 or $100 a month.

Robert Laszewski, a consultant who previously worked in the insurance industry, says there's a good reason to charge the maximum.

"If you don't charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers," said Laszewski. "They are going to have to play defense."

___

Online:

Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator — http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

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S&P 500 eyes best winning streak in eight years

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Friday, buoyed by sturdy corporate earnings from Procter & Gamble and Honeywell, with the S&P 500 poised for its longest winning streak in more than eight years.

The strong start for the equity market this year has been attributed to solid corporate results, agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power, encouraging signs from the global economy and seasonal inflows into stocks.

Those factors helped the S&P 500 rally for a seventh day on Thursday to a five-year peak. Still, the index struggled to climb convincingly above 1,500, a level it surpassed briefly Thursday for the first time since December 2007.

If the S&P 500 rises for an eighth day on Friday it will be its longest winning streak since late 2004, when it rallied for nine straight days.

"We are seeing a very broad-based rally and the ingredients are still in place," said Steve Goldman, principal at Goldman Management in Short Hills, New Jersey. "This is the lift-off phase and it's still significant."

Procter & Gamble , the world's top household products maker, said quarterly profit soared past expectations and raised its sales and earnings outlook for the fiscal year. Shares rose 3.5 pct to $72.93.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 27.45 points, or 0.20 percent, to 13,852.78. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 4.19 points, or 0.28 percent, to 1,499.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 8.63 points, or 0.28 percent, to 3,139.01.

Honeywell International Inc posted fourth-quarter earnings just above Wall Street estimates, reflecting the diversified U.S. manufacturer's campaign to boost profit margins in the face of sluggish sales growth. The shares rose 0.9 percent to $68.82.

Pointing to a rotation out of bonds, U.S. 30-year Treasury bonds traded more than a point lower in price on Friday, with yields touching session highs at 3.10 percent.

"You have had more confidence from fund managers to provide more allocations to equity markets," which looked more attractive than bonds or cash, said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management.

Recent company earnings have been encouraging. Thomson Reuters data through early Thursday showed that of the 133 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 66.9 percent exceeded expectations, more than the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

Microsoft Corp reported lower quarterly profit on Thursday as Office software sales slowed ahead of a new launch, offsetting a solid but unspectacular start for its Windows 8 operating system and sending the company's shares down 0.2 percent to $27.51.

Apple stepped up audits of working conditions at major suppliers last year, discovering multiple cases of underage workers, discrimination and wage problems. The shares, which fell 12 percent Thursday after disappointing earnings, were little changed at around $450.93.

German business morale improved for a third consecutive month in January to its highest in more than half a year, providing further evidence that growth in Europe's largest economy was gathering speed after contracting late last year.

Echoing a more positive tone in Europe, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Friday he expects the euro zone economy to recover later this year, and that financial market improvements had not yet trickled into the general economy.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Britain Warns of ‘Imminent’ Threat to Westerners in Benghazi

LONDON — Days after the deadly hostage crisis in Algeria, Britain on Thursday announced a “specific, imminent threat to Westerners” in neighboring Libya and urged any British citizens in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi to leave immediately.

Travel advice updated by the British Foreign Office also warned against “all but essential travel” to several other Libyan cities, citing a “high threat from terrorism” and a possibility of retaliatory attacks targeting Western interest in the region after the French military intervention in Mali, which preceded last week’s Islamist attack on a remote Algerian gas field near the Libyan border.

The Foreign Office did not describe the nature of the reported threat in Benghazi, where an attack on the United States diplomatic compound in September killed four Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

Since September, the British authorities have warned against all travel to Benghazi.

Earlier this week, a senior Algerian official said that several Egyptian members of the squad that attacked the Algerian gas complex were also among those who had attacked the American mission in Benghazi.

The Egyptians were among 29 kidnappers killed by Algerian forces during the four-day siege of the gas plant in which at least 37 foreign hostages and one Algerian died. Three militants were captured alive and one of them, under interrogation by Algerian security forces, recounted the Egyptians’ involvement in both attacks, the Algerian official said.

“We are aware of a specific, imminent threat to Westerners in Benghazi,” the Foreign Office advisory said. “We advise against all travel to Benghazi and urge any British nationals who are there against our advice to leave immediately.”

In other Libyan places, it said, “there is a high threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travelers.” The advisory did not specifically link its warnings to the kidnappings in Algeria.

Foreign Office officials declined to elaborate on the warnings.

As the crisis in Algeria unfolded, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda-linked extremists and other Islamist militants in North Africa presented a growing threat to Western interests.

“Just as we have reduced the scale of the Al Qaeda threat in other parts of the world, including in Pakistan and Afghanistan, so it has grown in other parts of the world,” he said. “We need to be equally concerned about that, and equally focused on it.”

During the Algerian hostage crisis, the kidnappers depicted their attack as linked to the French intervention in Mali, in turn provoked by a lightning advance south by Islamists who have turned Mali’s desert north into a separatist redoubt.

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Samsung’s iPad mini rival, the Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet, revealed in leaked images

While Samsung (005930) has had tremendous success over the past year with its Galaxy brand of smartphones, the company hasn’t been able to generated the same amount of buzz for its Galaxy tablet line just yet. But now SamMobile points us to the first leaked pictures of Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 8.0 that the company hopes will become its flagship tablet in 2013. The pictures, posted on Italian website DDAY, show an 8-inch white tablet that looks like a large Galaxy S III and features thicker side bezels than Apple’s (AAPL) recently released iPad mini. The pictures also show off the new tablet display’s 16:10 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, which packs more pixels per inch than the iPad mini display and its 1,024 x 768 resolution. We’ll get our first official glimpse of the Galaxy Note 8.0 when Samsung shows it off at Mobile World Congress next month.

[More from BGR: The ultimate humiliation: Dell now getting advice from the ‘Dell Dude’ on how to fix company]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Sarah Paulson Is Freaked Out by Her Own Show, American Horror Story

TV Watch

By Tim Nudd

01/24/2013 at 10:35 AM EST

Sarah Paulson, on American Horror Story

Michael Yarish/FX

It's a good thing American Horror Story wrapped up its second season Wednesday night. One of its stars, Sarah Paulson, can sleep a little easier now.

"I can't watch it at night and I'm on it," the Emmy-nominated actress, 38, tells the Associated Press.

"There are some people who like to be scared and I understand that, but I am not one of those individuals. I like to cozy up with a nice book and a bath and a teddy bear. I am not interested in being terrified before I go to sleep."

It's been a breakout year for the FX horror show, and for Paulson personally. One highlight was when Miley Cyrus, a fan of the show, started following Paulson on Twitter. "@MsSarahPaulson I can't WAIT a whole week until the next episode!" the pop star wrote at one point.

"That was pretty wild," Paulson tells the Huffington Post. "I think I tweeted her back like, 'Are you kidding? Did you follow me?' Miley Cyrus watches American Horror Story? I couldn't understand."

Paulson also earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her work on the HBO movie Game Change. She didn't win, but was still thrilled.

"It's okay to sit in the Golden Globe room and look around and think, 'Oh, Helen Mirren's a loser tonight, so is Nicole Kidman. Meryl Streep lost tonight. Jessica Lange didn't win.' If you're gonna be in the company of losers, that's the company to be in."

She adds: "I definitely have felt how wide-reaching this season has been in terms of people who have come up to me in restaurants and in New York, walking down the street. It's wild."

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Burger King drops supplier linked to horsemeat

LONDON (AP) — British and Irish burger fans could face a Whopper shortage. Burger King says it has stopped buying beef from an Irish meat processor whose patties were found to contain traces of horsemeat.

The fast food chain said in a statement Thursday that it had dropped Silvercrest Foods as a supplier for its U.K. and Ireland restaurants as a "voluntary and precautionary measure."

Last week Silvercrest, which is owned by ABP Food Group, shut down its production line and recalled 10 million burgers from supermarket shelves in Britain and Ireland after horse DNA was found in some beef products.

Burger King said the decision to drop the supplier "may mean that some of our products are temporarily unavailable." It stressed that "this is not a food safety issue."

The presence of horsemeat in beef is a sensitive issue in Britain and Ireland, which do not have a tradition of eating horses. The British tabloid The Sun reported the Burger King story under the headline "Shergar King," a reference to a famous racehorse.

Products from another Irish firm and one in Britain also were contaminated by horsemeat. Most had only small traces, but one burger of a brand sold by the British supermarket chain Tesco contained 29 percent horsemeat.

Irish food officials say an ingredient imported from an unspecified European country and used as filler in cheap burgers is the likely source of the horsemeat contamination.

Burger King says its patties are made from 100 percent beef.

Officials say the horsemeat poses no risk to human health, but the episode has raised food security worries.

More concern arose Thursday when lawmaker Mary Creagh, environment spokeswoman for Britain's opposition Labour Party, said that several horses slaughtered in the country last year had tested positive for phenylbutazone, an anti-inflammatory drug given to horses that can cause cancer in humans.

"It is possible that those animals entered the human food chain," she said.

The Food Standards Agency confirmed that meat from five horses had tested positive for the drug, but said none had been approved for sale in Britain. It said the relevant food safety authorities were informed in cases where the meat was exported to other countries.

The agency said no horsemeat in the current scandal contained phenylbutazone.

Very little horsemeat is sold in Britain but the country sends thousands of horses a year abroad to be killed for meat.

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Wall Street gains for seventh day, despite Apple

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 surged through 1,500 on its seventh day of gains, underpinned by positive economic news, even as Apple shares slid nearly 11 percent following a revenue miss.

Apple Inc missed Wall Street's revenue forecast for a third straight quarter as iPhone sales were poorer than expected, fanning fears its dominance of consumer electronics is slipping. The shares dropped 10.9 percent to $457.94, wiping out about $50 billion of its market value.

Positive economic reports helped reverse the market's earlier declines. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell to a five-year low, and factory activity in January neared a two-year high. It was the first time the S&P 500 had risen above 1,500 since December 12, 2007.

The domestic data chimed with those overseas showing growth in Chinese manufacturing accelerated to a two-year high this month and a buoyant Germany took the euro zone economy a step closer to recovery.

With signs the economy is improving, some investors are lauding the strength of the stock market as it shrugs off a significant slide in shares of Apple, the world's biggest company.

"The market has disconnected itself with Apple," said Jack de Gan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "I think it shows great strength in the overall S&P."

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 76.46 points, or 0.55 percent, to 13,855.79. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 5.52 points, or 0.37 percent, to 1,500.33. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 7.67 points, or 0.24 percent, to 3,146.00.

Apple's disappointing results drew a round of price-target cuts from brokerages. At least 14 brokerages, including Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, cut their price target on the stock by $142 on average. Morgan Stanley removed the stock from its 'best ideas' list.

Netflix Inc surprised Wall Street Wednesday with a quarterly profit after the video subscription service added nearly 4 million customers in the U.S. and abroad. Shares jumped nearly 40 percent.

Diversified U.S. manufacturer 3M Co reported a 3.9 percent rise in profit, meeting expectations, on solid growth in sales of its wide array of products, which range from Post-It notes to films used in television screens. The shares shed 0.6 percent.

Corporate earnings have helped drive the recent stock market rally. Thomson Reuters data through early Thursday showed that of the 133 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings, 66.9 percent have exceeded expectations, above the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

Investors in U.S.-based mutual funds pumped $9.32 billion into stock funds in the week ended January 16, the second consecutive week of inflows for such funds, data from the Investment Company Institute showed Wednesday.

Removing an element of political uncertainty from markets, the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a Republican plan to allow the federal government to keep borrowing money through mid-May, clearing it for fast enactment after the top Senate Democrat and White House endorsed it.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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The Lede Blog: Clinton Testifies on Benghazi Attacks

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Lede is following Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Mrs. Clinton had been scheduled to testify before Congress last month, but an illness, a concussion and a blood clot near her brain forced her to postpone her appearance.

As our colleagues Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported, four State Department officials were removed from their posts on last month after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

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