Kate Looks Great at First Official Outing Since Babymoon

By Simon Perry

UPDATED
02/19/2013 at 08:45 AM EST

• Originally published 02/19/2013 at 08:25 AM EST

Making her first official public appearance since her Caribbean babymoon, a tanned and healthy-looking Duchess of Cambridge showed off her blooming baby bump Tuesday morning during a visit to a residential treatment center run by one of her patronages, Action on Addiction.

Just back from a winter break in Mustique, Kate, 31, chose a gray MaxMara Studio dress paired with pearl drop earrings.

"She looked really relaxed and rested after her break. She could have worn a coat, but she looked happy to show off her bump," says Judy Wade, the royals writer for the Observer.

"It's nice to be back," Kate said as she greeted Action on Addiction's chief executive, Nick Barton. "It's a lovely day for it."

Kate also acknowledged how she felt about having a baby as she chatted with those at the center.

Said Lisa, 34, a mother of three: "I asked her if she was nervous about having a child, and she said it would unnatural if she wasn't. It's just human, isn't it?"

Another woman, Natalie, 28, is carrying a baby due in late July, and said after speaking to Kate, "She was saying she had been feeling unwell but was feeling better now."

Next month, the Palace is set to make an announcement on another group of charities and interests that Kate will support.

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women

CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.

The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.

"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.

Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.

"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."

Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.

That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.

The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.

"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."

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Online:

Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com

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Stock futures rise on deals, extend seven-week rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures advanced on Tuesday, indicating the S&P 500 will build on its seven-week winning streak on optimism about M&A activity and before data on the housing market.

The S&P 500 <.spx> has risen for seven straight weeks, its longest streak since January 2011, and is up 6.6 percent for the year.

The strong start to the year was fueled by legislators in Washington temporarily averting a series of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes as well as better-than-expected earnings and economic data. The Federal Reserve's stimulus policy has also been a major factor.

But further gains for the benchmark S&P index have been a struggle as investors look for new catalysts to lift the index, which hovers near five-year highs.

The compromise by lawmakers on across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration, only postponed until March 1 a resolution to the congressional budget fight.

The uptick in merger and acquisition activity, a sign of optimism about the outlook on Wall Street, has resulted in more than $158 billion in deals announced so far in 2013.

"The firm market tone continues, fueled by a lack of negative surprises as well as an increase in M&A activity, adding confidence to market valuations," said Andre Bakhos, director of market analytics at Lek Securities in New York.

"The market has been able to shrug off minor negatives as it looks ahead to a potential bigger hurdle in the sequestration -until then, the situation looks stable."

Office Depot Inc surged 26.1 percent to $5.79 in premarket trading after a person familiar with the matter said the No. 2 U.S. office supply retailer is in advanced talks to merge with smaller rival OfficeMax Inc and a deal could come as early as this week. OfficeMax shares jumped 13.7 percent to $12.22 before the opening bell.

Economic data on tap includes the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo index on housing sales for February at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT). Economists in a Reuters survey expect a reading of 48 compared with 47 in January.

Improving housing data has been cited by analysts as one of the key factors in the stock market rally.

S&P 500 futures rose 3.1 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 22 points and Nasdaq 100 futures added 5.75 points.

Computer maker Dell reports fourth-quarter results, expected to show earnings per share fall to $0.39 from $0.51 one year earlier. Analysts will have their first chance to question management on a buyout deal struck earlier this month by Chief Executive Michael Dell, private equity firm Silver Lake and Microsoft .

According to the Thomson Reuters data through Friday, of the 388 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 69.8 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

European shares rose on Tuesday, lifted by gains at food group Danone and fresh signs of a German economic recovery, although broader market sentiment remained cautious ahead of Italian elections this weekend. <.eu/>

Philippine and Australian shares scaled new heights, but other Asian shares were mixed, with worries about an inconclusive outcome in Italy's election and U.S. budget talks.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kenneth Barry)

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IHT Rendezvous: Holding Obama's Feet to the Climate-Change Fire

At first glance, it was hard to tell whether they had come to bury Obama or to praise him.

Thousands of activists from hundreds of environmental, social justice and community groups marched on Washington yesterday in the biggest climate rally ever held in the U.S. capital. Activists both called on President Obama to make good on his climate change policy promises and protested the Keystone XL pipeline project.

“For 25 years our government has basically ignored the climate crisis: now people in large numbers are finally demanding they get to work,” Bill McKibben, head of 350.org, one of the environmental groups organizing the event, told the crowd.

The “Forward on Climate” rally comes less than a week after President Obama urged American leaders to “act before it is too late,” on climate change during his State of the Union address.

The demonstration’s timing — early in the administration’s second term — was important. While many say Mr. Obama achieved important green goals in his first term (Rendezvous wrote about tougher fuel efficiency standards for cars), critics say he did not achieve enough in the fight to address climate change. Many blame an uncooperative Congress and the always-looming re-election campaign. (The words “climate change” were not uttered during any of the three presidential debates between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney.

The secretaries of the interior and energy — portfolios where green leadership is seen as important — are being replaced. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, announced her resignation late last year.

Despite the President’s recent emphatic address to the nation, critics point out that his speech was short on details. And for many of the organizers of yesterday’s rally, the fact that the President did not mention the controversial Keystone XL pipeline — a pipeline that is to bring crude oil from Canada to Texas refineries — was a warning sign.

At the rally on the National Mall, activists from the ‘Backbone Campaign’ carried a 70-foot model of a spine, with an anti-Keystone XL pipeline message painted on the side, imploring the President to stand strong against the project.

As my colleagues John M. Broder, Clifford Krauss and Ian Austen reported, the Keystone XL pipeline issue is particularly thorny for Mr. Obama because the project is so detested by environmentalists, but supported by so many other players, including the government of Canada, one of the United States’ most important trading partners.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed an energy bill that would allow Congress, rather than the White House, to issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The President had put plans for the pipeline on hold temporarily.

On the same day in the Senate, several senators co-sponsored legislation for a carbon tax program that would finance clean-energy projects, in a move largely seen as symbolic because of the legislation’s scant chance of passing either house of Congress.

Partially due to recent extreme weather events, the issue of climate change is once more at the forefront of American politics. A survey carried out by the League of Conservation voters found that 65 percent of American voters were in favor of “the President taking significant steps to address climate change now.”

“Twenty years from now on President’s Day, people will want to know what the President did in the face of rising sea levels, record droughts and furious storms brought on by climate disruption,” said Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, an environmental organization that helped organized Sunday’s rally.

A man dressed as the grim reaper held a sign that read: “the only steady job on a dying planet will be mine.”

While no official attendance numbers were recorded, participating organizations estimated that more than 35,000 people attended. On its Facebook page, 350.org claimed that 50,000 protesters took part in the event.

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Mindy McCready's Ex 'Not Shocked' by Her Suicide

By Stephen M. Silverman

02/18/2013 at 08:20 AM EST

Mindy McCready's ex-boyfriend and the father of her 6-year-old son said Monday morning that he wasn't surprised when he heard that the troubled country singer had apparently taken her own life.

"As sad as it is, it didn't come as a major shock," Billy McKnight told the Today show. "She's just been battling demons for so long."

He added, "I was around her when she attempted suicide twice, so I knew it was in her."

Cleburne County, Arkansas, sheriff's deputies responded to a report of gunshots Sunday at 3:31 p.m. and discovered McCready's body on the front porch of her Heber Springs house. Neighbors reportedly had heard two shots, and the deputies found dead at the scene McCready's dog and the singer herself.

"The demons that she hasn't beaten were there," McKnight said of McCready, 37, who had battled substance abuse.

Following last month's death of her fiancé David Wilson, which is currently under investigation as either a suicide or a murder, the courts ordered McCready to be institutionalized.

Asked on Today if she might have been released too early, McKnight said he knew McCready could talk her way out of anything.

"I feel for her mother and her family and especially my son," said McKnight, whose boy, Zander, was the subject of a bitter and prolonged custody battle with McCready.

After the death of Wilson, Zander and his 10-month-old half-brother, Zayne, whose father was Wilson, were placed in foster care, where they remain. McKnight said that he wants his son returned to him: "He needs to come home."

As for the other child, "I don't know what is going to happen to Zayne," he said.

Zander and Billy McKnight, summer 2011

Courtesy Billy McKnight

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Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior

SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.

The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.

"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.

The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.

Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.

At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.

By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.

"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.

The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.

Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.

Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.

"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.

Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.

During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.

Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.

"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

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Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship

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Euro, dollar up after G20, stocks ease on growth concern

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro and the dollar rose against the yen on Monday after the G20 decided not to criticize Japan for its expansionist policies, but shares eased as Europe's weak growth outlook weighed on sentiment.

Financial leaders from the world's 20 biggest economies promised on Saturday not to devalue their currencies to boost exports, aiming to defuse talk of currency wars that had been roiling the markets.

The euro gained 0.2 percent to 125.32 yen, edging up toward a 34-month high of 127.71 yen hit earlier this month, while the dollar rose 0.6 percent to 94 yen, closer to its highest level since May 2010 of 94.46 hit on February 11.

"Future yen direction will continue to be driven by domestic monetary policy from the Bank of Japan and improving international investor confidence, which are both driving the yen weaker," said Lee Hardman, currency analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is poised to nominate a new BOJ governor. Sources told Reuters that former financial bureaucrat Toshiro Muto, considered likely to be less radical than other candidates, was leading the field.

Abe said on Monday that buying foreign bonds was a future option for the Bank of Japan, which would entail selling of the yen by the central bank.

The euro was also rising against the dollar, gaining 0.1 percent to $1.3375 ahead of address by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi to the region's parliament which may touch on the outlook for the single currency after the G20 meeting.

In European markets, attention was also switching to the release of euro area Purchasing Managers' Indexes for February and German sentiment indices due later in the week, and the upcoming general elections in Italy.

Analysts expect Thursday's euro area flash PMI indices, which point to economic activity around six months out, to show growth stabilizing across the recession-hit region, leaving hopes for a recovery in the second half of the year intact.

Concerns over an inconclusive outcome in Italian elections at the end of the week added to the weaker sentiment as a fragmented parliament could hamper a future government's reform efforts.

The worries about the outlook for Italy were encouraging investors back into safe have German government bonds on Monday, with 10-year Bund yields easing 3.6 basis points to be around 1.63 percent.

"Political uncertainty will keep Bunds well bid this week," ING rate strategist Alessandro Giansanti said, adding that only better than expected economic data could create selling pressure on German debt near term.

EARNINGS HIT

European equity markets were taking their lead from corporate earnings reports which have been reflecting the sluggish economic conditions across the region.

Danish brewer Carlsberg , which generates just over 60 percent of its sales in western Europe, became the latest company to report a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit, sending its shares to lowest level in nearly a month.

The 5 percent drop in price for shares in the world's fourth biggest brewery helped send the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares down 0.4 percent in morning trade. Germany's DAX <.gdaxi>, the UK FTSE <.ftse> and France's CAC-40 <.fchi> were all also slightly weaker. <.l><.eu/>

Earlier, the effect of the G20 statement and the comments from Abe indicating a renewed drive to stimulate the economy lifted the Nikkei stock index <.n225> by 2.1 percent, near to its highest level since September 2008.

U.S. stock futures were barely changed and are expected to stay little changed as Wall Street will be closed on Monday for the Presidents' Day holiday. <.n/>

MSCI's world equity index <.miwd00000pus> was flat as markets extended two-week period of consolidation that has followed the big run up in January when demand was buoyed by the efforts of global central banks to stimulate the world economy.

Data from EPFR Global, a US-based firm that tracks the flows and allocations of funds globally, shows investors pulled $3.62 billion from U.S. stock funds in the latest week, the most in 10 weeks after taking a neutral stance the prior week.

But demand for emerging market equities remained strong, with investors putting $1.81 billion in new cash into stock funds, the fund-tracking firm said.

CHINA RETURN

In the commodity markets traders played catch up after a week-long holiday last week in China, the world's second biggest consumer of many raw materials, had kept activity subdued, with worries about the euro zone economy weighing on sentiment.

Copper, for which China is the world's largest consumer, fell 0.8 percent to $8,135 a metric ton (1.1023 tons) on the London futures market.

Gold rebounded by 0.3 percent from a six-month low to be $1,614 an ounce as jewelers in China returned to the physical market after the Lunar New Year holiday.

Crude oil markets were mostly steady after some weak U.S. industrial production data on Friday [ID:nL1N0BF44A] was seen dampening demand, while tensions in the Middle East lent some support.

U.S. crude fell 20 cents to $95.66 a barrel but Brent inched up two cents $117.86.

(Reporting by Richard Hubbard; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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IHT Rendezvous: In Singapore's Immigration Debate, Sign of Asia's Slipping Middle Class?

BEIJING — Immigration is a hot-button issue nearly everywhere in the world, though the contours of the debate vary from place to place. In the United States, sweeping changes to the law may offer legal residency for millions of people who have entered the country illegally, my colleague Ashley Parker reports.

In Singapore, the debate looks somewhat different: The government plans to increase the population from just over five million to a possible high of nearly seven million by 2030, via regulated, legal immigration, and this is provoking opposition.

So much so that on Saturday, about 3,000 people turned out for what some commentators said was one of the biggest demonstrations in the nation’s history. (If the number seems small, it reflects the tight political control exerted over Singapore life by the People’s Action Party, which has run the country for about half a century and discourages public protest.)

What are the contours of the debate in Singapore?

Concern over booming immigration, often focused on new arrivals from increasingly rich China, has been simmering in the nation, with many feeling that the immigrants do not play by the same rules, that their manners are poor and that they are pushing up prices. That feeling crystallized last year when a wealthy Chinese man driving a Ferrari at high speed killed three people (including himself) in a nighttime accident.

(Similar sentiments are found in Hong Kong, as my colleagues Bettina Wassener and Gerry Mullany wrote.)

Vividly illustrating the resentment, Singaporeans sometimes call the wealthy immigrants “rich Chinese locusts,” according to an article in the Economic Observer’s Worldcrunch.

So the Singapore government’s Population White Paper that passed in Parliament earlier this month, just before Chinese New Year, was bound to stir things up.

The government is presenting the rise in immigration as a target that is needed if Singapore, where immigrants already make up about 40 percent of the population, and which has the highest concentration of millionaires in the world, is to continue to flourish, reports said. Singaporeans just are not having enough children, said the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong.

“In my view, in 2030, I think six million will not be enough to meet Singaporeans’ needs as our population ages because of this problem of the baby boomers and bulge of aging people,” Mr. Lee said in Parliament, adding that 6.9 million was not a target but a number to be used to help plan for infrastructure.

“Do we really need to increase our population by that much?” wrote a person called Chang Wei Meng in a letter to The Straits Times, according to Reuters. “What happened to achieving the Swiss standard of living?”

Gilbert Goh, a main organizer of the rally Saturday at Singapore’s Speaker’s Corner in a public park, said the protesters had a message: “They want to tell the government, please reconsider this policy. The turnout is a testimony that this policy is flawed and unpopular on the ground,” The Associated Press quoted Mr. Goh as saying.

Yet amid the familiar rhetoric about immigrants, heard around the world – they don’t fit in, they’re rude, they’re different – might something more important be going on here?

In a blog post on Singapore News Alternative, Nicole Seah, a politician who has run for Parliament and comments on social issues, wrote: “Along with many other Singaporeans, I oppose the White Paper.”

Why? She is looking for “a society that lives in harmony, rather than tense and overcrowded conditions,” she writes.

“Not the Singapore Inc. that has been aggressively forced down our throats the past few years – a Singapore which is in danger of becoming a transient state where people from all over, come, make their fortunes, and leave.”

Not “a Singapore that has become a playground for the rich and the people who can afford it. A Singapore where the middle class is increasingly drowned out because they do not have the social clout or sufficient representatives in Parliament to voice their concerns.”

Ms. Seah’s statements raise an interesting question: Is this part of a phenomenon that the columnist Chrystia Freeland has written about so ably for this newspaper, the ascendancy of a wealthy, “plutocrat” class and the slipping status of the middle class?

As Ms. Freeland wrote last week: “The most important fact about the United States in this century is that middle-class incomes are stagnating. The financial crisis has revealed an equally stark structural problem in much of Europe.” Is it hitting Asia, too, and does Singapore’s protest speak, at least in part, to this? Hong Kong’s dissatisfaction too?

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Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models: Then and Now

How are Elle, Christie, Kathy and more faring (and looking) since their first shoots? Answer: Pretty darn well!

Credit: Courtesy of Sports Illustrated

Updated: Tuesday Feb 12, 2013 | 09:00 AM EST
By: Kate Hogan

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

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