Voters in Egypt Cast Ballots on Draft Constitution

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

A polling site in Cairo on Saturday. Lines were long as a referendum on an Islamist-backed charter got off to an orderly start. More Photos »

CAIRO — Egyptians voted peacefully and in large numbers on Saturday in a referendum on an Islamist-backed draft constitution, hoping that the results would end three weeks of violence, division and distrust between the Islamists and their opponents over the ground rules of Egypt’s promised democracy.

Not long after polls closed at 11 p.m., the main Islamist group aligned with President Mohamed Morsi predicted a big win for ratification with a higher than expected turnout. The group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said that after counts from about 86 percent of the stations that voted Saturday, the first of two days of voting, ballots were running 59 percent in favor of the proposed constitution.

The opposition strongholds of Cairo and Alexandria, however, were still being counted.

A spokesman for the main coalition opposing the charter charged systematic violation of voting rules, but its leaders put off a final statement.

Regardless of the results, the unexpectedly heavy turnout and orderly balloting was yet another turning point for Egypt’s nearly two-year-old revolution. After three weeks of violence and threats of a boycott, voters appeared for the moment to pull back from the brink of civil discord and reaffirm their trust in the ballot box, spending hours in long lines to vote in the sixth national election since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak 22 months ago.

It remained to be seen if the losing side would accept the results, or how long the peace might last. Many who voted yes said they were doing so to end the chaos of the transition rather than to endorse the text of the charter. But the crowded polling places suggested a turn toward stability, if not necessarily the liberal outcome some revolutionaries had hoped for. Despite opposition warnings of chaos, the streets of the capital were free of major protests for the first time in weeks.

And if the constitution is approved by the margins his supporters predict, the smooth vote could fortify Mr. Morsi’s power and legitimacy.

Military officers guarded polling places, and there were few reports of violence. Egyptian state media reported nine injuries in clashes around the Nile Delta town of Dakahleya, and that unknown assailants threw Molotov cocktails near the headquarters of a liberal party that had been part of the opposition under Mr. Mubarak.

As they waited in line to vote, neighbors continued to spar over the contentious process that produced the charter. Some said that it had been unfairly steamrolled by Egypt’s new Islamist leaders over the objections of other parties and the Coptic Christian Church, and that as a result the new charter failed to protect fundamental rights.

Others blamed the Islamists’ opponents for refusing to negotiate, in an effort to undermine democracy because they could not win at the ballot box. Many expressed discontent with political leaders on both sides.

“Neither group can accept its opposition,” said Ahmed Ibrahim, 40, a government clerk waiting to vote in a middle-class neighborhood in the Nasr City area of Cairo. Whatever the outcome, he said, “one group in their hearts will feel wronged, and the other group will gloat over their victory, and so the wounds will remain.”

The referendum once promised to be a day when Egyptians realized the visions of democracy, pluralism and national unity that defined the 18-day revolt against Mr. Mubarak. But then came nearly two years of chaotic political transition in which Islamists, liberals, leftists, the military and the courts all jockeyed for power over an ever-shifting timetable.

The document that Egyptians voted on was a rushed revision of the old Mubarak charter, pushed through an Islamist-dominated assembly in an all-night session, after Christian and secular representatives quit in protest. Many international experts faulted the charter as a missed opportunity, stuffed with broad statements about Egyptian identity but riddled with loopholes regarding the protection of rights.

Worse still, for many, was the polarizing endgame the charter provoked. Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood said more than 35 of its offices, including its Cairo headquarters, had been attacked and vandalized over the last three weeks. A night of street fighting between his Islamist supporters and their opponents killed at least 10 people.

Many voters waiting in line on Saturday said they rejected the exploitation of religion by both sides: the Islamists who sought to frame the debate as an argument over Islamic law, and opponents who accused Mr. Morsi and his Islamist allies of laying the groundwork for a theocracy.

Mayy El Sheikh and Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.

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Ten Commandments join Isaac Newton’s notes online

LONDON (Reuters) – A copy of The Ten Commandments dating back two millennia and the earliest written Gaelic are just two of a number of incredibly rare manuscripts now freely available online to the world as part of a Cambridge University digital project.

The Nash Papyrus — one of the oldest known manuscripts containing text from the Hebrew Bible — has become one of the latest treasures of humanity to join Isaac Newton‘s notebooks, the Nuremberg Chronicle and other rare texts as part of the Cambridge Digital Library, the university said on Wednesday.

“Cambridge University Library preserves works of great importance to faith traditions and communities around the world,” University Librarian Anne Jarvis said in a statement.

“Because of their age and delicacy these manuscripts are seldom able to be viewed – and when they are displayed, we can only show one or two pages.”

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nash Papyrus, was by far the oldest manuscript containing text from the Hebrew Bible and like most fragile historical documents, only available to select academics for scrutiny.

The university’s digital library is making 25,000 new images, including an ancient copy of the New Testament, available on its website (http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/), which has already attracted tens of millions of hits since the project was launched in December 2011.

The latest release also includes important texts from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.

In addition to religious texts, internet users can also view the 10th century Book of Deer, which is widely believed to be the oldest surviving Scottish manuscript and contains the earliest known examples of written Gaelic.

“Now… anyone with a connection to the Internet can select a work of interest, turn to any page of the manuscript, and explore it in extraordinary detail,” Jarvis said.

The technical infrastructure required to get these texts to web was in part funded by a 1.5 million pound ($ 2.4 million) gift from the Polonsky Foundation in June 2010.

($ 1 = 0.6210 British pounds)

(Reporting by Dasha Afanasieva, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Gunman's Father and Brother Are 'in Shock,' Says a Source

By Diane Herbst

12/14/2012 at 08:50 PM EST

State police personnel lead children to safety away from the Sandy Hook Elementary School

Shannon Hicks/Newtown Bee/Reuters/Landov

The father and older brother of the gunman who was blamed for the Connecticut school shooting are being questioned by authorities but are not suspects, a law enforcement source tells PEOPLE.

The Associated Press reports that the gunman has been identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

His unidentified father, who lives in New York City, and his older brother, Ryan, 24, of Hoboken, N.J., are "in shock," the law enforcement source tells PEOPLE.

They were being questioned by the FBI in the Hoboken police station but "are not suspects, they have no involvement," the source says.

"Imagine the 24 year old – he's lost his mother. Imagine the father, his son killed 20 kids," the source says."   

As for Adam, "It looks like there's mental history there," the law enforcement source says.

Adam Lanza died at the scene of the shooting that killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

His mother, Nancy Lanza, was found dead at her home, according to CNN.

The source describes the weapons used by Lanza as "legitimate." According to CNN, Lanza used two hand guns that were registered to his mother and a rifle.

Adam's parents were no longer together, the source says.   

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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Wall St Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."

Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.

"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.

"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."

With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.

Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.

"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.

"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."

Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.

BEWARE OF THE WITCH

This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.

"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.

RETHINKING APPLE

Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.

Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.

On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.

"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.

But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Foreign Minister, Resigns

JERUSALEM — Facing indictment for breach of trust and fraud, Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, resigned his post Friday afternoon amid mounting political pressure, upending the campaign landscape five weeks before national elections.

Mr. Lieberman, a powerful but polarizing figure, wrote on his Facebook page, “I know that I committed no crime,” but said he was stepping down so “I will be able to put an end to this matter swiftly and without delay and to clear my name completely.”

Mr. Lieberman, who is also a member of Parliament, indicated that he still hoped to compete in the Jan. 22 balloting, suggesting a possible plea bargain. The expected indictment, which prosecutors announced on Thursday, concerns a relatively minor offense compared with a broader case of money laundering and fraud that was dropped after an investigation stretching for more than 12 years.

“I believe that the citizens of the State of Israel are entitled to go to the polling stations after this matter has already been resolved,” Mr. Lieberman’s statement said. If a legal ruling could be made before the elections, “I might continue to serve the State of Israel and the citizens of Israel as part of a strong and united leadership that will cope with the security, political and economic challenges facing the State of Israel.”

Mr. Lieberman, 54, leads the secular, ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, which joined forces in October with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. A populist immigrant from the former Soviet Union, he was widely considered as a potential successor to Mr. Netanyahu as leader of Israel’s right wing, though his hard line on the Palestinian question, among other issues, alienated many Western allies.

After the charges were announced, Mr. Lieberman told supporters that he had been hounded by corruption accusations since July 1996, when he served as a top aide to Mr. Netanyahu during his first term as prime minister. “Since then till today, not a day has passed without me being referred to as ‘a suspect,’ ‘being under investigation,’ ‘being an intelligence target,’ ” Mr. Lieberman said. “This has been one long and rolling case, receiving a different title every now and then.”

The conduct for which Mr. Lieberman will face indictment stems from an investigation into other allegations. He is accused of promoting Israel’s former ambassador to Belarus for another post after the ambassador gave him confidential information regarding an Israeli police investigation into Mr. Lieberman’s activities.

But Mr. Lieberman will not face charges on the underlying, more serious case, in which he was suspected of receiving millions of dollars from international tycoons with business interests in Israel through companies formally led by family members or associates.

Israel’s attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, said Thursday in a report announcing his decision that he could not adequately prove a link between Mr. Lieberman and the money, though he said, “The suspicions against Lieberman’s series of intricate and intertwined, underhanded actions cannot be ruled out.”

Born in Moldova, Mr. Lieberman enjoys wide support among Israel’s one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union. He lives in a West Bank settlement considered illegal under international law, and he is perhaps the government’s harshest critic of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, having called for his ouster and denounced as “diplomatic terrorism” his recent bid for upgraded Palestinian status at the United Nations.

Polls have consistently shown that Mr. Lieberman’s joint ticket with Mr. Netanyahu, known here as Likud Beiteinu, is expected to receive up to 40 of the 120 seats in Israel’s next Parliament, by far the largest bloc. The merger was seen as crowning him a top contender to eventually follow Mr. Netanyahu as prime minister.

Opposition leaders, who on Thursday had called for Mr. Lieberman’s resignation, were swift to embrace it on Friday, but not without adding jabs.

Zahava Gal-On, chairwoman of the left-wing Meretz party, said Mr. Lieberman had “spared himself ignobility and disgrace” by stepping down, according to the Web site of Channel 2 News. Shelly Yacimovich, chairwoman of the Labor Party, said he had “severely undermined the rule of law and damaged the public’s faith in its elected officials and democracy.”

Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister who now heads the new Hatnua Party, issued a more moderate statement, saying: “Avigdor Lieberman performed the right and necessary action. We hope he will receive a swift legal proceeding.”

Mr. Netanyahu had no immediate comment on Mr. Lieberman’s resignation Friday, but on Thursday had offered only support. “I believe in Israel’s legal system and respect it,” the prime minister said in a statement. “The right that it grants any Israeli citizen to defend himself also extends to Minister Lieberman, and I hope for him that he’ll be able to prove that he’s also innocent regarding the only case that remains.”

Under Israeli law, when a cabinet minister resigns, the prime minister becomes “custodian” of his portfolio, and Mr. Netanyahu is expected to handle foreign affairs himself at least until after the elections.

Jonathan Rosen contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 14, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of the forming of a coalition between Yisrael Beiteinu and Likud. It took place in October, not last month.

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Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet – but something went wrong.

Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn’t work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent right away. So, he needed a little help from his friends.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli of the Vatican‘s communications department showed the pontiff how to do it, but the pope hesitated. Celli touched the screen lightly himself and off went the papal tweet.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart,” he said in his introduction to the brave new world of Twitter.

The tweet was sent at the end of weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

The pope actually has eight linked Twitter accounts. @Pontifex, the main account, is in English. The other seven have a suffix at the end for the different language versions. For example, the German version is @Pontifex_de, and the Arabic version is @Pontifex_ar.

The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

The pope already had just over a million followers in all of the languages combined minutes before he sent his first tweet and the number was growing.

PAPAL Q AND A

Later on Wednesday after the audience was over and the television cameras turned off, the pontiff answered the first of three questions sent to him at #askpontifex.

The first question answered by the pope was: “How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?”

His answer: “By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need.”

The pope, who, as leader of the Roman Catholic Church already has 1.2 billion followers in the standard sense of the word, won’t be following anyone else, the Vatican has said.

After his first splash into the brave new world of Twitter on Wednesday, the contents of future tweets will come primarily from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays.

They are also expected to include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

The Vatican says papal tweets will be little “pearls of wisdom”, which is understandable since his thoughts will have to be condensed to 140 characters, while papal documents often top 140 pages.

The Vatican said precautions had been taken to make sure the pope’s certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican’s secretariat of state will be used for the tweets.

After Wednesday, Benedict won’t be pushing the button on his tweets himself. They will be sent by aides but he will sign off on them.

The pope’s Twitter page is designed in yellow and white – the colors of the Vatican, with a backdrop of the Vatican and his picture. It may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

The pope has given a qualified welcome to social media.

In a document issued last year, he said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered “a great opportunity”, but warned of the risks of depersonalization, alienation, self-indulgence, and the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones.

In 2009, a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called “The pope meets you on Facebook”, and another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff’s speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

The Vatican famously got egg on its face in 2009 when it was forced to admit that, if it had surfed the web more, it might have known that a traditionalist bishop whose excommunication was lifted had for years been a Holocaust denier.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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L.A. Reid: I'm Leaving The X Factor

TV Watch

12/13/2012 at 07:10 PM EST

The latest season of The X Factor is down to the wire – but L.A. Reid is already looking ahead to next season. And he's not planning to come back.

"I have decided that I will not return to The X Factor next year," Reid, who is chairman and CEO of Epic Records, tells Access Hollywood. "I have a company to run that I've kind of neglected."

Of his decision to leave the singing competition, he says, "It saddens me a little bit, but only a little bit."

One of the things he's sure to miss is spending so much time with his pal and fellow judge Simon Cowell. "I love Simon. We have a great relationship," says Reid. "We have fun together, we talk, we laugh, we do bad things, we're friends."

Reid says being on the show, which also currently stars judges Britney Spears and Demi Lovato, was "a nice break" from his day job, "but now I've got to go back to work."

Reid has been a judge on the show for two seasons with Cowell. Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul lasted only one season as judges before leaving.

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Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker

LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.

Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.

With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.

"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.

The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.

The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.

— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.

— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).

— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.

Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.

While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.

"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.

Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.

Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.

"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.

"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.

___

Online:

www.lancet.com

http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org

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S&P 500 ends six-day winning streak on "cliff" anxiety

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended its six-day winning streak on Thursday, retreating as worries intensified that Washington's "fiscal cliff" negotiations were dragging on with little progress.

Anxiety about the drawn-out talks between Democrats and Republicans was enough to offset encouraging data on retail sales and jobless claims on Thursday.

There is concern that tax hikes and spending cuts, set to begin in 2013 if a deal is not reached in Washington, will hurt growth. The stock market has taken the heated rhetoric in stride of late, but downbeat remarks from Republican House Speaker John Boehner prompted some selling on Thursday.

Boehner accused President Barack Obama of "slow walking" the economy off the fiscal cliff. He is scheduled to meet with Obama later on Thursday.

"There is no conviction here and Boehner's comments - as harsh as they were - were realistic," said Jason Weisberg, managing director at Seaport Securities Corp., in New York.

"The fiscal cliff is already built in. That being said, people don't like to be told the apocalypse is coming over and over and over again. The real players in this market have already closed their books."

After coming close to a 1 percent decline for the day, the S&P 500 pared losses late in the session. The index had posted six straight sessions of gains through Wednesday's close, and at one point on Wednesday, the S&P touched its highest intraday level since October 22.

While the Federal Reserve's announcement on Wednesday of a new round of economic stimulus bolstered stocks, Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments that monetary policy would not be sufficient to offset the impact of the fiscal cliff weighed on sentiment.

Apple's stock , down 1.7 percent at $529.69, was among the biggest drags on the Nasdaq in Thursday's session, while International Business Machines , down 0.5 percent at $191.99, was among the biggest weights on the Dow. A U.S. jury found that Apple's iPhone infringed three patents owned by MobileMedia Ideas.

Among the day's biggest gainers, Best Buy Co shares shot up 15.9 percent to $14.12 after a report that the company's founder is expected to offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> tumbled 74.73 points, or 0.56 percent, to 13,170.72 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 9.03 points, or 0.63 percent, to 1,419.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> slid 21.65 points, or 0.72 percent, to end at 2,992.16.

Energy and information technology sectors were the S&P 500's weakest performers, with the S&P energy index <.gspe> down 0.9 percent.

In the energy sector, shares of Nabors Industries Ltd dropped 4.7 percent to $13.85 after Jefferies cut the drilling company's rating. Shares of U.S. refining company Phillips 66 lost 1.6 percent to $52.21.

The day's economic data sent some positive signals on the economy, with weekly claims for jobless benefits dropping to nearly the lowest level since February 2008, and retail sales rising in November after an October decline, improving the picture for consumer spending.

In Europe, European Union finance ministers reached agreement to make the European Central Bank the bloc's top banking supervisor, which could boost confidence in EU leaders' ability to confront the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.

After the bell, shares of Adobe Systems Inc rose 5.8 percent to $37.60 after the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat software posted a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit. The stock ended the regular session at $35.53, down 1.2 percent.

Volume was roughly 6.16 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the year-to-date average daily closing volume of 6.52 billion.

Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a ratio of about 7 to 3, and on the Nasdaq, more than five stocks fell for every three that rose.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

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