H&R Block, Zynga, Akamai are big market movers

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market:

NYSE

H&R Block Inc., up 89 cents at $ 18.26

The tax preparer’s quarterly loss narrows, helped by cost cuts. It thinks earnings will grow in the upcoming U.S. tax season.

SAIC Inc., down 41 cents at $ 11.26

The defense contractor’s quarterly earnings fall short of Wall Street expectations, and it’s eliminating 700 jobs to cut costs.

Men’s Wearhouse Inc., down 84 cents at $ 30.51

The men’s clothing store chain cuts its outlook, saying traffic dropped in November and it was more cautious about the rest of the year.

Safeway Inc., up 42 cents at $ 17.88

The grocery store chain moves up payment of its quarterly dividend to December from January to avoid potentially higher taxes.

Nasdaq

Zynga Inc., up 17 cents at $ 2.49

The troubled online games maker’s filing with a Nevada regulator could pave the way for it to enter the lucrative U.S. gambling market.

Vera Bradley Inc., down $ 3.07 at $ 23.14

The handbag maker’s forecast for the current quarter comes in short of Wall Street analysts’ average estimate.

Akamai Technologies Inc., up $ 3.56 at $ 39.06

The company, whose products help deliver online content, strikes a deal to provide services to AT&T customers.

Epoch Investment Partners Inc., up $ 5.78 at $ 27.69

Canada’s TD Bank plans to buy the U.S. asset manager for $ 668 million, a 28 percent premium from Wednesday’s closing price.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The Olsen Twins Design $55,000 Backpack

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/06/2012 at 06:00 PM ET

Courtesy Just One Eye; Inset: Sipa

We’re positive we weren’t the only ones whose jaws dropped when we read that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen‘s fashion line, The Row, is selling $55,000 backpacks.

But this isn’t exactly the Jansport you carried your Trapper Keepers in during elementary school. The extravagant accessory is designed in collaboration with renowned artist Damien Hirst and it’s been dubbed “wearable art.” The backpack is limited edition — as in, there are only 12 of these babies. Each bag features black patent, Nile crocodile leather and is adorned with various designs (like pills or gold circles) courtesy Hirst.

Initially the price of the backpack was originally kept hush-hush and The Row declined to release that info. But when we called Just One Eye (the site selling the creations), they shared with PEOPLE.com the five-figure price tag.

But before you go thinking that absolutely no one is going to drop $55,000 on a backpack, consider this: The Olsens released a similar a purse for $39,000 earlier this year — and it sold out. Tell us: If you had all the money in the world, would you buy this backpack? If not, how much would you pay for it?

–Jennifer Cress

PHOTOS: SHOP STAR STYLE — FOR LESS!

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

___(equals)

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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"Fiscal cliff" worries linger, futures flat

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures were little changed on Thursday in what could be another choppy session as the progress of fiscal negotiations in Washington continues to determine the market's fate.

President Barack Obama said there could be a quick deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" - tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin next year, possibly driving the U.S. economy back into recession - if Republican leaders agree to raise tax rates for those making more than $250,000 a year.

While Republican leaders in the House of Representatives insist that raising tax rates on the rich is a no-go, some GOP lawmakers now see it as inevitable to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"The market is going to continue to look for news out of Washington and that is going to be the main driver," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

She said with the holidays fast approaching and market participants taking days off, trading volumes will start to shrink, leaving the market vulnerable to sharp swings.

"We have some days ahead that are going to be volatile."

Several European equity benchmark indexes hit 2012 highs, boosted by hopes a U.S. budget deal will be reached before the year-end, and that the worst of Europe's debt crisis might be over. <.eu/>

CME Group , the biggest operator of U.S. futures exchanges, joined several companies Wednesday that were moving 2013 dividend payouts to this month to shield shareholders from expected tax hikes in 2013. Without action from Congress in coming weeks, tax cuts on capital gains and dividends will expire at the end of 2012.

Apple Inc's rank in China's smartphone market fell to No.6 in the third quarter as it faces tougher competition from Chinese brands, research firm IDC said Thursday. Apple's 6.4 percent drop on Wednesday was its worst daily performance since mid December 2008 and dragged down the Nasdaq Composite. Shares of Apple were down 1 percent at $533.59 in premarket trading.

S&P 500 futures dipped a point and were flat in terms of 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 were flat, and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 2 points.

On the data front, the Labor Department releases first-time claims for jobless benefits for the latest week at 8:30 a.m. ET (1330 GMT). Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a total of 380,000 new filings compared with 393,000 in the prior week.

H&R Block , the biggest U.S. tax preparer, reported a narrower-than-expected quarterly loss as its cost-reduction measures continued to pay off.

The broad market seesawed Wednesday, with the S&P 500 dropping into negative territory before it rebounded off the 1,400 level, seen as a key technical support.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Congo Peace Talks Set to Open in Uganda

KAMPALA, Uganda — Congolese rebels and government officials prepared on Thursday for direct peace talks in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, their first face-to-face encounter since the rebels relinquished Goma, one of Congo’s principal cities, after capturing it last month.

“Since May, we asked Kabila to come to the table,” said Amani Kabasha, a spokesman for the March 23 rebels, or M23, at the rebel-held border post of Rumangabo. Mr. Kabasha said his delegation was awaiting vehicles sent by the Ugandan government to carry them to Kampala. “He didn’t agree, he used force, arms, fighting. But now, because he was defeated, he agrees,” Mr. Kabasha said, referring to President Joseph Kabila.

An uneasy rhythm of commerce and calm returned to Goma this week as Congolese government soldiers again patrolled the streets and the port and airport reopened, allowing a fresh influx of people and cargo, as well as much-needed humanitarian aid for more than 100,000 people displaced by the recent fighting.

“It’s as good as it has been for the last two and a half weeks,” Tariq Riebl, a humanitarian coordinator for Oxfam in Goma, said Thursday. But the situation remained “very dynamic, very fluid,” he said.

In the strategic area of Masisi, to the northwest of Goma, fighting has continued to flare between government troops and numerous militias. Masisi has long been a hotbed of militia groups and ethnic tensions, and humanitarian relief workers said they were increasingly worried about the situation.

Furthermore, neither side has said it has any real faith in the upcoming talks, which delegates said would likely begin Friday, or possibly late Thursday.

“It’s not a negotiation,” said a Congolese government spokesman, Lambert Mende. “We will receive a grievance from M23 and help the president compare with what was decided in 2009,” when the peace agreement for which the rebels are named was signed on March 23.

“We are not very optimistic, because we know that M23 is a very small part of the problem; we need the problem to be solved regionally, and internationally,” Mr. Mende said.

The governments of Uganda and Rwanda have denied accusations by a United Nations panel of covertly supporting the M23 rebels, including in the rebels’ capture of Goma. Both countries have been accused of supporting other Congolese rebels groups in the past.

Many of the rebels’ demands, which the government has dismissed, would benefit Rwanda and Uganda, which are two main transit points for commercial exports from eastern Congo.

“We want more than decentralization, we want federalism,” said Mr. Kabasha, although the specific demands had not yet been finalized. “The eastern parts of Congo’s interests are in eastern Africa. Decentralization means that the leader is near the population.”

In recent days there have been reports of lootings and rape, summary executions and recruitment of children, the United Nations office for humanitarian affairs has said. In Goma, there have also been reports of targeted killings.

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Samsung files redacted copy of Apple-HTC deal in U.S. court

(Reuters) – Lawyers for Samsung Electronics Co Ltd filed a redacted copy of a 10-year patent licensing agreement between Apple Inc and Taiwan’s HTC Corp in a U.S. court late on Wednesday following a judge’s order.

The Korean electronics company had earlier filed a motion to compel Apple — with which it is waging a bitter legal battle over mobile patents across several countries — to reveal details of a settlement that was made with HTC on November 10 but which have been kept under wraps.

The court last month ordered Apple to disclose to Samsung details of the legal settlement that the iPhone maker reached with HTC, including terms of the 10-year patents licensing agreement.

Legal experts say the question of which patents are covered by the Apple-HTC settlement, and licensing details, could be instrumental in Samsung’s efforts to thwart Apple’s subsequent quest for a permanent sales ban on its products.

The redacted copy excludes key specifics such as the royalty payments HTC would have to make to Apple for using some of the U.S. company’s patents. Also excluded are details of some of HTC’s covered products that were part of the licensing deal.

The court order had stated that “only the pricing and royalty terms of license agreements may be sealed.”

However, Samsung lawyers said in the filing that they had withheld a few other details of the licensing agreement as requested by Apple and HTC.

As per the Apple-HTC agreement, the licenses do not include Apple’s design patents, according to a filing made with the District Court of Northern California.

Apple and HTC also agreed to fully paid-up, royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licenses to certain of the other’s patents.

Apple has agreed not to initiate legal action over some of HTC’s covered products. The details of the products were not disclosed.

The copy of the Apple-HTC deal filed with the court “incorporates redactions HTC requested and the redactions Apple requested, which are a subset of HTC’s redactions. Samsung takes no position on whether the redactions are appropriate at this time,” Samsung’s lawyers said in a filing.

If all the Apple patents are included — including the “user experience” patents that the company has previously insisted it would not license — it could undermine the iPhone maker’s efforts to permanently ban the sale of products that copy its technology.

In a previous court filing, Samsung argued that it was “almost certain” that the HTC deal covered some of the patents involved in its own litigation with Apple.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, No. 11-1846.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Pullin and Ted Kerr)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Brooke Burke-Charvet on Cancer Scare: I'm Not Afraid Anymore

TV Watch

Dancing With the Stars

By Tim Nudd

12/06/2012 at 08:40 AM EST

When you're a mom who gets a cancer scare, you're not the only one at home who suddenly needs comfort and support.

In the midst of her thyroid diagnosis Brooke Burke-Charvet – a mother of four – has learned just how vulnerable children can be at such a time, and how differently each one can respond to that kind of stress and anxiety.

"I've really realized that everything I'm going through, my family is going through too," the Dancing with the Stars host, 41, writes in a new blog post.

Burke-Charvet decided initially not to reveal the diagnosis to daughters Neriah, 12, Sierra, 10, and Rain, 5, and son Shaya, 4. "I didn't want them to worry," she writes. "I know that my younger ones still don't have a great concept of time and I didn't want them to be anxious, worried and asking 1,000 questions."

Soon, the kids overheard things, and she and her husband David Charvet told them what was going on. Each child reacted differently, says Burke-Charvet – with emotions ranging from anger to fear to surprise, hope, protectiveness and worry.

The Children React

Shaya's reaction was the most heartbreaking. "He laid in bed last night with David, kinda sad and said, 'I don't want Mommy to die,' " Burke writes. "We both held him and told him that I wasn't going to leave him ever. I know that my surgery is not that serious, but kids get scared, hear 'hospital' and go to the darkest place. Poor little guy."

As she comforted each child in a different way, Burke-Charvet also cared for her husband as he was caring for her.

"He's been so strong and such a rock," she writes. "He's trying not to show any of his fears and concerns so that he can be strong for me. But we've had our moments and I think it's so, so important that you care for everyone in a family that's dealing with a medical crisis the same way you emotionally care for the patient themselves."

As the surgery approaches, she has packed her bag, sorted things out at the house and stocked the fridge with leftovers for the family. Now, she just wants the surgery to be over.

"I'm not afraid anymore," she says. "I think I've been dealing with it so much the past couple months that now I'm ready to just get it done and put this behind me. My only need is being ok for my husband and my children so they don't have to go through any pain and making this as easy as possible for them."

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

___(equals)

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Stock futures edge higher on China optimism

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures rose on Wednesday after comments from China's new leader boosted global growth expectations.

Still, some earlier gains were trimmed after data showed U.S. private-sector employers added 118,000 jobs in November, shy of economists' expectations.

Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping said the country would maintain its fine-tuning of economic policies in 2013 to ensure stable economic growth. That sparked a rally in Chinese shares, with the Shanghai Composite Index <.ssec> surging 2.9 percent.

Among his key priorities, Xi listed tax reform, urbanization and allowing the market to play a bigger role in setting resource prices.

"Investors' bullish receptors were earlier tickled by overnight events in China, where the new leadership announced a drive towards 'urbanization', which means more infrastructure investment," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.

"At the same time, rules preventing insurance companies from taking a larger stake in banking companies were relaxed."

Other data due later in the day include factory orders and ISM's November non-manufacturing index, both at 10:00 a.m. ET (1500 GMT).

Nokia is to partner with China Mobile , the world's biggest operator, to launch a version of its flagship Lumia smartphone tailored for the world's largest market. U.S.-listed shares of Nokia rose 4.1 percent to $3.58 in premarket trading.

S&P 500 futures rose 2.8 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 rose 41 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 1 point.

Repsol filed a U.S. lawsuit to block Chevron Corp's deal with Argentina's YPF , ramping up the Spanish oil company's legal response to the loss of its assets in Argentina.

Pandora Media Inc

lowered its fourth-quarter earnings forecast, blaming a pull-back by advertisers on concerns about the U.S. budget, but analysts suggested it was due more to increasing competition.

The U.S. Senate voted 98-0 on Tuesday to approve a wide-ranging defense bill that authorizes $631.4 billion in funding for the U.S. military, the war in Afghanistan and nuclear weapons.

Walt Disney gave a much needed boost to Netflix , becoming the first major Hollywood studio to use the video service to bypass premium channels like HBO that traditionally controlled the delivery of movies to TV subscribers.

The U.S. securities regulator is investigating a $10 million stock sale in March by Steven Fishman, chief executive of close-out retailer Big Lots Inc , who announced his retirement on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the inquiry.

U.S. stocks finished slightly lower in quiet trading Tuesday as the back-and-forth wrangling over the U.S. budget gave investors little reason to act.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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India Ink: India's Parliament Opens Door to Foreign Retail Investors

After two days of sometimes ear-splitting debate, India’s Lok Sabha, or lower house, of Parliament voted down a measure prohibiting large foreign retailers like Wal-Mart from entering the country. Of the 543 members in the house, 218 voted in favor of a proposition banning these companies from the country, and 253 against.

Rival leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati, walked out before the debate and their parties’ abstentions helped defeat the measure.

The issue will now travel to the upper house of Parliament.

Allowing foreign multi-brand retailers into India has been a matter of debate for years, and was fast-tracked this year by a government under fire from allegations of corruption and paralysis. Here’s recent India Ink coverage on the issue:

The United Progressive Alliance government announced in September that they would allow big department stores who carry multiple brands, like Wal-Mart Stores, into the country but “laid out some very specific conditions,” Heather Timmons reported.

In an interview with India Ink in the same month, Anand Sharma, the minister of commerce and industry, said that despite the conditions some companies had “already expressed interest, from Tesco to Carrefore to Wal-Mart and Marks and Spencer.”

Explaining the benefits for rural producers he said:

“It will benefit the rural economy with the farmers, who will get a better price for what they produce. What perishes to a large extent will reach the market or the kitchens.”

The announcement was met with skepticism from industry and analysts, Vikas Bajaj reported, but there was hope that “If they follow through, it could prompt a new economic boom in India, where once-brisk growth has slowed markedly in recent years. But it is a big if.”

In a later article he focused on the way foreign direct investment in retail “often divides Indians as much by age as by their livelihoods.”

“Those younger than 25, a group that includes about half the country’s 1.2 billion people, appear quite open and eager to try foreign brands and shopping experiences, researchers say,” Mr. Bajaj wrote.

The Prime Minister, in a rare address to the nation, tried to assuage small retailers’s fears in late September, by saying that they “had nothing to fear from the impending arrival of giant Western retailers like Wal-Mart or Carrefour because there was a place for everyone, large or small, in a growing economy.”

The government may be overly optimistic about the benefits of allowing foreign direct investment into the retail sector, judging by Wal-Mart’s experience in other countries.

And even if that is not true, “any long-term impacts of Wal-Mart’s Mexico business have been overshadowed this year by the company’s involvement in a bribery scandal there,” and was “sure to find similar demands for bribes in India – especially now that ample evidence exists that the company has paid them elsewhere,” Heather Timmons wrote in an article titled, “Can Wal-Mart Build a Nation?”

In November, Wal-Mart said that an internal “investigation into violations of a federal anti-bribery law had extended beyond Mexico to China, India and Brazil, some of the retailer’s most important international markets,” Stephanie Clifford and David Barstow wrote in the New York Times.

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