Nindespirit News

Wall Street flat as rally runs out of steam, results eyed

Label: World

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed in late morning trading on Wednesday as investors awaited fresh trading incentives after recent rallies took the S&P 500 to five-year highs.

Transportation stocks were among the worst performers, weighed down by a 10-percent drop in CH Robinson Worldwide to $60.49 after it reported fourth-quarter earnings.

The Dow Jones Transportation index <.djt> shed 0.5 percent after closing at a record high Tuesday for a gain of more than 10 percent in 2013.

A 6-percent advance this year so far has lifted the benchmark S&P 500 index to its highest since December 2007, while the Dow <.dji> briefly climbed above 14,000 recently, making it a challenge for investors to continue pushing the equity market upward in the absence of strong catalysts.

"Overall, we believe that the next near-term market dip should provide an opportunity to buy stocks ahead of rallies higher in the coming months, but we are skeptical about the long-term sustainability of these gains due to the maturing age of the bull market," said Ari Wald, equity research analyst at C&Co\PrinceRidge in New York.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq index was supported by Apple Inc , which rose 1.2 percent to $463.62.

Walt Disney Co was among the bright spots, up 0.9 percent at $54.77, after the company beat estimates for quarterly adjusted earnings and gave an optimistic outlook for the next few quarters.

According to Thomson Reuters data through Wednesday morning, of 301 companies in the S&P 500 <.spx> that have reported earnings, 68.1 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters. In terms of revenue, 65.8 percent of companies have topped forecasts.

Looking ahead, fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to grow 4.7 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 11.25 points, or 0.08 percent, at 13,968.05. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.05 points, or 0.00 percent, at 1,511.34. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 2.69 points, or 0.08 percent, at 3,174.27.

The benchmark S&P index rose 1.04 percent Tuesday, its biggest percentage gain since a 2.5-percent advance on January 2, when legislators sidestepped a "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax hikes that could have hurt a fragile U.S. economic recovery.

Ralph Lauren Corp climbed 7.1 percent to $176.57 as the best performer on the S&P 500 after reporting renewed momentum in its holiday-quarter sales and profits.

Time Warner Inc jumped 4.1 percent to $51.99 after reporting higher fourth-quarter profit that beat Wall Street estimates, as growth in its cable networks offset declines in its film, TV entertainment and publishing units.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Braun says he used Fla clinic owner as consultant

Label: Technology

NEW YORK (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun said the person who ran the Florida clinic being investigated by Major League Baseball was used only as a consultant on his drug suspension appeal last year.

"I have nothing to hide," Braun said in a statement released by his representatives on Tuesday night.

Earlier in the day, Yahoo Sports reported the 2011 NL MVP's name showed up three times in records of the Biogenesis of America LLC clinic. Yahoo said no specific performance-enhancing drugs were listed next to his name.

The Miami New Times recently released clinic documents that purportedly linked Alex Rodriguez, Gio Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera and other players to purchases of banned drugs from the now-closed anti-aging center.

Rodriguez and Cabrera were on the list with Braun that also included New York Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli and Baltimore Orioles infielder Danny Valencia.

Braun said his name was in the Biogenesis records because of an issue over payment to Anthony Bosch, who ran the clinic near Miami.

"There was a dispute over compensation for Bosch's work, which is why my lawyer and I are listed under 'moneys owed' and not on any other list," Braun said.

"I have nothing to hide and have never had any other relationship with Bosch," he said. "I will fully cooperate with any inquiry into this matter."

On Tuesday, MLB officials asked the Miami New Times for the records the alternative newspaper obtained for its story.

Asked specifically about Braun's name in the documents before the five-time All-Star released his statement, MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said: "Aware of report and are in the midst of an active investigation in South Florida."

Braun tested positive during the 2011 postseason for elevated testosterone levels. He maintained his innocence and his 50-game suspension was overturned during spring training last year when arbitrator Shyam Das ruled in favor of Braun due to chain of custody issues involving the sample.

With that, Braun became the first major leaguer to have a drug suspension overturned.

"During the course of preparing for my successful appeal last year, my attorneys, who were previously familiar with Tony Bosch, used him as a consultant. More specifically, he answered questions about T/E ratio and possibilities of tampering with samples," Braun said.

The T/E ratio is a comparison of the levels of testosterone to epitestosterone.

Braun led the NL in homers (41), runs (108) and slugging percentage (.595) last season while batting .319 with 112 RBIs and 30 stolen bases. He finished second to San Francisco catcher Buster Posey in MVP balloting."

Cervelli, who spent nearly all of last season in Triple-A, posted a statement on Twitter later Tuesday night.

"Following my foot injury in March 2011, I consulted with a number of experts, including BioGenesis Clinic, for (cont)," Cervelli posted, "(cont)legal ways to aid my rehab and recovery. I purchased supplements that I am certain were not prohibited by Major League Baseball."

An email sent to Valencia's agent was not returned.

Should we still fear al Qaeda?

Label: Lifestyle

Mali military battles Islamist insurgents

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Peter Bergen: U.K. politicians called North Africa terror an existential threat

Bergen says core al Qaeda has been greatly weakened, hasn't mounted serious operations

Terror groups loosely affiliated with al Qaeda have also lost ground, he says

Bergen: Jihadist violence does continue, but it does no good to overstate threat

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad", and a director at the New America Foundation.

Washington (CNN) -- The attack in January on a gas facility in Algeria by an al Qaeda-linked group that resulted in at least 37 dead hostages has sparked an outpouring of dire warnings from leading Western politicians.

British Prime Minister David Cameron described a "large and existential threat" emanating from North Africa. Tony Blair, his predecessor as prime minister, agreed saying, "David Cameron is right to warn that this is a battle for our values and way of life which will take years, even decades."

Hang on chaps! Before we all get our knickers in a tremendous twist: How exactly does an attack on an undefended gas facility in the remotest depths of the Algerian desert become an "existential threat" to our "way of life"?

Across the Atlantic, American politicians also got into sky-is-falling mode. Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, fulminated, "This is going to get worse. You cannot allow this to become a national security issue for the United States. And I argue it's already crossed that threshold."

Peter Bergen

Previous real U.S. national security threats and their manifestations include 9/11, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (from the potential use of nuclear weapons) with the Soviets, Pearl Harbor and Hitler's armies taking over much of Europe.

A ragtag group of jihadists roaming the North African deserts is orders of magnitude less significant than those genuine threats to the West and is more comparable to the threats posed by the bands of pirates who continue to harass shipping off the coast of Somalia. They are surely a problem, but a localized and containable one.

Western politicians and commentators who claim that the al Qaeda linked groups in North Africa are a serious threat to the West unnecessarily alarm their publics and also feed the self-image of these terrorists who aspire to attack the West, but don't have the capacity to do so. Terrorism doesn't work if folks aren't terrorized.

North African group hasn't attacked in the West

Western politicians and commentators who claim that the al Qaeda linked groups in North Africa are a serious threat to the West unnecessarily alarm their publics...
Peter Bergen

Much has been written, for instance, in recent weeks about al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al Qaeda's North African affiliate, a splinter group of which carried out the attack on the Algerian gas facility. But according to Camille Tawil, who has authoritatively covered Islamist militant groups over the past two decades for the leading Arabic daily Al-Hayat and has written three books about al Qaeda, AQIM doesn't threaten the West: "To my knowledge no known attacks or aborted attacks in the West have been linked directly to AQIM."

AQIM was formed seven years ago so the group has had more than enough time to plot and carry out an attack in the West. By way of comparison, it took two years of serious plotting for al Qaeda to plan the 9/11 attacks.

So, what is the real level of threat now posed by al Qaeda and allied groups?

Let's start with "core al Qaeda" which attacked the United States on 9/11 and that is headquartered in Pakistan. This group hasn't, of course, been able to pull off an attack in the United States in twelve years. Nor has it been able to mount an attack anywhere in the West since the attacks on London's transportation system eight years ago.

Core al Qaeda on way to extinction

Osama bin Laden, the group's founder and charismatic leader, was buried at sea a year and half ago and despite concerns that his "martyrdom" would provoke a rash of attacks in the West or against Western interests in the Muslim world there has instead been.... nothing.

Meanwhile, CIA drone strikes in Pakistan during President Obama's tenure alone have killed 38 of al Qaeda's leaders in Pakistan, according to a count by the New America Foundation.

Those drone strikes were so effective that shortly before bin Laden died he was contemplating ordering what remained of al Qaeda to move to Kunar Province in the remote, heavily forested mountains of eastern Afghanistan, according to documents that were discovered following the SEAL assault on the compound where bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Core al Qaeda is going the way of the dodo.

Affiliates are no better off

And a number of the affiliates of core al Qaeda are in just as bad shape as the mother ship.

Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the virulent Southeast Asian al Qaeda affiliate that killed hundreds in the years after 9/11 is largely out of business. Why so? JI killed mostly Westerners in its first attacks on the tourist island of Bali in 2002, but the subsequent Bali attack three years later killed mostly Indonesians. So too did JI's attacks on the Marriott hotel in the capital Jakarta in 2003 and the Australian embassy in 2004. As a result, JI lost any shred of popular support it had once enjoyed.

At the same time the Indonesian government, which at one point had denied that JI even existed, mounted a sophisticated campaign to dismantle the group, capturing many of its leaders and putting them on trial.

In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf Group, a number of whose leaders had trained in Afghanistan in al Qaeda's camps, and which specialized in kidnapping Westerners in the years after 9/11, was effectively dismantled by the Philippine army working in tandem with a small contingent of U.S. Special Operations Forces.

In Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban in 2009 took over the once-tranquil mountainous vacation destination of Swat, and destroyed some 180 schools and beheaded 70 policemen there. Suddenly, they were only 70 miles from the capital Islamabad and some warned that the Pakistani state was in danger. Today, the Pakistani Taliban have been rolled back to their bases along the Afghan border and 16 of their leaders have been killed by CIA drones since President Obama took office.

Al Qaeda militants based in Saudi Arabia mounted a terrorist campaign beginning in 2003 that killed dozens of Saudis, and they also attacked a number of the oil workers and oil facilities that lie at the heart of the Saudi economy. This prompted the Saudi government to mount such an effective crackdown that the few remaining al Qaeda leaders who were not killed or captured have in recent years fled south to Yemen where the remnants of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are now based.

From its new headquarters in Yemen AQAP has made serious efforts to attack the United States, sending the "underwear bomber" to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 and also smuggling bombs on to U.S.-bound cargo shipments in October 2010.

None of these attempts were successful.

Yemen militants decimated

As a result of the threat posed by AQAP, the United States has mounted a devastating campaign against the group over the past three years. There was one American drone strike in Yemen in 2009. In 2012 there were 46. That drone campaign has killed 28 prominent members of the group, according to a count by the New America Foundation. Among them was the No. 2 in AQAP, Said al-Shihri, who was confirmed to be dead last week.

In the chaos of the multiple civil wars that gripped Yemen in 2011, AQAP seized a number of towns in southern Yemen. But AQAP has now been pushed out of those towns because of effective joint operations between U.S. Special Operations Forces, the CIA and the Yemeni government.

The Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, even went to the United Nations General Assembly in September where he publicly endorsed the use of CIA drones in his country, something of a first.

A couple of years ago, al Qaeda's Somali affiliate, Al- Shabaab ("the youth" in Arabic) controlled much of southern Somalia including key cities such as the capital Mogadishu.

Once in a position of power, Shaabab inflicted Taliban-like rule on a reluctant Somali population, which eroded its popular legitimacy. Shabaab was also the target of effective military operations by the military of neighboring Kenya, troops of the African Union and U.S. Special Operation Forces.

As a result, today the group controls only some rural areas and for the first time in two decades the United States has formally recognized a Somali government.

Mali conflict shows weakness of jihadist militant groups

Similarly, groups with an al Qaeda-like agenda captured most of northern Mali last year, a vast desert region the size of France. Once in power they imposed Taliban-like strictures on the population, banning smoking and music and enforcing their interpretation of Sharia law with the amputation of hands. The militants also destroyed tombs in the ancient city of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, on the grounds that the tombs promoted "idol worship."

None of these measures endeared the jihadist militants to the population of Mali. In the past weeks, as a relatively small force of some 2,000 French soldiers has rolled through Mali putting the militants on the run, the French have been cheered on by dancing and singing Malians.

When French soldiers are greeted as an army of liberation in an area of the world that in the past century was part of a vast French empire, you can get a sense of how much the jihadist militants had alienated the locals.

Last week the French military took the city of Timbuktu. The defeat of the al Qaeda-linked groups as effective insurgent forces in Mali is now almost complete.

What has just happened in Mali gets to the central problem that jihadist militant groups invariably have. Wherever they begin to control territory and population they create self-styled Islamic "emirates" where they then rule like the Taliban.

Over time this doesn't go down too well with the locals, who usually practice a far less austere version of Islam, and they eventually rise up against the militants, or, if they are too weak to do so themselves, they will cheer on an outside intervention to turf out the militants.

The classical example of this happened in Iraq where al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) controlled Anbar Province, about a third of the country in 2006. AQI cadres ruled with an iron fist and imposed their ultrafundamentalist rule on their fellow Sunnis, who they killed if they felt they were deviating from their supposedly purist Islamic precepts.

This provoked the "Sunni Awakening" of Iraqi tribes that rose up against AQI. These tribes then allied with the U.S. military and by the end of 2007 AQI went from an insurgent group that controlled vast territories to a terrorist group that controlled little but was still able to pull off occasional spectacular terrorist attacks in Baghdad.

Jihadist violence still a threat

The collapse of core al Qaeda and a number of its key affiliates does not, of course, mean that jihadist violence is over. Such religiously motivated mayhem has been a feature of the Muslim world for many centuries. Recall the Assassins, a Shia sect that from its base in what is now Iran dispatched cutthroats armed with daggers to kill its enemies around the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries. In so doing the sect gave the world the useful noun "assassin."

And so while core al Qaeda and several of its affiliates and like-minded groups are in terrible shape, there are certainly groups with links to al Qaeda or animated by its ideology that are today enjoying something of a resurgence.

Most of these groups do not call themselves al Qaeda, which is a smart tactic, as even bin Laden himself was advising his Somali affiliate, Al Shabaab, not to use the al Qaeda name as it would turn off fundraisers because the shine had long gone off the al Qaeda brand, according to documents recovered at bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

One such militant group is the Nigerian Boko Haram, which bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria in 2011 and has also attacked a wide range of Christian targets in the country. However, the group has shown "no capability to attack the West and also has no known members outside of West Africa," according to Virginia Comolli of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies who tracks the group.

Ansar al-Sharia, "Supporters of Sharia," is the name taken by the militant group in Libya that carried out the attack against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in September in which four Americans were killed. Similarly, in Yemen militants that are aligned with al Qaeda have labeled themselves Ansar al-Sharia.

But this new branding hasn't done the militants much good in either country. In Libya, shortly after the attack on the U.S. consulate, an enraged mob stormed and took over Ansar al Sharia's headquarters in Benghazi. And, as we have seen, in Yemen the jihadists have now been forced out of the towns in the south that they had once held.

One strong foothold in Syria

The one country where jihadist militants have a serious foothold and are likely to play an important role for some period in the future is in Syria. That is because of a perfect storm there that favors them. The Sunni militants in Syria are fighting the regime of Bashir al Assad, a secular dictator who is also an Alawite, which many Muslims believe to be a heretical branch of Shiism.

For the jihadists, Assad's secularism makes him an apostate and his Alawi roots also make him a heretic, while his brutal tactics make him an international pariah. This trifecta makes funding the Sunni insurgency highly attractive for donors in the Gulf.

And for the Arabs who form the heart of al Qaeda the fight against Assad is in the heart of the Arab world, a contest that happens to border also on the hated state of Israel. Also Syria was for much of the past decade the entry point for many hundreds of foreign fighters who poured into Iraq to join Al Qaeda in Iraq following the American invasion of the country. As a result, al Qaeda has long had an infrastructure both in Syria and, of course, in neighboring Iraq.

The Al Nusra Front is the name of arguably the most effective fighting force in Syria. In December the State Department publicly said that Al Nusra, which is estimated to number in the low thousands and about 10% of the fighters arrayed against Assad, was a front for Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

Al Nusra certainly seems to have learned from AQI's mistakes. For starters, it doesn't call itself al Qaeda. Secondly, it hasn't launched a campaign to crack down on social issues such as smoking or listening to music and so has not alienated the local Sunni population as AQI did in Iraq.

Barak Barfi, a journalist and fellow at the New America Foundation who has spent several months on the ground in Aleppo in northwestern Syria reporting on the opposition to Assad, says Nusra fighters stand out for their bravery and discipline: "They are winning over the hearts and minds of Aleppo residents who see them as straight shooters. There is a regimented recruiting process that weeds out the chaff. Their bases are highly organized with each person given specific responsibilities."

Arab Spring countries seen as an opportunity

The chaotic conditions of several of the countries of the "Arab Spring" are certainly something al Qaeda views as an opportunity. Ayman al-Zawahiri the leader of the group, has issued 27 audio and video statements since the death of bin Laden, 10 of which have focused on the Arab countries that have experienced the revolutions of the past two years.

But if history is a guide, the jihadist militants, whether in Syria or elsewhere, are likely to repeat the mistakes and failures that their fellow militants have experienced during the past decade in countries as disparate as Somalia, the Philippines, Yemen, Iraq, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and now, Mali.

That's because encoded in the DNA of al Qaeda and like-minded groups are the seeds of their own destruction because in power they rule like the Taliban, and they also attack fellow Muslims who don't follow their dictates to the letter. This doesn't mesh very well with these organizations' claims that they are the defenders of Muslims.

These groups also have no real plans for the multiple political and economic problems that beset much of the Islamic world. And they won't engage in normal politics such as elections believing them to be "un-Islamic."

This is invariably a recipe for irrelevance or defeat. In not one nation in the Muslim world since 9/11 has a jihadist militant group seized control of a country. And al Qaeda and its allies' record of effective attacks in the West has been non-existent since 2005.

With threats like these we can all sleep soundly at night.

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CTA to spend $2B for rail-car upgrade

Label: Health

Commuters wait to board a CTA Red Line train at the Belmont Street station in Chicago last December.
(Antonio Perez, Chicago Tribune / December 14, 2012)

By Jon Hilkevitch

Tribune reporter

10:17 a.m. CST, February 6, 2013

The CTA will spend up to $2 billion to purchase as many as 846 next-generation rail cars as part of a continuing effort to modernize an aging fleet, officials said Wednesday.

The transit agency this week issued an invitation for bids to manufacturers for new rail cars, which will be called the 7000 Series, CTA president Forrest Claypool said.

Manufacturers were asked to submit exterior and interior design proposals, including seating configuration and aesthetics, officials said.

The CTA plans a base order of 100 7000 Series cars that would be paid for with federal funds and CTA bond proceeds already in place, CTA spokeswoman Tammy Chase said.

On the options to buy additional cars, up to 746 beyond the base order, the CTA did not identify funding sources.

If all goes according to plan, the new cars would start arriving in Chicago about 2016, following completion of delivery of 706 new rail cars that the CTA has already purchased from Bombardier Transportation for $1.14 billion.

The Bombardier cars, called the 5000 Series, provide a smoother ride than the old cars they are replacing. But they feature aisle-facing seats, which have proven unpopular with many riders.

About 190 of the 5000 Series cars are in operation on several rail lines, with more cars being delivered at a rate of one per weekday, officials said.

Replacing old rail cars will reduce service delays caused by mechanical breakdowns and save millions of dollars in operating costs, CTA officials said.

Adding the 7000 Series to the mix would potentially reduce the average age of the CTA's fleet to less than 10 years by 2022, officials said. Without the planned purchase, the average age of the fleet would exceed 20 years old by that time. The CTA currently operates about 1,280 rail cars.

The oldest rail cars on the CTA system include approximately 400 30-year-old 2600 Series cars that were built between 1981 and 1987, officials said.

If all the options were exercised on a 7000 Series purchase, some 256 cars in the 3200 series, which are 20 years old, would be retired in a timely manner, officials said.

The CTA could also expand its rail fleet if needed to handle increase ridership or expansion of the rail system, including the planned $1.5 billion extension of the Red Line south branch from 95th Street to 130th Street.

jhilkevitch@tribune.com

Twitter@jhilkevitch

Tunisia protests after government critic shot dead

Label: Business

TUNIS (Reuters) - A fierce critic of the Tunisian government's dealings with radical Islamists was shot dead on Wednesday, sending protesters onto the streets two years after their Jasmine Revolution sparked revolt across the Arab world.

The headquarters of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which rules in a fractious coalition with secularists, was set ablaze after Chokri Belaid, an outspoken, secular leader, was gunned down outside his home in the capital.

His party and others in the opposition parties said they would quit the assembly that is writing a new constitution and called a general strike for Thursday when Belaid will be buried.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, who said the identity of the attacker was not known, condemned his killing as a political assassination and a strike against the "Arab Spring" revolution. Ennahda denied any involvement.

As Belaid's body was taken by ambulance through Tunis from the hospital where he died, police fired teargas towards about 20,000 protesters at the Interior Ministry chanting for the fall of the government.

"This is a black day in the history of modern Tunisia ... Today we say to the Islamists, 'get out' ... enough is enough," said Souad, a 40-year-old teacher outside the ministry.

"Tunisia will sink in the blood if you stay in power."

Despite calls for calm from the president, who is not an Islamist, thousands also demonstrated in cities including Mahdia, Sousse, Monastir and Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the revolution, where police fired teargas and warning shots at protesters who set cars and a police station on fire.

While Belaid's nine-party Popular Front bloc has only three seats in the constituent assembly, the opposition jointly agreed to pull its 90 or so members out of the body, which is acting as parliament and writing the new post-revolution charter. Ennahda and its fellow ruling parties have some 120 seats.

The small North African state was the first Arab country to oust its leader and hold free elections as uprisings spread around the region in 2011, leading to the ousting of the rulers of Egypt, Yemen and Libya and to the civil war in Syria.

But as in Egypt, many who campaigned for freedom from repression under autocratic rulers and better prospects for their future now feel their revolutions have been hijacked by Islamists they accuse of clamping down on personal liberties, with no sign of new jobs or improvements in infrastructure.

Tunisia's new constitution will pave the way for new elections but will inevitably be a source of friction between secularists and Islamists, just as it was in Egypt, where the president adopted sweeping powers to force it through.

The ruling parties have agreed to hold the vote in June, but that date still needs approval by the assembly.

HARDSHIP

Since the uprising, the government has faced a string of protests over economic hardship and Tunisia's future path, with many complaining hardline Salafists were taking over the revolution in the former French colony once dominated by a secular elite under the autocratic rule of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Last year, Salafist groups prevented several concerts and plays from taking place in Tunisian cities, saying they violated Islamic principles. That worries the secular-minded among the 11 million Tunisians, who fear freedom of expression is in danger.

Salafists also ransacked the U.S. embassy in Tunis in September, during international protests over an Internet video mocking Islam.

The embassy issued a statement on Wednesday condemning Belaid's killing: "There is no justification for this heinous and cowardly act," it said. "Political violence has no place in the democratic transition in Tunisia."

The United States urged the Tunisian government to bring his killers to book.

Declining trade with the crisis-hit euro zone has left Tunisians struggling to achieve the better living standards many had hoped for following Ben Ali's departure. Any further signs of unrest could scare off tourists vital to an industry only just recovering from the revolution.

"More than 4,000 are protesting now, burning tires and throwing stones at the police," Mehdi Horchani, a Sidi Bouzid resident, told Reuters. "There is great anger."

Jobless graduate Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010 in the city, 300 km (180 miles) southwest of Tunis, after police confiscated his unlicensed fruit cart, triggering the "Jasmine Revolution" that forced Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia less than a month later, on January 14, 2011.

President Moncef Marzouki, who last month warned the tension between secularists and Islamists might lead to "civil war", canceled a visit to Egypt scheduled for Thursday and cut short a trip to France, where he addressed the European Parliament.

"There are political forces inside Tunisia that don't want this transition to succeed," Marzouki told journalists in Strasbourg.

"When one has a revolution, the counter revolution immediately sets in because those who lose power - it's not only Ben Ali and his family - are the hundreds of thousands of people with many interests who see themselves threatened by this revolution," he added.

Belaid, who died in hospital, said earlier this week that dozens of people close to the government had attacked a Popular Front group meeting in Kef, northern Tunisia, on Sunday.

A lawyer and human rights activist, the 48-year-old had been a constant critic of the government, accusing it of being a puppet of the rulers in the small but wealthy Gulf state of Qatar, which Tunisia denies.

"Chokri Belaid was killed today by four bullets to the head and chest," Ziad Lakhader, a Popular Front leader, told Reuters.

The Interior Ministry said he had been gunned down by a man who fled on a motorcycle with an accomplice.

DENIES INVOLVEMENT

Prime Minister Jebali, a member of Ennahda, said the killers wanted to "silence his voice".

"The murder of Belaid is a political assassination and the assassination of the Tunisian revolution," he said.

Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi denied any involvement by his party in the killing. "Is it possible that the ruling party could carry out this assassination when it would disrupt investment and tourism?" Ghannouchi told Reuters.

He blamed those seeking to derail Tunisia's democratic transition: "Tunisia today is in the biggest political stalemate since the revolution. We should be quiet and not fall into a spiral of violence. We need unity more than ever," he said.

He accused secular opponents of stirring up sentiment against his party following Belaid's death. "The result is burning and attacking the headquarters of our party in many areas," he said.

Witnesses said crowds had also attacked Ennahda offices in Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia and Sfax.

French President Francois Hollande said he was concerned by the rise of violence in Paris's former dominion, where the government says al Qaeda-linked militants linked to those in neighboring countries have been accumulating weapons with the aim of creating an Islamic state.

"This murder deprives Tunisia of one of its most courageous and free voices," Hollande's office said in a statement.

Riccardo Fabiani, Eurasia analyst on Tunisia, described it as a "major failure for Tunisian politics".

"The question is now what is Ennahda going to do and what are its allies going to do?" he said. "They could be forced to withdraw from the government which would lead to a major crisis in the transition."

Marzouki warned last month that the conflict between Islamists and secularists could lead to civil war and called for a national dialogue that included all political groupings.

Ennahda won 42 percent of seats in a parliamentary election in 2011 and formed a government in coalition with two secular parties, the Congress for the Republic, to which President Marzouki belongs, and Ettakatol.

Marzouki's party threatened on Sunday to withdraw from the government unless it dropped two Islamist ministers.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Alison Williams; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Wall Street extends gains; Nasdaq up 1 percent

Label: World

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq gaining more than 1 percent, as investors sought bargains following the market's worst daily session since November and more companies reported results that beat Wall Street's expectations.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 114.81 points, or 0.83 percent, at 13,994.89. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 13.63 points, or 0.91 percent, at 1,509.34. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 30.81 points, or 0.98 percent, at 3,161.98.

(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Vonn hospitalized after crash in super-G at worlds

Label: Technology

SCHLADMING, Austria (AP) — Lindsey Vonn crashed and apparently hurt her right knee during a super-G at the world championships Tuesday and was taken to a hospital by helicopter.

Austria's ski federation president said doctors told him that Vonn tore her cruciate and lateral ligaments. Peter Schroecksnadel added that this is "the only injury she has, nothing besides this."

The U.S. team gave no immediate update on Vonn's condition but said it would release a statement later in the day.

This is the sixth straight major championship in which Vonn has been hit with injuries. This crash comes almost exactly one year before the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The four-time overall World Cup champion lost balance on her right leg while landing after a jump. Her ski came off immediately, and she slid off course and hit a gate before coming to a halt. She was treated on the slope for 12 minutes before being going to the hospital.

Vonn returned to the circuit last month after an almost monthlong break from racing to fully recover from an intestinal illness that put her in a hospital for two days in November.

Vonn trailed race winner Tina Maze of Slovenia by 0.12 seconds shortly before the crash.

The race, which was postponed for 3½ hours because of fog, resumed after another 15-minute delay. Several racers struggled with the conditions.

"It's not a very difficult course but in some parts you couldn't see anything," Fabienne Suter of Switzerland said.

Vonn is building a long list of medical mishaps. Two years ago, she pulled out midway through the last worlds in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, because of a mild concussion. At the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Vonn skied despite a severely bruised shin to win the downhill and take bronze in the super-G.

At the 2009 worlds in Val d'Isere, France, she sliced her thumb on a champagne bottle after sweeping gold in the downhill and super-G, forcing her out of the giant slalom. At the 2007 worlds in Are, Sweden, Vonn injured her knee in training and missed her final two events.

And at the 2006 Turin Olympics, she had a horrific crash during downhill training and went directly from her hospital room to the mountain to compete in four of her five events.

Monster Saturn Storm Fizzled by Choking On Own Tail

Label: World

Like a monstrous snake biting its own tail, a giant storm on Saturn raged until it wrapped completely around the ringed planet and ran into its own wake, causing it to fizzle out, scientists say.

The monster Saturn storm is the first mega-storm in the solar system that astronomers have ever seen die by consuming itself. Scientists are still perplexed over exactly how the process worked.

“This Saturn storm behaved like a terrestrial hurricane — but with a twist unique to Saturn,” said researcher Andrew Ingersoll, a member of the Cassini imaging team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “Even the giant storms at Jupiter don’t consume themselves like this, which goes to show that nature can play many awe-inspiring variations on a theme and surprise us again and again.”

The Saturn storm was first spotted on Dec. 5, 2010, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which has spent years beaming pictures of Saturn and its moons back to Earth. With a turbulent bright head of the storm leading the way westward over the next few months, the tempest circled the planet at 33 degrees north latitude, spanning about 190,000 miles (300,000 kilometers), according to Cassini mission scientists. [Photos: Monster Storm Rages on Saturn]

The storm also spawned a clockwise-spinning vortex early on, which drifted more slowly than the storm’s head and grew to be as big as 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) across. It is similar in size to a massive storm on Jupiter known as Oval BA.

While Earth has mountains, coastlines and other topographic features that help break up hurricanes and other storms, Saturn is a gas giant planet, devoid of such a storm-stopping landscape. The giant tempest only started fading away when its head rammed into the vortex in June 2011 and stopped for good by Aug. 28, after 267 days in action.

Though it was the longest-running tempest observed on Saturn’s northern hemisphere, a storm 100 times smaller formed in a region dubbed “Storm Alley” in the planet’s southern hemisphere in 2009, and lasted for 334 days, Cassini researchers said.

“This thunder-and-lightning storm on Saturn was a beast,” Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Virginia, said in a statement. “The storm maintained its intensity for an unusually long time. The storm head itself thrashed for 201 days, and its updraft erupted with an intensity that would have sucked out the entire volume of Earth’s atmosphere in 150 days.”

The research is detailed in a research edition of the science journal Icarus.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook and Google+.

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Richard III 'still the criminal king'

Label: Lifestyle

Richard III on stage and screen

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Dan Jones: Richard III's remains found; some see chance to redeem his bad reputation

Jones says the bones reveal and confirm his appearance, how he died and his injuries

Nothing changes his rep as a usurper of the Crown who likely had nephews killed, Jones says

Jones: Richard good or bad? Truth likely somewhere in between

Editor's note: Dan Jones is a historian and newspaper columnist based in London. His new book, "The Plantagenets" (Viking) is published in the US this Spring. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Richard III is the king we British just can't seem to make our minds up about.

The monarch who reigned from 1483 to 1485 became, a century later, the blackest villain of Shakespeare's history plays. The three most commonly known facts of his life are that he stole the Crown, murdered his nephews and died wailing for a horse at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. His death ushered in the Tudor dynasty, so Richard often suffers the dual ignominy of being named the last "medieval" king of England -- in which medieval is not held to be a good thing.

Like any black legend, much of it is slander.

Richard did indeed usurp the Crown and lose at Bosworth. He probably had his nephews killed too -- it is unknowable but overwhelmingly likely. Yet as his many supporters have been busy telling us since it was announced Monday that Richard's lost skeleton was found in a car park in Leicester, he wasn't all bad. In fact, he was for most of his life loyal and conscientious.

Dan Jones

To fill you in, a news conference held at the University of Leicester Monday confirmed what archaeologists working there have suspected for months: that a skeleton removed from under a parking lot in the city center last fall was indeed the long-lost remains of Richard III.

His official burial place -- under the floor of a church belonging to the monastic order of the Greyfriars -- had been lost during the dissolution of the monasteries that was carried out in the 1530s under Henry VIII. A legend grew up that the bones had been thrown in a river. Today, we know they were not.

What do the bones tell us?

Well, they show that Richard -- identified by mitochondrial DNA tests against a Canadian descendant of his sister, Anne of York -- was about 5-foot-8, suffered curvature of the spine and had delicate limbs. He had been buried roughly and unceremoniously in a shallow grave too small for him, beneath the choir of the church.

He had died from a slicing blow to the back of the head sustained during battle and had suffered many other "humiliation injuries" after his death, including having a knife or dagger plunged into his hind parts. His hands may have been tied at his burial. A TV show aired Monday night in the UK was expected to show a facial reconstruction from the skull.

Opinion: What will the finding of Richard III mean?

In other words, we have quite a lot of either new or confirmed biographical information about Richard.

He was not a hunchback, but he was spindly and warped. He died unhorsed. He was buried where it was said he was buried. He very likely was, as one source had said, carried roughly across a horse's back from the battlefield where he died to Leicester, stripped naked and abused all the way.

All this is known today thanks to a superb piece of historical teamwork.

The interdisciplinary team at Leicester that worked toward Monday's revelations deserves huge plaudits. From the desk-based research that pinpointed the spot to dig, to the digging itself, to the bone analysis, the DNA work and the genealogy that identified Richard's descendants, all of it is worthy of the highest praise. Hat-tips, too, to the Richard III Society, as well as Leicester's City Council, which pulled together to make the project happen and also to publicize the society and city so effectively.

However, should anyone today tell you that Richard's skeleton somehow vindicates his historical reputation, you may tell them they are talking horsefeathers.

Back from the grave, King Richard III gets rehab

Richard III got a rep for a reason. He usurped the Crown from a 12-year old boy, who later died.

This was his great crime, and there is no point denying it. It is true that before this crime, Richard was a conspicuously loyal lieutenant to the boy's father, his own brother, King Edward IV. It is also true that once he was king, Richard made a great effort to promote justice to the poor and needy, stabilize royal finances and contain public disorder.

But this does not mitigate that he stole the Crown, justifying it after the fact with the claim that his nephews were illegitimate. Likewise, it remains indisputably true that his usurpation threw English politics, painstakingly restored to some order in the 12 years before his crime, into a turmoil from which it did not fully recover for another two decades.

So the discovery of Richard's bones is exciting. But it does not tell us anything to justify changing the current historical view of Richard: that the Tudor historians and propagandists, culminating with Shakespeare, may have exaggerated his physical deformities and the horrors of Richard's character, but he remains a criminal king whose actions wrought havoc on his realm.

Unfortunately, we don't all want to hear that. Richard remains the only king with a society devoted to rehabilitating his name, and it is a trait of some "Ricardians" to refuse to acknowledge any criticism of their hero whatever. So despite today's discovery, we Brits are likely to remain split on Richard down the old lines: murdering, crook-backed, dissembling Shakespearean monster versus misunderstood, loyal, enlightened, slandered hero. Which is the truth?

Somewhere in between. That's a classic historian's answer, isn't it? But it's also the truth.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Jones.

Chicago commute one of nation's most unpredictable: study

Label: Health

Traffic congestion in Chicago is amongst the worst in the nation. (WGN - Chicago)

You can predict with a high degree of confidence that the time it takes to drive from Point A to B on any given day is unpredictable.

And it's not just snowy or rainy days. It can be any day.

If there is a bright side, it's that Chicago was not the worst.

Residents of the Chicago area are accommodating that increasing uncertainty by setting aside more time each day — just in case — for the commute, new research shows.

For the most important trips, such as going to work, medical appointments, the airport or making a 5:30 p.m. pickup at the child care center to avoid late fees, drivers in northeastern Illinois and northwest Indiana should count on allotting four times as much time as it would take to travel in free-flowing traffic, according to the "Urban Mobility Report" to be released Tuesday by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. The analysis is based on 2011 data, which are the most recent available.

It is the first time that travel reliability was measured in the 30-year history of the annual report. The researchers created a Planning Time Index geared toward helping commuters reach their destinations on time in more than 95 percent of the trips. A second index, requiring less padding of travel time, would get an employee to work on time four out of five days a week.

"If you plan only for average traffic conditions on your trip in the Chicago area, you are going to be late at least half the time," said Bill Eisele, a senior research engineer at the Transportation Institute who co-authored the study.

The constant unreliability that hovers over commuting is stealing precious time from other activities, crimping lifestyles, causing mounting frustration for drivers and slapping extra costs on businesses that rely on just-in-time shipments to manage inventory efficiently, researchers found.

The Chicago region ranked No. 7 among very large urban areas and 13th among 498 U.S. cities on a scale of the most unreliable highway travel times. The Washington area was the worst. A driver using the freeway system in the nation's capital and surrounding suburbs should budget almost three hours to complete a high-priority trip that would take only 30 minutes in light traffic, the study said.

The Washington area was followed on the list by the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, New York-Newark, Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Seattle.

Rounding out the top 10, the Chicago metro area was trailed by San Francisco-Oakland, Atlanta, and Houston.

Truck driver Frank Denk said he usually adds an hour or two to his trip through the Chicago area. Sometimes, it's not enough, other times traffic isn't a problem, he said. The one constant, Denk said Monday afternoon while taking a break at the O'Hare Oasis on the Tri-State Tollway, is that it is almost impossible to anticipate correctly.

"Job-wise, it can be very detrimental to truckers," said Denk, who is based in Green Bay, Wis. "All of a sudden, you're not able to make your delivery."

But quadrupling the time to travel back and forth each day? That's excessive, said Mike Hennigan, a 64-year-old accountant who regularly commutes from his Evanston home to his office near the junction of the Kennedy and Edens expressways. He recommends doubling the anticipated travel time.

"I can predict when it's going to be bad," Hennigan said, although he is less optimistic about his travel times when he heads toward downtown.

"Coming into the Loop can be deadly, especially later in the week," Hennigan said.

Overall, traffic congestion in the Chicago region is getting worse as the economy improves, although it's not as severe as the grip that gridlock has taken recently on some other very large metropolitan areas in the U.S., according to the report. The Washington area again topped the list, followed by Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, New York-Newark, Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Seattle.

No longer being ranked at the very top of the congestion heap provides little consolation for Chicago-area drivers.

What should be a 20-minute jaunt across town in Chicago or the suburbs if highway capacity were sufficient to permit vehicles to travel the speed limit now becomes about an 80-minute ordeal, according to the Texas A&M study. Scheduling 80 minutes for the trip would ensure an on-time arrival 19 out of 20 times, the study concluded.

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Richard III 'still the criminal king'

Chicago commute one of nation's most unpredictable: study

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