Pink Reveals Her Secret to a Happy Marriage: Listening ... in Moderation

By Marisa Laudadio

02/10/2013 at 05:00 PM EST

Three-time Grammy winner Pink, 33, who is up for best pop vocal album at this month's Grammy Awards – and kicks off her U.S. tour on Feb. 13 – shares the secrets behind her music.

You're nominated for The Truth About Love. So how does the magic happen?
When I start a record, I'm like, 'God, I wonder if I can even sing.' But I write poetry and keep a journal, then the first day I go into the studio, I'm like, 'Here we go, I'm turning the faucet on!' I bottle it up for so long that the inspiration is always there.

How'd you get Eminem to be on 'Here Comes the Weekend'?
He wanted me to be on his last record (2010's Recovery), so I said, 'Yeah, let's swap.' I'm a die-hard Eminem fan. I think he's awesome.

You vent about your husband, Carey Hart, in many songs. How does he feel about that?
He's like, 'Look, I know you, we have a good sense of humor, and I know what I signed up for. I only listen to half of what you say anyway!' When he starts listening to me too much, we have problems!

What does your 20-month-old daughter Willow think of mommy’s music?
The first time she heard my music, she kind of looked at me and got the weirdest expression on her face. I wondered, 'God, what's going on in there for her?'

Many people will be partying hard Grammy night, so what's your best hangover cure?
Drink a beer as soon as possible! I used to be able to drink a bottle of wine and not get a hangover. Now, after two glasses I have a headache.

The 55th annual Grammys will air Sunday, Feb. 10, on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT (7 p.m. CT) from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Read More..

G20 to skirt potholes and follow growth signposts

LONDON (Reuters) - With the road ahead looking a bit smoother, G20 finance ministers will be happy to ignore the wreck in the rear-view mirror when they meet this week to steer a course for the world economy.

The euro zone as a whole and a clutch of its members, including France, Italy and the Netherlands, are expected to report that their economies shrank last quarter - joining Germany and the United States - while Japan's barely grew, according to economists polled by Reuters.

But the Group of 20 leading economies, which meets in Moscow on Friday, should be able to take heart from a pair of more timely indicators - a New York Fed manufacturing survey and a University of Michigan poll on consumer sentiment.

Economists expect both to show an improvement, despite the gnawing uncertainty of how long-running U.S. deficit reduction negotiations will affect taxes and spending.

Luca Paolini, chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management in London, said he was more positive on the global outlook on balance but a sense of perspective was needed. Buoyant markets risked getting ahead of themselves.

"Our own leading indicators are going up, but we don't think we're in a strong growth environment. We see weak growth, and that's not going to change this year," he said.

PASSING THE GROWTH BATON

Simon Hayes, an economist with Barclays Capital, broadly agreed. "On the whole, recent activity data have been encouraging of our view that the global economy is improving, albeit slowly," he said in a report.

January U.S. retail sales figures are likely to underline this point. Hobbled by the January 1 increase in payroll taxes, economists expect a rise of just 0.1 percent on the month.

By contrast, U.S. capital spending is finally perking up from a low level as corporations, realizing that protracted cost-cutting is hurting productivity and growth prospects, give the green light to pent-up investments, Paolini said.

"But we're not overly optimistic because investment is based on confidence. You can have all the money you want, but you're not going to invest if you expect growth to be weak. So if we have any kind of shock - it can be politics or something else - investment will fall again," he said.

China delivered a boost to confidence on Friday with a batch of strong trade and money data for January.

Economists are wary of reading too much into China's figures at the start of the year because of distortions due to the variable timing of the long Lunar New Year holidays.

But Ting Lu, Bank of America Merrill Lynch's chief China economist, said they supported his view that gross domestic product growth could accelerate to 8.3 percent in the first half of this year from 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.

China is not the only developing economy that is doing its bit for global growth.

Mark Williams, chief Asia economist with Capital Economics in London, said there had been signs of a rebound across the emerging world in the past month. Goldman Sachs, too, said there had been a marked improvement in consumer confidence across emerging markets coming into 2013.

"It had been the case that Latin America and Asia were looking up at the end of last year but emerging economies in Europe were still looking very weak. But even they are now joining in the recovery. So it's looking increasingly broad-based," Williams said.

CURRENCY SKIRMISHES

One obvious pothole on the road to recovery is the threat of a spate of competitive devaluations, as growth-hungry countries seek to give their exporters an edge by talking down their currencies or actively pushing them lower by bold monetary easing.

Japan has come in for fierce criticism in some quarters for that very reason, but Finance Minister Taro Aso sought to restore calm on Friday by saying the recent slide in the yen had gone too far.

His emollient words reinforced expectations that the G20 will not point the finger at Tokyo.

At the same time, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's success in reversing the euro's climb with a few well-chosen words last Thursday has eased the worries of France and others for now that the single currency was approaching levels that would do real damage to the euro area.

So, although Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega fears global currency wars could intensify, the betting is on an anodyne statement from the Moscow meeting that avoids rattling confidence.

"There will be something very vague reminding everybody that if you start getting into currency wars everybody is going to lose," Paolini with Pictet said.

(Editing by Toby Chopra)

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Venezuela, Despite Myriad Problems, Seizes On a Hat

Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

Vice President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela wore a patriotic cap to a parade Monday in Caracas.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela seems to lurch from one crisis to another. President Hugo Chávez has virtually disappeared since going to Cuba for cancer surgery more than eight weeks ago. Last month, 58 people were killed in a prison when inmates clashed with soldiers. Inflation is spiking, the government just announced a currency devaluation and lurid murders are the stuff of daily headlines.

But high on the list of government priorities last week was an unexpected item: baseball caps.

Even in a country where political theater of the absurd is commonplace, the great cap kerfuffle took many Venezuelans by surprise.

It all started over the summer, when a young state governor, Henrique Capriles, ran for president against Mr. Chávez. Mr. Capriles started wearing a baseball cap decorated with the national colors — yellow, blue and red — and the stars of the Venezuelan flag.

In response, the electoral council, dominated by Chávez loyalists, threatened to sanction Mr. Capriles for violating a rule against using national symbols in the campaign. The move struck many people as patently partisan because Mr. Chávez regularly wore clothes made up of the national colors and patterned on the flag and used vast amounts of government resources to promote his re-election.

Suddenly, the tricolor cap became a symbol of Mr. Capriles’s underdog campaign, and soon it could be seen everywhere, on the noggins of his supporters.

But Mr. Capriles lost the election in October, and the cap was mostly forgotten. Until now.

At a rally on Monday to celebrate the anniversary of a failed 1992 coup led by Mr. Chávez, a host of government officials unexpectedly pulled out caps like the one Mr. Capriles had made famous and put them on.

Had Mr. Chávez’s top cadre switched sides? Nothing of the sort.

“It is the cap of the revolution,” Vice President Nicolás Maduro said from the stage. “They can’t steal it like they’re accustomed to stealing it.”

He held up the hat, which had a small emblem commemorating the coup’s anniversary, and shouted, “Cap in hand! Tricolor in hand, everyone!”

A day later, at a session of the National Assembly, legislators on both sides of the aisle showed up wearing caps. The chamber looked like the stands at a baseball game.

All of this has given rise to plenty of jokes.

“The cap — expropriate it!” said one wag on Twitter, referring to a famous episode when Mr. Chávez, a socialist, in what seemed like a spontaneous act, ordered the nationalization of several buildings in the center of Caracas.

Then came a new twist on Thursday night, when the government interrupted regular television and radio programming with a special broadcast. Anxious Venezuelans worried about Mr. Chávez’s long absence might have wondered if they were about to get an update on the president’s health.

Nope. The two-minute broadcast consisted of images of Mr. Chávez, at various points of his 14-year presidency, wearing the tricolor cap.

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Anne Hathaway's Channeling Audrey Hepburn In Your Favorite Dress This Week

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/09/2013 at 12:00 PM ET

Kevin Winter/Getty

We’ve always said that StyleWatch readers appreciate the power of the perfect little black dress. The two most loved star looks this week weren’t jaw-dropping gowns, but instead perfectly executed versions of the wardrobe staple.

Anne Hathaway nabbed the No. 1 spot, with more than 15,000 votes, thanks to the simple black sleeveless number she wore to the Academy Awards Nominations Luncheon in Beverly Hills. She gave the pretty piece even more polish with black ankle-strap sandals, Jamie Wolf earrings and Jennifer Meyer bracelets and rings.

PHOTOS: SEE THE TOP 10 BEST DRESSED STARS ON PEOPLE.COM THIS WEEK!

The runner-up LBD was spotted on Jessica Chastain, who paired her peplum sheath with nude pumps and a pretty pink lip at the The Hollywood Reporter‘s Oscar Nominees Night in L.A.

Click here to see which other stars earned a spot in the top 10 and vote for your favorite looks here. Tell us: Is Hathaway your best dressed celeb of the week? If not, who is?

–Jennifer Cress

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Read More..

Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.

The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.

The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.

Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.

AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.

Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.

"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.

The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.

"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.

Shares of Dell closed at $13.63, up 0.7 percent, after briefly trading above a buyout offering price of $13.65 during the session.

Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.

Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.

Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.

"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."

Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by almost 5 to 3.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Barry and Andrew Hay)

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IHT Rendezvous: French Communists Abandon Hammer and Sickle

LONDON — The Communist Party of France has sparked a revolution among the comrades by removing the hammer and sickle from their membership cards.

The iconic symbol of the international proletariat has been replaced with the star of the multi-party European Left alliance, much to the horror of traditionalists at the party’s 36th congress that opened near Paris on Thursday.

What was billed by the party leadership as a forward-looking move was denounced by others as revisionist backsliding and part of a conspiracy to abandon the movement to the embrace of social democracy.

Emmanuel Dang Tran, secretary of the party’s Paris section, told France Info radio that members were shocked at the abandoning of “what represents, for the working class of this country, a historic element in resistance against the politics of capitalism.”

An anonymous commenter on the radio’s website suggested wryly: “It’s natural that they’ve abandoned their tools. There’s no work anymore!”

Mr. Tran was among those who believed the symbol change amounted to the party paying allegiance to the European Left, a coalition of left-wing movements formed in 1999 to cooperate within the European Parliament.

He said the leadership was trying to create a social democracy mark-2 alongside “Greens, socialists, Trotskyists and I don’t know who else.”

Pierre Laurent, the party’s national secretary, defended the decision to dump the hammer and sickle, saying it no longer represented present-day realities. “We want to turn towards the future,” he said on Friday.

The internal spat was the latest upset for a communist party that was once powerful on the left in France, with ministers serving in a number of Socialist-led administrations.

It remains the country’s largest left-wing party in terms of membership. But its standing has declined rapidly since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

For the first time last year, it failed to put up its own candidate at a presidential election and opted instead to support Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the Left Front.

Although the Communist Party is the largest grouping in the Left Front, hardliners complain it risks playing second fiddle to other movements in the alliance despite being its “sole historically revolutionary component.”

The 20Minutes news Website asked whether the loss of the hammer and sickle meant the party was becoming a “Communist Party light” and noted that this week’s congress had also adopted Mr. Mélenchon’s “people first” slogan.

“That is something to chew on for the many who fear the party will be dissolved into a Left Front led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon,” it wrote.

L’Humanité, the former official Communist newspaper that retains close links with the party, managed to remain upbeat as the congress opened. It ran a poll that indicated the party’s public image had improved since the creation of the Left Front.

It also interviewed the rank and file at the party congress who said that, among other things, they saw the gathering as an occasion for communists to go on the offensive, continue a citizens’ revolution, or simply spend a “fraternal moment with all the comrades.”

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Nigella Lawson: Inside Her Kitchen

By Liza Hamm

02/08/2013 at 05:15 PM EST

One day British cook Nigella Lawson found herself inspired while watching an episode of MTV Cribs.

"I saw Missy Elliott had the world's biggest fridge, and I thought, 'One day I've got to have that fridge!' " says Lawson, as she gestures toward the 7-ft.-tall Sub-Zero appliance at one end of her expansive London kitchen.

"So it's called the Missy Elliott Memorial Fridge. It is so huge, but I love it."

In recent weeks, however, Lawson, 53, has barely been around to cook from the vast quantities of food stored inside. Along with promoting her new Italian cookbook Nigellissima in the U.K. and preparing for a U.S. book tour, Lawson has been starring as a judge and mentor on ABC's new reality cooking competition The Taste, providing the compassionate counterpoint to Anthony Bourdain's acerbic wit.

"When I'm doing my own shows, I have total control," she says, "but I felt drawn to do reality TV – and a little frightened." And a little exhausted. Given her whirlwind start to the new year, "I'd like to take a little time off and be a normal person at home and cook."

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Read More..