WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.

In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.

Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.

Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

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Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

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Online:

WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb

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Wall Street ends flat after late fade; S&P up for fourth month

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended flat on Thursday, giving up modest gains late in the session, denying the Dow a chance to inch closer to all-time highs.

The S&P 500 still managed to close out February with a fourth straight month of gains. JC Penney Co Inc was the day's biggest loser, falling 17 percent to $17.57 after the department store operator reported a steep drop in sales.

The U.S. economy grew slightly in the fourth quarter, a turnaround from an earlier estimate showing contraction, and a drop in new claims for unemployment benefits last week added to a batch of data suggesting the economy continues its sluggish improvement.

The Dow was within striking distance of its record high after a year-to-date advance of more than 7 percent. The Dow's record closing high, set on October 9, 2007, stands at 14,164.53, while the Dow's intraday record high, set on October 11, 2007, stands at 14,198.10.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt>, seen as a bet on future growth, is up 12.9 percent this year, and the 20-stock index hit a record intraday high earlier on Thursday.

"To push through to new highs, you would have to see consistent positive economic data in the U.S. and have Europe stabilize - those are two pretty big requirements," said Jeff Morris, head of U.S. equities at Standard Life Investments in Boston.

"It wouldn't surprise me to see us bounce around as we have the past couple of weeks," Morris added.

Volume was low for most of the session until quarterly index-rebalancing activity hit the tape at the very close of trading.

After a strong January with gains of more than 5 percent, both the Dow and the S&P 500 found gains tougher to come by in February. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's January meeting sparked concerns that the central bank may pull back on its stimulus measures sooner than expected, while looming U.S. budget cuts and turbulent Italian elections tempered investors' aggressiveness.

But concerns about Fed policy were eased by testimony from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke before a congressional committee earlier this week, as he defended the policy of buying bonds to keep interest rates low to boost growth, despite worries some have about possible inflation.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> shed 20.88 points, or 0.15 percent, to 14,054.49 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 1.31 points, or 0.09 percent, to 1,514.68. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 2.07 points, or 0.07 percent, to end at 3,160.19.

For the month, the Dow rose 1.4 percent, the S&P 500 gained 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.6 percent.

Limited Brands and Netflix ranked among the best-performing consumer stocks. Shares of Limited Brands, the parent of retailers Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, gained 2.3 percent to $45.52. The stock of video streaming service Netflix climbed 2 percent to $$188.08.

In contrast, shares of Groupon Inc fell on weak revenue, with the daily deals company's tumbling 24.3 percent to $4.53.

Cablevision slumped 9.6 percent to $13.99 after the cable provider took a $100 million hit on costs related to Superstorm Sandy and posted deeper video customer losses than expected.

On a positive note, Mylan Inc gained 3.6 percent to $29.61 after the generic drugmaker posted a 25 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit and said it will buy a unit of India's Strides Arcolab Ltd.

Investors were keeping an eye on the debate in Washington over U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting Friday if lawmakers fail to reach agreement on spending and taxes. President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders arranged last-ditch talks to prevent the cuts, but expectations were low that any deal would emerge.

Volume was modest with about 6.81 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq, slightly above the daily average of 6.46 billion.

Advancing stocks slightly outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,518 to 1,446. On the Nasdaq, the decliners had a slight edge, with 1,247 shares falling and 1,201 stocks rising.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Czechs Split Deeply Over Joining the Euro

PRAGUE — Vaclav Klaus, the departing president of the Czech Republic, has equated the European Union to the former Soviet bloc, blamed the euro for the Greek crisis and called the single currency a mistake. He has even refused to hang the Union’s gold-starred flag at the Prague Castle, the seat of the Czech president.

So when Mr. Klaus, a Thatcher-loving economist who became a potent spokesman for continental Europhobes, steps down next week to make way for Milos Zeman as president, euro enthusiasts here will rejoice. Mr. Zeman has not only promised to hang the Union’s flag at the castle but has also suggested a referendum on whether to join the euro zone and suggested 2017 as the earliest possible date for entry.

But the celebrating could be premature. While the presidency, a largely ceremonial post, has the power to influence the debate, the Czech Republic remains deeply polarized between a business community clamoring to get into the euro club and skeptics who associate the currency with the economic pain buffeting Europe’s southern tier.

More than 80 percent of Czechs are against entering the euro zone, according to the latest Eurobarometer poll, making the Czechs the strongest opponents among the seven former Soviet bloc members in the European Union that have yet to join. Deeply resistant to embracing the euro’s one-size-fits-all monetary policy and loath to bail out cash-poor countries like Greece, many policy makers here insist that the Czech Republic is a striking example of why life outside the euro is simply better.

“Being inside the euro is not a sign of the quality of a country’s economy — the crisis has proved that,” Mojmir Hampl, 37, vice governor of the Czech National Bank, said in an interview. “The average Czech household says, ‘Thank God we don’t have to pay for these profligate Greeks.”’

Such sentiments are not limited to the Czech Republic, and enthusiasm for the euro is diminishing in most of those former Soviet-bloc countries, according to the Eurobarometer poll. The European Commission, which commissions the poll, noted that 54 percent of people in these countries, which include Poland, Hungary and Romania, think the euro will have negative consequences for their countries. Even in Latvia, which wants to adopt the euro by next year, 68 percent of people believe that joining would constitute losing part of their national identity.

Here in the Czech Republic, pushed and pulled between East and West over the centuries, the national sense of self has also played an important part in stoking ambivalence. Petr Pithart, a lawyer and former prime minister, argued that the antipathy toward the euro was a byproduct of a deep-seated mistrust of the West in the Czech soul, planted in 1938, when France and Britain yielded to Nazi pressure and allowed Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia. “Those wounds have not completely healed,” he said. “Klaus knew how to exploit this very well.”

Yet Mr. Hampl, an appointee of Mr. Klaus whose current term at the Czech National Bank ends in 2018, said the main reason for resisting the euro came down to hard-headed economics. Mr. Hampl argued that an independent monetary policy had allowed the central bank to cut interest rates in August 2008 after the crisis first hit hard, thereby helping to cushion the country against the worst effects of the downturn.

Moreover, he estimated that being outside the euro zone — and not contributing to the European Union’s bailout fund — had saved the country roughly €280 billion, or about $370 billion, in potential liabilities over a three-year period. “Knowing that we haven’t been saddled with that debt has helped me to sleep at night,” he said.

Yet the Czech Republic has hardly been immune from the European debt crisis, and some economists counter that in a country where 80 percent of exports go the euro zone countries, the economy is inextricably linked to the fate of the euro, even if the Czechs use the koruna instead.

Indeed, the country has slumped into a modest recession since 2011, weighed down by weak demand for Czech products like cars and Bohemian crystal. Consumption at home has also been lackluster as the center-right coalition government has instituted tough austerity measures, including raising sales taxes and slashing spending. Unemployment of about 7.5 percent in December was a far cry from the roughly 25 percent in Spain or Greece, but it has hit especially hard in the poorer parts of the country.

Against that backdrop, euro entry remains a hard sell for officials like Tomas Zidek, the deputy finance minister, who said in an interview that the European Union and the euro were now vastly different propositions than what the Czechs had signed up for when they joined the Union in 2004. The current efforts to shore up the monetary union by integrating banking and fiscal measures, he added, were as ill-advised in an economically diverse bloc as trying to call a Czech pilsner a German beer.

Mr. Zidek acknowledged that the Finance Ministry was under pressure to join the euro from Czech companies that face huge transaction costs because the country is outside the zone. “Companies complain all the time,” he said. “Our exports are hit by the lack of exchange rate stability.”

Skoda, the Czech automobile company that is owned by Volkswagen, said it supported the Czech Republic’s joining the euro, “the faster, the better,” because the company exports 60 percent of its cars to countries in the European Union and does the bulk of its business in euros. Michal Kadera, a senior manager at Skoda, said that production planning for cars took at least two years and that sudden fluctuations in the koruna against the euro made planning much more difficult and expensive.

Tomas Sedlacek, an economist who has advised President Vaclav Havel, said that not being in the euro zone was costing Czech companies billions of korunas a year in hedging costs associated with the fluctuation of the koruna against the euro. An independent monetary policy was no panacea, he added, pointing to Hungary, which has held on to its currency, the forint, and had sought a bailout before Greece.

“Those Czechs like Klaus,” he said, “who think having the koruna has saved us from the crisis, are living in a dream world.”

Hana de Goeij contributed reporting.

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Are Three Missing Aspiring Models From Colorado Linked?

By Ken Lee

02/28/2013 at 07:30 PM EST

From left: Raven Cassidy Furlong, Kara Nichols and Kelsie Schelling

Courtesy Raven Cassidy Furlong, Kara Nichols, Kelsie Schelling

On Tuesday afternoon, Lin Furlong of Denver, Colo., received a troubling call from her stepdaughter, Raven, 17, who'd been missing since Feb. 5.

"Raven said she was safe, but that she was calling from someone else's phone and couldn't stay on the line and had to go," Lin Furlong tells PEOPLE. "I was relieved to hear her voice, but I'm terrified for her. She sounded scared and not like herself at all."

Raven had been using the modeling website Model Mayhem – a networking site for models and photographers – and her family believes her disappearance may have been linked to a stranger she could have met through the site.

Raven's story is all too familiar for the family of Kara Nichols, 19, of Colorado Springs. Kara, who also used the site, has been missing since Oct. 9 after she told roommates she was headed to a modeling job in Denver.

"We're reluctant to portray our daughter as just a no-good person that no one should care about," her mother Julia Nichols tells PEOPLE. She was informed by police that Kara had a connection to drug use and prostitution.

"She's our daughter. We love her dearly," Nichols adds. "We're deeply alarmed about what may have happened to her."

A third woman, Kelsie Schelling, 22, of Denver, who went missing Feb. 4, was also an aspiring model, according to her profile found on ExpertTalent.com. A representative of that site, however, tells PEOPLE that Schelling created the profile in May 2006 and only logged on once. So far, police say there's no conclusive evidence that the disappearances are related.

"Kara Nichols's case remains an active and ongoing investigation," Lt. Jeff Kramer of the El Paso County, Colo., Sheriff's Office tells PEOPLE. "We cannot say whether Model Mayhem was responsible at this time. We continue to investigate all leads."

Model Mayhem has allegedly been linked to the disappearances of at least 13 women, according to Michelle Bart, president of the National Women's Coalition Against Violence & Exploitation, which is now representing Raven and Kara's families.

"We feel there's an epidemic of young women being preyed upon on this site and it needs to be seriously investigated," says Bart, who points out the Better Business Bureau rated the site an F.

According to a statement released by Model Mayhem, the site "strongly believes that safety should be top of mind when doing anything online. Model Mayhem tries to educate users about scams and how to avoid them."

Adds Lin Furlong, who concedes that Raven has run away from home in the past: "We just want her to come home."

Anyone with information on Raven Furlong should email tips@nwcave.org or visit Facebook.com/HelpFindRavenCassidyFurlong. For Kara Nichols, email tips@nwcave.org, or visit Facebook.com/HelpUsFindKaraNichols. For Kelsie Schelling, call Detective Neal Robertson of the Pueblo County Sheriffs at (719)-553-2470 or visit Facebook.com/HelpFindKelsie.

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Wall Street gains on Bernanke comments, S&P above 1,500

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday, with major indexes posting their best daily gains since early January, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke remained steadfast in supporting the Fed's stimulus policy and data pointed to economic improvement.

In a second day before a congressional committee, Bernanke defended the Fed's buying of bonds to keep interest rates low to boost growth. The market's jump of more than 1 percent also came on better-than-expected data on business spending plans and the housing market.

Bernanke's remarks helped the market rebound from its worst decline since November and put the S&P 500 index back above 1,500, a closely watched level that has been technical support until recently. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> closed at a level not seen since 2007 as it again pulled within striking distance of an all-time high.

Speaking before the House Financial Services Committee, Bernanke downplayed signs of internal divisions at the Fed, saying the policy of quantitative easing, or QE, has the support of a "significant majority" of top central bank officials.

Bernanke removed a headwind from markets arising from concerns the Fed's quantitative easing might end earlier than anticipated. Doubts about the Fed's intentions had broken a seven-week streak of gains by stocks.

"The Fed continues to encourage risk-taking in markets, which is a powerful tool that makes the danger not being long stocks, not in being too long," said Tom Mangan, a money manager at James Investment Research Inc in Xenia, Ohio.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 176.32 points, or 1.27 percent, at 14,076.45. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 19.07 points, or 1.27 percent, at 1,516.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 32.61 points, or 1.04 percent, at 3,162.26.

Pending home sales jumped 4.5 percent in January, three times the rate of growth that had been expected. While orders for durable goods fell more than expected in January, non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft - a closely watched proxy for business spending plans - showed the biggest gain since December 2011.

About 74 percent of stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed higher while 64 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed up.

The S&P turned very slightly higher on the week, recovering from the index's biggest daily drop since November on Monday. That drop came on concerns over Italy's election, as well as over sequestration - U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting on Friday if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on spending and taxes.

The index had climbed 6.3 percent for the year before pulling back on concerns about Fed policy and inconclusive elections in Italy, which rekindled fears of a new euro zone debt crisis.

"While the rally remains intact and there are reasons to be long-term bullish here, there are also reasons to not be surprised if we get a correction," said Mangan, who helps oversee $3.7 billion.

In earnings news, Priceline.com gained 2.6 percent to $695.91 after reporting adjusted earnings that beat expectations. TJX Cos Inc jumped 2.5 percent to $44.75 after the retail chain operator posted higher fourth-quarter results.

The S&P retail index <.spxrt> climbed 1.6 percent.

Target Corp offered a cautious outlook for consumer spending in 2013 following a weak holiday quarter. The stock dipped 1.1 percent to $63.32.

First Solar Inc plunged 14 percent to $27.04 after failing to give a full-year earnings and sales outlook, though it also swung to a quarterly profit.

Groupon Inc plunged 21 percent to $4.70 after the bell after reporting its fourth-quarter results.

With 93 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69.5 percent beat profit expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6.2 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

About 6.23 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, slightly below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

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The Lede: Syrians Describe Apparent Missile Strikes on Aleppo

A Human Rights Watch video report on the aftermath of apparent missile strikes in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Human Rights Watch investigators who visited Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, have concluded that the Syrian government fired at least four ballistic missiles into civilian neighborhoods there last week, killing more than 141 people, including 71 children. As my colleague Anne Barnard explained, the rights group released details of the four documented strikes, and a video report, on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, opposition activists added English subtitles to an emotional account of the devastation caused by one missile strike on Aleppo from a young boy who said he survived the bombing, but lost several family members and neighbors.

An interview with a boy who said he had survived a missile attack on a neighborhood in Aleppo.

The original interview with the boy was posted on YouTube on Monday by Orient News, a private Syrian satellite channel that began broadcasting from Dubai before the antigovernment uprising began. Within a week of the first protests in Syria, Ghassan Aboud, the Syrian businessman who owns the channel, told a Saudi broadcaster that senior government officials close to President Bashar al-Assad had threatened to kidnap his journalists if they did not stop covering the demonstrations.

The boy’s account was subtitled by the ANA New Media Association, a group of opposition video activists led by Rami Jarrah, who blogs as Alexander Page.

The new reports come weeks after experts told The Lede that video of a huge explosion at Aleppo University last month suggested that the campus had been hit by a ballistic missile.

When Liz Sly of the Washington Post visited Aleppo’s Ard al-Hamra neighborhood after two missile strikes, residents gave similarly graphic accounts of pulling the mangled bodies of victims from wrecked buildings. The scenes of devastation, she wrote, more closely resembled “those of an earthquake, with homes pulverized beyond recognition, people torn to shreds in an instant and what had once been thriving communities reduced to mountains of rubble.”

Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch researcher who helped document the damage in Aleppo, drew attention to video posted online by opposition activists, which is said to show the desperate search for survivors immediately after the strike on Ard al-Hamra.

Video said to show a neighborhood in Aleppo after a missile strike last week.

As Mr. Solvang assessed the wreckage in person on Thursday and Friday, he described the damage to Aleppo and a neighboring town in words and images posted on Twitter.

Visited a site of similar attack in Tel Rifat today. 25 houses destroyed and 3 killed last Monday. Unbelievable. http://t.co/FaFhNFiAsS

— Ole Solvang (@OleSolvang) 22 Feb 13

Today visited site of yesterday’s missile attack on Ard al Hamra in #Aleppo #Syria. Dozens houses destroyed. Unbelievable destruction. @hrw

— Ole Solvang (@OleSolvang) 23 Feb 13

Bodies are still under the rubble. 3 found during our 30 min visit. Casualty # still unclear. #Aleppo #Syria @hrw http://t.co/gaT7COpRT3

— Ole Solvang (@OleSolvang) 23 Feb 13

Late Tuesday, an Aleppo blogger who supported the uprising but has been critical of the armed rebellion on his @edwardedark Twitter feed, reported that another huge blast had shaken the city.

a massive blast shockwave shakes Aleppo city just now. no idea what it is yet #Syria

— edward dark (@edwardedark) 26 Feb 13

Ms. Sly reported on Twitter on Wednesday night that two more missiles were fired at rural Aleppo. “They landed in fields,” she observed. “That’s how accurate they are. Seems a bit pointless.”

Late Wednesday, Mr. Solvang pointed to video posted on YouTube by opposition activists, showing what they said were distant images of a missile being launched from Damascus in the direction of Aleppo.

Video said to show a missile being fired by Syrian government forces outside the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday night.

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Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's Son Samuel Turns 1

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/27/2013 at 10:00 AM ET

FameFlynet

Look who’s growing up!

His father Ben Affleck (here with his little man in Beverly Hills on Jan. 25) may have won another Oscar (this time for Best Picture), but it’s Samuel‘s recent milestone — he turns 1 today! — that has his family abuzz.

Two days after his parents wrapped up a whirlwind awards season, the tyke headed out with mom Jennifer Garner and big sisters Violet, 7, and Seraphina, 4, to a Brentwood, Calif. toy store Tuesday.

Not sure what cool playthings the family picked up, but we’re positive Samuel’s birthday party will be a homey, low-key affair befitting the Garner-Affleck clan.

And however they decide to celebrate, Ben and Jen’s 1-year-old will continue to be one of their biggest fans.

“He reaches when he sees me and he laughs a lot,” Garner shared. “He thinks I’m super funny. What more do you want?”

PHOTO SPECIAL: Jen & Ben’s Close-knit Clan

– Shanelle Rein-Olowokere

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Huge study: 5 mental disorders share genetic links

WASHINGTON (AP) — The largest genetic study of mental illnesses to date finds five major disorders may not look much alike but they share some gene-based risks. The surprising discovery comes in the quest to unravel what causes psychiatric disorders and how to better diagnose and treat them.

The disorders — autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia — are considered distinct problems. But findings published online Wednesday suggest they're related in some way.

"These disorders that we thought of as quite different may not have such sharp boundaries," said Dr. Jordan Smoller of Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the lead researchers for the international study appearing in The Lancet.

That has implications for learning how to diagnose mental illnesses with the same precision that physical illnesses are diagnosed, said Dr. Bruce Cuthbert of the National Institute on Mental Health, which funded the research.

Consider: Just because someone has chest pain doesn't mean it's a heart attack; doctors have a variety of tests to find out. But there's no blood test for schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. Instead, doctors rely on symptoms agreed upon by experts. Learning the genetic underpinnings of mental illnesses is part of one day knowing if someone's symptoms really are schizophrenia and not something a bit different.

"If we really want to diagnose and treat people effectively, we have to get to these more fine-grained understandings of what's actually going wrong biologically," Cuthbert explained.

Added Mass General's Smoller: "We are still in the early stages of understanding what are the causes of mental illnesses, so these are clues."

The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, a collaboration of researchers in 19 countries, analyzed the genomes of more than 61,000 people, some with one of the five disorders and some without. They found four regions of the genetic code where variation was linked to all five disorders.

Of particular interest are disruptions in two specific genes that regulate the flow of calcium in brain cells, key to how neurons signal each other. That suggests that this change in a basic brain function could be one early pathway that leaves someone vulnerable to developing these disorders, depending on what else goes wrong.

For patients and their families, the research offers no immediate benefit. These disorders are thought to be caused by a complex mix of numerous genes and other risk factors that range from exposures in the womb to the experiences of daily life.

"There may be many paths to each of these illnesses," Smoller cautioned.

But the study offers a lead in the hunt for psychiatric treatments, said NIMH's Cuthbert. Drugs that affect calcium channels in other parts of the body are used for such conditions as high blood pressure, and scientists could explore whether they'd be useful for psychiatric disorders as well.

The findings make sense, as there is some overlap in the symptoms of the different disorders, he said. People with schizophrenia can have some of the same social withdrawal that's so characteristic of autism, for example. Nor is it uncommon for people to be affected by more than one psychiatric disorder.

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Online:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)60223-8/abstract

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Wall Street rebounds on Bernanke comments, data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rebounded from their worst decline since November on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus and sales of new homes hit a 4 1/2-year high.

The S&P 500 had climbed 6 percent for the year and came within reach of all-time highs before the minutes from the Fed's January meeting were released last Wednesday. Since then, the benchmark S&P 500 has fallen 1 percent.

Bernanke, in testimony on Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, strongly defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus program and quieted rumblings that the central bank may pull back from its stimulative policy measures, which were sparked by the release of the Fed minutes last week.

Bernanke's comments helped ease investors' concerns about a stalemate in Italy after a general election failed to give any party a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and financial crisis in Europe, and sending the S&P 500 to its worst decline since November 7 in Monday's session.

Bernanke "certainly said everything the market needed to feel in order to get comfortable again," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.

"The fear is we were going to see a rollover, and the first shot over the bow was what we saw out of Italy yesterday with the elections," Kenny said. "When it came to U.S. markets, we saw some of that bleeding stop because our focus shifted from the Italian political circus to Ben Bernanke."

Gains in homebuilders and other consumer stocks, following strong economic data, lifted the S&P 500, and a 5.7 percent jump in Home Depot to $67.56 boosted the Dow industrials. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> rose 3.2 percent.

Economic reports that showed strength in housing and consumer confidence also supported stocks. U.S. home prices rose more than expected in December, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Consumer confidence rebounded in February, jumping more than expected, and new-home sales rose to their highest in 4-1/2 years in January.

However, the central bank chairman also urged lawmakers to avoid sharp spending cuts set to go into effect on Friday, which he warned could combine with earlier tax increases to create a "significant headwind" for the economic recovery.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 115.96 points, or 0.84 percent, to 13,900.13 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 9.09 points, or 0.61 percent, to 1,496.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 13.40 points, or 0.43 percent, to close at 3,129.65.

Despite the bounce, the S&P 500 was unable to move back above 1,500, a closely watched level that was technical support until recently, but could now serve as a resistance point.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or the VIX, a barometer of investor anxiety, dropped 11.2 percent, a day after surging 34 percent, its biggest percentage jump since August 18, 2011.

The uncertainty caused by the Italian elections continued to weigh on stocks in Europe. The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> closed down 1.4 percent. The benchmark Italian index <.ftmib> tumbled 4.9 percent.

Home Depot gave the biggest boost to the Dow and provided one of the biggest lifts to the S&P 500 after the world's largest home improvement chain reported adjusted earnings and sales that beat expectations.

Macy's shares gained 2.8 percent to $39.59 after the department-store chain stated it expects full-year earnings to be above analysts' forecasts because of strong holiday sales.

Volume was active with about 7.08 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq, above the daily average of 6.48 billion.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a ratio of about 2 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, three stocks rose for every two that fell.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Balloon Explosion in Egypt Kills at Least 19 Tourists

CAIRO — The explosion of a hot-air balloon over the ancient temples at Luxor killed at least 19 sightseers Tuesday, delivering a grim blow to Egypt’s critical tourism business just as it had begun to show signs of recovery from the shock of the revolution two years ago.

All of those killed were tourists, including nine Chinese from Hong Kong, four Japanese, two French, two Britons, a Hungarian and an Egyptian, Health Ministry officials said. The balloon’s pilot and a British passenger survived by jumping from the balloon’s basket. But the surviving passenger’s wife, also British, died in the blaze.

“It is just another nail in tourism’s coffin,” Hisham A. Fahmy, the chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which represents international companies here, said of the crash. “They were probably the only tourists in Luxor as it was.”

Even Egyptians trying to minimize the disaster’s potential effect on the tourist business compared it to the 1997 massacre of 62 people, 58 of them tourists, at one of Luxor’s temples by a group of Islamist militants. At least this was an accident and not terrorism, Egyptian officials said Tuesday. Others noted hopefully that tourism had eventually recovered after 1997.

“I thought that would be the end of tourism,” said Heba Handoussa of the Economic Research Forum here. “But to my surprise, the next year it was back. People seem to take it in stride.”

The tombs and temples of Luxor and the nearby Valley of the Kings are among Egypt’s premier attractions, and hot-air balloon rides over the valley at dawn are a staple of the local tourist trade. In 2008 and 2009, balloons collided with utility poles and crashed to the ground, injuring passengers. But few visitors had raised safety concerns, tour operators said.

The disaster unfolded in just minutes, shortly after 7 a.m., as the balloon was preparing to land in a field of sugar cane. The pilot was pulling a rope to stabilize the balloon when a gas hose ripped and a fire started, security officials said.

The pilot and the passenger who survived quickly escaped over the side of the basket, risking a 30-foot fall. Then escaping gas or hot air from the fire evidently sent the balloon soaring back skyward. Some reports said it had climbed as high as 1,000 feet before a gas cylinder exploded and it burst into flames.

State media reported that some of the dead had been “cremated” in the fireball. The Health Ministry said it would use DNA testing to identify the remains.

The ministers of aviation and tourism said they were traveling to Luxor. Officials started investigations into the crash as well as an examination of the permit for the balloon and the license for its pilot.

Some in Luxor faulted regulators. Tharwat Agami, the chairman of the Luxor tourist industry trade group, accused the aviation ministry of renewing licenses for the balloon operator and others despite their failures to meet safety requirements. Like other forms of law enforcement, balloon regulation and inspection have deteriorated sharply since the revolution, he told the state newspaper Al Ahram.

“As if tourism can take any more!” Mr. Agami said, according to the newspaper. “Where is the inspection of each balloon before takeoff by civil aviation?”

Tourism typically accounted for about 11 percent of Egypt’s gross domestic product before the revolution, economists say. More important, tourism is Egypt’s second-largest source of hard currency, after remittances sent home by Egyptians working abroad. It helps reduce the trade imbalance, supporting the sagging value of the Egyptian pound.

But in the two years of unrest since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted, tourism revenue has plummeted to just a quarter of its former level, said Ms. Handoussa, the economist.

She said government figures, widely believed to understate the malaise, put unemployment at 14 percent, up from 8 percent before the revolt, while the number of Egyptians officially considered to be living in poverty has risen to 25 percent from 20 percent.

Two major European tour operators, TUI of Germany and Thomas Cook of Britain, said around the beginning of this year that they saw signs of recovery in the demand for vacations to North Africa, including Tunisia and Egypt. Tour operators and travel agents say the Red Sea beach resorts, farther from the unrest in Cairo, have suffered far less than other destinations.

But then at the end of January, vandals in Cairo capitalized on the chaos surrounding a street protest to loot and ransack the lobby of the historic Semiramis InterContinental Hotel. It was the first time since Mr. Mubarak’s exit that the unrest had so directly affected a tourist institution. Now the balloon accident may add new concerns about safety to the continuing fears of political instability.

Mina Agnos, a vice president of Travelive, a high-end tour operator based in Athens and Montclair, N.J., said it had stopped marketing trips to Egypt. Each fall in the last two years, seasonal demand would pick up, and then violence would erupt again, as it did around the American Embassy here last September over an online video mocking Islam.

“Something would happen,” she said. “We found that a lot of people who were thinking of going to Egypt ended up going other places.”

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

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