Wall Street flat, trading cautious; Obama to speak on "cliff"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Friday as investors were hesitant to make big bets ahead of a statement by President Obama on the progress of budget talks in Washington that have recently driven volatility in financial markets.

U.S. President Barack Obama, visiting a factory in Pennsylvania, will press his case on raising taxes on the wealthy to narrow the deficit. He is expected to make a statement around midday that is likely to impact markets.

"There is always hope in those situations that he (Obama) is going to announce some type of positive development," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. "We see how violently the market swings on positive and negative announcements."

Trading has been choppy as investors react to mixed statements from policymakers in Washington about discussions on averting the "fiscal cliff," spending cuts and tax hikes that will come into effect in the new year and could cause a recession, according to worst-case predictions.

Corporations continued to anticipate a harsher tax regime next year. Whole Foods Market Inc was the latest to announce a special cash dividend of $2.00 per share to skirt higher dividend tax rates in 2013. The stock was up 0.6 percent at $93.60.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 5.63 points, or 0.04 percent, to 13,027.45. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 0.58 points, or 0.04 percent, to 1,415.37. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 3.43 points, or 0.11 percent, to 3,008.59.

The S&P 500 was on track to end the month 0.3 percent higher, after declining nearly 2 percent in October. The index has recovered 4.5 percent since shedding 8 percent following the U.S. presidential election earlier in November.

"The correction from the S&P 500's September peak has allowed overbought momentum and optimistic sentiment conditions to recede, and we believe the index is closer to an intermediate-term buy signal than a sell signal," said Ari Wald, analyst at PrinceRidge Group.

Yum Brands Inc shares slumped 9.4 percent to $67.42. The company said late Thursday it expects fourth-quarter sales at established restaurants to drop in China, where a cooling economy is making it difficult to exceed the 21-percent gain it enjoyed there a year earlier.

After a close relationship for several years, Facebook Inc and Zynga Inc revised terms of a partnership agreement between the companies. Under the new pact, Zynga will have limited ability to promote its site on Facebook.

Zynga shares dropped 5.3 percent to $2.48. Facebook shares were down 1.2 percent at $26.99.

The markets' reaction to data on Friday was muted.

A report showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest expanded for the first time since August, buoyed by an improvement in the labor market.

Separately, data showed U.S. consumer spending fell in October for the first time in five months as income growth stalled, suggesting slower economic growth in the fourth quarter.

Apple Inc's latest iPhone has received final clearance from Chinese regulators, paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its share of product sales. Shares of Apple were down 0.7 percent at $585.29.

Verisign Inc said the U.S. Department of Commerce had approved its agreement with ICANN to run the .com internet registry, but the company wouldn't be able to raise prices as before. The stock dropped 14.1 percent to $33.80 in late morning trading.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Hacking Report Criticizes Murdoch Newspaper and British Press Standards

LONDON — The leader of a major inquiry into the standards of British newspapers triggered by the phone hacking scandal offered an excoriating critique of the press as a whole on Thursday, saying it displayed “significant and reckless disregard for accuracy,” and urged the press to form an independent regulator to be underpinned by law.

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson on Thursday with his inquiry on press standards.

The report singled out Rupert Murdoch’s defunct tabloid The News of the World for sharp criticism.

“Too many stories in too many newspapers were the subject of complaints from too many people with too little in the way of titles taking responsibility, or considering the consequences for the individuals involved,” the head of the inquiry, Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, said in a 46-page summary of the findings in his long-awaited, 1,987-page report published in four volumes.

“The ball moves back into the politicians’ court,” Sir Brian said, referring to what form new and tighter regulations should take. “They must now decide who guards the guardians.”

The report was published after some 337 witnesses testified in person in 9 months of hearings that sought to unravel the close ties between politicians, the press and the police, reaching into what were depicted as an opaque web of links and cross-links within the British elite as well as a catalog of murky and sometimes unlawful practices within the newspaper industry.

“This inquiry has been the most concentrated look at the press this country has ever seen,” Sir Brian said after the report was made public.

But in a first reaction, Prime Minister David Cameron resisted the report’s recommendation that a new form of press regulation should be underpinned by laws, telling lawmakers that they “should be wary” of “crossing the Rubicon” by enacting legislation with the potential to limit free speech and free expression.

Mr. Cameron’s remarks drew immediate criticism from the leader of the Labour opposition, Ed Miliband, who said Sir Brian’s proposals should be accepted in their entirety.

Mr. Cameron ordered the Leveson Inquiry in July, 2011, as the phone hacking scandal at The News of the World blossomed into broad public revulsion with reports that the newspaper had ordered the interception of voice mail messages left on the cellphone of Milly Dowler, a British teenager who was abducted in 2002 and later found murdered. Sir Brian said there had been a “failure of management and compliance” at the 168-year-old News of the World, which Mr. Murdoch closed in July, 2011, accusing it of a “general lack of respect for individual privacy and dignity.”

“It was said that The News of the World had lost its way in relation to phone hacking,” the summary said. “Its casual attitude to privacy and the lip service it paid to consent demonstrated a far more general loss of direction.”

Speaking after the report was published, Sir Brian said that while the British press held a “privileged and powerful place in our society,” its “responsibilities have simply been ignored.”

“A free press in a democracy holds power to account. But, with a few honorable exceptions, the U.K. press has not performed that vital role in the case of its own power.”

“The press needs to establish a new regulatory body which is truly independent of industry leaders and of government and politicians,” he said. “Guaranteed independence, long-term stability and genuine benefits for the industry cannot be realized without legislation,” he said, adding: “This is not and cannot reasonably or fairly be characterized as statutory regulation of the press.”

In the body of the exhaustive report, reprising at length the testimony of many of the witnesses who spoke at the hearings, the document discusses press culture and ethics; explores the press’s attitude toward the subjects of its stories; and discusses the cozy relationship between the press and the police, and the press and politicians.

John F. Burns, Sandy Lark Turner and Sandy Macaskill contributed reporting.

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RIM jumps 10 percent in Toronto trade after Goldman upgrade

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New York City Police Officer Buys Shoes for Homeless Man

Heroes Among Us

By Stephen M. Silverman

11/29/2012 at 11:45 AM EST

NYPD Officer Larry DePrimo and unidentified homeless man

Courtesy NYPD

Santa arrived early this year and was wearing an NYPD uniform.

When Officer Larry DePrimo encountered a barefoot, homeless man on his Times Square beat on the cold night of Nov. 14, the policeman promptly went inside the nearby Skechers store and bought a pair of $100 boots (a store employee sliced the price to $75 with his own staff discount) and presented them to the man.

As it so happened, Jennifer Foster, a tourist from Florence, Ariz., not only witnessed the generous act, but captured the moment with a cellphone photo. She emailed it to the NYPD, which then posted the shot on its Facebook page, reports The New York Times.

The result? Not surprisingly, the handsome 25-year-old DePrimo, who joined the force two years ago and lives with his parents on Long Island, is not only a hero, but an Internet sensation.

As of Wednesday night, the post had been viewed 1.6 million times, and by the following morning had drawn nearly 350,000 "likes" and 85,000 "shares" – and was a topic of discussion on morning television.

DePrimo, who said his own feet were freezing that night (despite his wearing two pairs of socks), still keeps the Skechers receipt is still in his vest, to remind him "that sometimes people have it worse."

As for the man in need, "He was the most polite gentleman I had met," DePrimo told the Times, adding that the man's face lit up at the sight of the boots.

And while the officer also offered him a cup of coffee, "as soon as the boots were on him," DePrimo said, "he went on his way, and I just went back to my post."

The two never so much as exchanged names.

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Wall Street advances on budget progress, mood cautious

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose in late morning trading Thursday on optimism that the Congress was progressing toward a budget agreement that would avert a possible recession, though trading was volatile as investors remained cautious.

There have been tentative signs that Congressional leaders are moving closer to a fiscal agreement. Indeed, investors' hopes for a pact have risen as Republican resolve against raising tax rates for the wealthy has weakened, and amid optimism by President Obama and top House Republican John Boehner that a fiscal crisis can be averted.

The S&P 500 has gained nearly 5 percent after dropping almost 8 percent following the U.S. election in November. But investors remain wary that ad hoc statements from policymakers can spark quick reversals in the market.

"When the sentiment is that nothing is going to get done, it does create a lot of anxiety and selling pressure. If there's any sense of progress, then the market seems to rally," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management in Chicago. "I think we're hostage to this for the rest of the year."

U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion surged 6.6 percent to $11.83 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral," saying it was optimistic ahead of the launch of the BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 44.62 points, or 0.34 percent, to 13,029.73. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 6.71 points, or 0.48 percent, to 1,416.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 20.87 points, or 0.70 percent, to 3,012.65.

Discussions are ongoing in Congress over avoiding big spending cuts and tax hikes, known as the "fiscal cliff," beginning in January. Indeed, equity markets may retreat, as they did Tuesday, if the upbeat negotiation environment in Washington deteriorates.

Top retailers said weak sales in early November, after superstorm Sandy, were a drag on the month. Target fell 1.1 percent to $62.10 percent and Kohl's Corp dropped 8.5 percent to $46.83.

The economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter as businesses restocked, but consumer and business spending were revised lower in a sobering reminder of the economic recovery's underlying weakness.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate in the quarter, the Commerce Department said, as export growth helped offset the weakest consumer spending and first drop in business investment in more than a year.

Tiffany shares slumped 7.6 percent to $58.93 after the upscale jeweler reported quarterly results and cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts.

Although domestic events largely dominated investors' attention, the euro zone is still on the radar. The yield on Italy's 10-year bonds fell to the lowest in two years at an auction, amid relief that international lenders reached agreement this week to reduce Greece's debt by more than 40 billion euros.

"The fact that the bond sales in Europe went well suggest confidence is beginning to reenter some of the peripheral nations and that is a good sign," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Bombings Are Said to Kill Dozens Near Syria’s Capital

Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Rebels celebrated on top of a downed Syrian jet in Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo, on Wednesday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Syrian state media said on Wednesday that 34 people and possibly many more had died in twin car bombings in a suburb populated by minorities only a few miles from the center of Damascus, the capital, as the civil war swirls from north to south claiming ever higher casualties. One estimate by the government’s opponents put the death toll at 47.

There were also reports from witnesses in Turkey and antigovernment activists in Syria that for the second successive day insurgents had shot down a government aircraft in the north of the country, offering further evidence that the rebels are seeking a major shift by challenging the government’s dominance of the skies. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft, apparently a plane, had been brought down.

Video posted on the Internet by rebels showed wreckage with fires still burning around it. The aircraft appeared to show a tail assembly clearly visible jutting out of the debris. Such videos are difficult to verify, particularly in light of the restrictions facing reporters in Syria. However, the episode on Wednesday seemed to be confirmed by other witnesses.

“We watched a Syrian plane being shot down as it was flying low to drop bombs,” said Ugur Cuneydioglu, who said he observed the incident from a Turkish border village in southern Hatay Province. “It slowly went down in flames before it hit the ground. It was quite a scene,” Mr. Cuneydioglu said.

Video posted by insurgents on the Internet showed a man in aviator coveralls being carried away. It was not clear if the man was alive but the video said he had been treated in a makeshift hospital. A voice off-camera says, “This is the pilot who was shelling residents’ houses.”

The aircraft was said to have been brought down while it was attacking the town of Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo and close to the Turkish border. The town was the scene of a mass killing last June, when the government and the rebels blamed each other for the deaths and mutilation of 25 people. The video posted online said the plane had been brought down by “the free men of Daret Azzeh soldiers of God brigade.”

On Tuesday, Syrian rebels said they shot down a military helicopter with a surface-to-air missile outside Aleppo and they uploaded video that appeared to confirm that rebels have put their growing stock of heat-seeking missiles to effective use.

In recent months, rebels have used mainly machine guns to shoot down several Syrian Air Force helicopters and fixed-wing attack jets. In Tuesday’s case, the thick smoke trailing the projectile, combined with the elevation of the aircraft, strongly suggested that the helicopter was hit by a missile.

Rebels hailed the event as the culmination of their long pursuit of effective antiaircraft weapons, though it was not clear if the downing on Tuesday was an isolated tactical success or heralded a new phase in the war that would present a meaningful challenge to the Syrian government’s air supremacy. In Damascus, the official SANA news agency said the explosions in Jaramana outside the city at around 7 a.m. were the work of “terrorists,” the word used by the authorities to denote rebel forces seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Photographs on the SANA Web site showed wreckage and flames in what looked like a narrow alleyway with cars covered in chunks of debris from damaged buildings. The agency said the bombings were in the main square of Jaramana, which news reports said is largely populated by members of the Christian and Druse minorities. Residents said the neighborhood was home to many families who have fled other parts of Syria because of the conflict and to some Palestinian families. The blasts caused “huge material damage to the residential buildings and shops,” SANA said.

The photographs on the Web site showed shattered windows at the Abou Samra coffee house and gurneys laden with injured people clogging what seemed to be a hospital corridor.

SANA said two bombings in other neighborhoods caused minor damage. Activists reported that there were four explosions and said they were all “huge.”

Footage broadcast on Syria’s private Addounia channel and state television showed damage scarring gray six-story apartment houses above tangles of wrecked cars as ambulances arrived to transport the wounded and rescuers spraying rubble with fire hoses. The camera panned over bloodstained sidewalks.

The blasts seemed initially at least to shift the focus of the fighting from the north, where insurgents have claimed string of tactical breakthroughs in recent days, to areas ringing Damascus.

In the north in recent days, the insurgents also claimed to have seized air bases and a hydroelectric dam, apparently seeking both to expand their communications lines and to counter the government’s supremacy in the air.

The death toll from Wednesday’s bombings was not immediately confirmed. An activist group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, initially said that 29 people had died but revised the figure later to 47, of whom 38 had been identified. Of the 120 injured, the rebel group said, 23 people were in serious condition, meaning that the tally could climb higher.

The explosions reflected the dramatic shift since Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 as a peaceful protest centered on the southern town of Dara’a. It has since spread across the land in a full-blown civil war pitting government forces against a rebel army of Army defectors, disaffected civilians and what the authorities say are foreign jihadists.

Hala Droubi reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Seattle police plan for helicopter drones hits severe turbulence

SEATTLE (Reuters) – One of the latest crime-fighting gadgets to emerge on the wish lists of U.S. law enforcement agencies – drone aircraft – has run into heavy turbulence in Seattle over a plan by police to send miniature robot helicopters buzzing over the city.

A recent push for unmanned police aircraft in several cities is being driven largely by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including more than $ 80,000 the city of Seattle used to buy a pair of drone choppers in 2010.

But getting aerial drones off the ground has run into stiff opposition from civil libertarians and others who say the use of stealth airborne cameras by domestic law enforcement raises questions about privacy rights and the limits of police search powers.

The aircraft would never carry weapons, but the use of drones for even mundane tasks raises ire among some because of the association of pilotless crafts with covert U.S. missile strikes in places such as Pakistan and Yemen.

In Seattle last month, a community meeting where police officials presented plans to deploy their two remote-controlled helicopters erupted into yelling and angry chants of “No drones!”

“My question is simple: What’s the return policy for the drones?” said Steve Widmayer, 57, one of numerous citizens who spoke out against the unmanned aircraft. He predicted the City Council would commit “political suicide” if it backed the plan.

Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.

Police in Seattle, along with Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Houston, are among a handful of big-city law enforcement departments known to have acquired aerial drones. But those cities have not started operating the robot aircraft.

FEAR OF FLYING ROBOTS

In Oakland, California, this month, an Alameda County sheriff’s application for a federal grant to buy an aerial drone to help monitor unruly crowds and locate illegal marijuana farms drew opposition at a Board of Supervisors meeting.

“I do not want flying spy robots looking into my private property with infrared cameras,” Oakland resident Mary Madden said. “It’s an invasion of my privacy.”

County Board President Nate Miley said the issue would be taken up by the supervisors’ Public Protection Committee.

The two Draganflyer X6 remote-controlled miniature helicopters purchased by Seattle have so far been mostly grounded, restricted to training and demonstration flights.

Equipped to carry video, still and night-vision cameras, they can remain aloft for only 15 minutes at a time before their batteries run out, police said.

Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said the aircraft would not be used in Seattle for surveillance or for monitoring street protests. Instead, his department’s plans to deploy drones to search for missing persons, pursue fleeing suspects, assist in criminal investigations and for unspecified “specific situations” subject to McDonagh’s approval.

Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.

Months ago in Texas, Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office raised eyebrows by saying he hoped to equip his department’s drones with rubber bullets and tear gas, though he told Reuters his thinking on armed aircraft has since evolved.

“From a law enforcement standpoint, that’s never going to happen,” he said. McDaniel said his office received Federal Aviation Administration clearance earlier this month to begin operational drone flights but has not yet had occasion to do so.

Actual U.S. domestic use of law-enforcement drone aircraft remains extremely limited.

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Department in Colorado has been operating two small drones, also bought with Homeland Security funds, since 2010.

It uses them largely to create three-dimensional images of crime scenes, said Benjamin Miller, director of the department’s drone program. They are not used for surveillance, he said.

In North Dakota, the Grand Forks police department last year called in a high-flying Predator drone operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to monitor a tense standoff with a rancher over alleged stolen cattle.

The rancher, Rodney Brossart, and five family members are believed to be the first Americans nabbed by police with drone assistance – with the possible exception of operations along the southwest border with Mexico.

The use of drones there by the Customs and Border Protection agency – a part of Homeland Security – led to 7,500 arrests and the seizure of thousands of pounds of drugs up to the end of last year.

The nationality of those arrested in drone assisted operations in the borderlands is not clear, nor is if Customs and Border Protection partnered with local forces in any of those arrests.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Jackie Frank)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Wow! Adriana Lima Bares Her Growing Baby Bump for Charity

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

11/28/2012 at 11:00 AM ET

Steve McCurry/Pirelli

Adriana Lima is the latest celebrity mom to dare to bare her bump in print.

Posing in a cropped top and flowing skirt, the Victoria’s Secret Angel (who has since welcomed daughter Sienna) shows off her baby belly in Pirelli‘s 2013 calendar.

Known for their famous calendar’s sexy spreads featuring nude models, the tire company decided to take a much more modest approach for this year’s Brazilian-themed photo shoot, which captures a more covered-up Lima and 10 other bombshells including Petra Nemcova and Isabeli Fontana amidst the country’s natural beauty.

“When I told the models there would be no nudity, some of them were disappointed,” casting director Jennifer Starr told New York.

But since each model was chosen to recognize their charitable efforts (including fighting for women’s rights), Pirelli feared full-fledged nudity would ”dilute the message.”

Since the shoot, Lima is already back to showing off her fabulous body. The new mom-of-two recently shed the baby weight — and her clothes! — to walk in Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show, which airs Tuesday, Dec. 4.

– Anya Leon

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.

Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns

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