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.

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Online:

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

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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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India Ink: Five Questions for: Author and Filmmaker Laleh Khadivi

Laleh Khadivi is an author and filmmaker who was born in Esfahan, Iran, and grew up in California. Her first novel, “The Age of Orphans,” received the Whiting Award for Fiction, the Barnes and Noble Discover New Writers Award and an Emory Fiction Fellowship, and it was translated into eight languages. Her latest novel, “The Walking,” will be published in March. Her debut documentary film, “900 Women,” premiered at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in 2001. India Ink interviewed Ms. Khadivi at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

What are the occupational hazards of being a writer?

Depression? I’m kidding. I think that when you write, and that is the only thing you do and you don’t have another job you end up spending a lot of time alone in worlds of your creation and so that can make living in the world of reality a little bit difficult. I feel like, for myself and a few other writers I know intimately, going between those two worlds is often very difficult. You don’t have the ease with which to converse randomly at a dinner party when you’ve been writing a torture scene all day. You kind of have to step in and out of the things that you know are fiction and the things that you know to be real. Otherwise, writing is a pretty sweet job. You can’t really complain about it, you know.

What is your everyday writing ritual?

When I’m in the middle of writing a book, doing the day-to-day writing of it, I develop a ritual for that book, but it changes for each book. So I ideally would like to write every morning between 7 a.m. and noon if I can get those many hours –though I just had a son so this is not going to ever happen again. And then from noon until 7, do other things. And then I find the night very useful for writing so I write again from dark until when I go to sleep. At the end of the day, I’m a writer, and in the middle, a regular person.

Why should we read your latest book?

My latest book is about the effects of movies on the imagination. It’s about a lot of other things as well — political things and social things — but mostly it’s about a boy’s love of the cinema and what the cinema does to your desires. How if you only know one world – one particular village or one town – and you watch movies that happen halfway across the globe, how you are changed and how you suddenly think to yourself, “Oh wait, the Earth is bigger than what I know. How do I get to this other place?”

India has such a rich history of cinema, and Bollywood is all about spinning imaginary tales. They might not involve other places on the planet, but they involve other classes, other gender dynamics and other fashion.

It’s a book about that distance between where you are and what you see, and where you can be in cinema and how it changes what you want. It takes place partially in the Kurdish region of Iran and partially in Los Angeles.

How do you deal with your critics?

Ha! I’ve been trying to figure that out.

I think ideally the best way to deal with it is to just not read the reviews. Because with my first book I got these reviews, and some of them were great, and some of them were not. I realized that the ones that were great did not make me feel good — I didn’t celebrate it. And a bad review made me feel terrible. So there was nothing to win, nothing to gain from reading the reviews. Granted, your ego is very tempted to go and see what they are saying about your book, but you know if it’s good and where it’s not good and what the weak parts are.

If someone gives it a bad review and doesn’t like it, there is a good chance they just didn’t get it or it’s not their thing. If I was asked to review a book by John Updike, I would say terrible things, but someone else would give him the Pulitzer Prize. It’s a personal preference. Reviews are very bizarre – they are assigned to one reader and that reader might hate the Middle East. I see the intellectual background of where the reviewer is from – if they do not like Faulkner’s writing, chances are they are not going to like mine.

Why does the Jaipur Literature Festival matter to you?

One billion people – not all of them reading, but still a country of a billion people — you just can’t ignore that. There’s a billion universes going on in those people’s lives and communities, and I feel like because there is an English-speaking presence here and my books can be read without translation, I should go and help people get excited about them.

I have been blown away by the attentiveness and the eagerness of the audiences in Jaipur. I also think that beyond just engaging with readers, I think it’s important to engage with writers about writing and have public discourse about the life of the mind. Our world is increasingly not giving writers and thinkers and artists a place to do that, and so Jaipur is like this small little window to have discussions that are not about money, but about art or politics or inspiration. That’s important to me, and I think that’s important to the increasing readership of Indians.

(The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)

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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.

It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.

Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.

"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.

In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.

"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.

Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.

The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:

—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.

—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.

—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.

—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.

—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.

"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.

Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.

There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.

There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.

The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.

Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.

"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.

"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Euro near two-week low, shares up on rekindled rate cut hopes

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro hovered near a two-week low and European shares rose on Friday after the European Central Bank rekindled expectations that it could again take the knife to interest rates.

Strong Chinese trade data also helped lift optimism about global growth prospects, boosting oil, copper and Asian shares, although investors booking profits before next week's Chinese new year holidays limited gains.

ECB President Mario Draghi levered the door to a rate cut back open on Thursday, saying the bank would monitor the potential downward pressure of a strengthening euro on already near-target inflation.

European share markets opened higher on the hopes lower borrowing rates would also reverse some of the 8 percent trade-weighted rise in the euro over the last six months that has began to weigh on exporters.

"We're in a 'risk-on' mode and continental Europe should continue to do well in this environment," said Cyrille Urfer, who heads up asset allocation at Swiss bank Gonet.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <.fteu3> was up 0.5 percent by 0815 GMT, though it remained on course for its second weekly loss in a row.

London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were up 0.6, 0.4 and 0.3 percent respectively and U.S. stock futures pointed to a steady Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>

While Draghi said the euro's recent surge was a sign of a return of confidence, he said: "We certainly want to see whether the appreciation is sustained and will alter our risk assessment as far as price stability is concerned."

The comments went further than many analysts had expected and as European trading gathered pace the euro steadied at $1.3398 after earlier dropping to $1.33705, the lowest since January 25.

China said its exports grew 25 percent in January from a year ago, the strongest showing since April 2011 and well ahead of market expectations for a 17 percent rise, while imports also beat forecasts, surging 28.8 percent on the year.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> added 0.3 percent and Australian shares rallied 0.7 percent to 34-month highs.

"China's economic conditions are improving and the trade data confirms the continuation of a recovery trend. Not just the trade data but retail, production and investment flows clearly show that the economy bottomed out in the third quarter last year," said Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.

In the bond market, benchmark German Bund futures were little changed in early trade as Draghi's cautious tone on the euro zone's economy underpinned demand for low risk assets.

Investors focused on Irish bonds after benchmark 10-year yields slid to their lowest since before the start of the subprime crisis in 2007 on news Dublin had clinched a bank debt deal that will cut its borrowing needs over the next decade.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Lashkar-e-Taiba Founder Takes Less Militant Tone in Pakistan

Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

“I move about like an ordinary person — that’s my style,” said Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. “My fate is in the hands of God, not America.”

LAHORE, Pakistan — Ten million dollars does not seem to buy much in this bustling Pakistani city. That is the sum the United States is offering for help in convicting Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, perhaps the country’s best-known jihadi leader. Yet Mr. Saeed lives an open, and apparently fearless, life in a middle-class neighborhood here.

“I move about like an ordinary person — that’s my style,” said Mr. Saeed, a burly 64-year-old, reclining on a bolster as he ate a chicken supper. “My fate is in the hands of God, not America.”

Mr. Saeed is the founder, and is still widely believed to be the true leader, of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group that carried out the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, in which more than 160 people, including six Americans, were killed. The United Nations has placed him on a terrorist list and imposed sanctions on his group. But few believe he will face trial any time soon in a country that maintains a perilous ambiguity toward jihadi militancy, casting a benign eye on some groups, even as it battles others that attack the state.

Mr. Saeed’s very public life seems more than just an act of mocking defiance against the Obama administration and its bounty, analysts say. As American troops prepare to leave Afghanistan next door, Lashkar is at a crossroads, and its fighters’ next move — whether to focus on fighting the West, disarm and enter the political process, or return to battle in Kashmir — will depend largely on Mr. Saeed.

At his Lahore compound — a fortified house, office and mosque — Mr. Saeed is shielded not only by his supporters, burly men wielding Kalashnikovs outside his door, but also by the Pakistani state. On a recent evening, police officers screened visitors at a checkpoint near his house, while other officers patrolled an adjoining park, watching by floodlight for intruders.

His security seemingly ensured, Mr. Saeed has over the past year addressed large public meetings and appeared on prime-time television, and is now even giving interviews to Western news media outlets he had previously eschewed.

He says that he wants to correct “misperceptions.” During an interview with The New York Times at his home last week, Mr. Saeed insisted that his name had been cleared by the Pakistani courts. “Why does the United States not respect our judicial system?” he asked.

Still, he says he has nothing against Americans, and warmly described a visit he made to the United States in 1994, during which he spoke at Islamic centers in Houston, Chicago and Boston. “At that time, I liked it,” he said with a wry smile.

During that stretch, his group was focused on attacking Indian soldiers in the disputed territory of Kashmir — the fight that led the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate to help establish Lashkar-e-Taiba in 1989. But that battle died down over the past decade, and Lashkar began projecting itself through its charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which runs a tightly organized network of hospitals and schools across Pakistan.

The Mumbai attacks propelled Lashkar-e-Taiba to notoriety. But since then, Mr. Saeed’s provocations toward India have been largely verbal. Last week he stirred anger there by suggesting that Bollywood’s highest-paid actor, Shah Rukh Khan, a Muslim, should move to Pakistan. In the interview, he said he prized talking over fighting in Kashmir.

“The militant struggle helped grab the world’s attention,” he said. “But now the political movement is stronger, and it should be at the forefront of the struggle.”

Pakistan analysts caution that Mr. Saeed’s new openness is no random occurrence, however. “This isn’t out of the blue,” said Shamila N. Chaudhary, a former Obama administration official and an analyst at the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. “These guys don’t start talking publicly just like that.”

What it amounts to, however, may depend on events across the border in Afghanistan, where his group has been increasingly active in recent years. In public, Mr. Saeed has been a leading light in the Defense of Pakistan Council, a coalition of right-wing groups that lobbied against the reopening of NATO supply routes through Pakistan last year. More quietly, Lashkar fighters have joined the battle, attacking Western troops and Indian diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan, intelligence officials say.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 7, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a former Obama administration official who is now an analyst at the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. She is Shamila N. Chaudhary, not Chaudhry.

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American Idol: It's a Guys' Night in Hollywood

TV Watch

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

02/06/2013 at 11:00 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

George Holz/FOX

Caution: Contains spoilers!

"It does feel a bit like The Hunger Games," said Keith Urban, ramping up the drama as American Idol kicked off the first day of Hollywood Week. Although producers didn't unleash any tracker jackers on the contestants, they did throw in a couple unexpected twists: This season the week started off as a guys-only competition (the girls arrive in Hollywood next week), and after surviving a round of sudden death solo sing-offs, contestants would then be put into groups from which they couldn't escape.

During the solo round, the standouts included two memorable contestants from the nationwide auditions. First up, Navy man Micah Johnson, who developed a speech impediment after suffering through a botched surgery to remove his tonsils. After a rousing rendition of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets," Johnson was the first to get the green light to the next round.

Joining him soon after was Cuban-American Lazaro Arbos, a 21-year-old ice cream scooper from Naples, Fla., who speaks with a severe stutter but sings with ease. Although Arbos admitted to being both "scared" and "petrified," he quickly won the judges over – Nicki Minaj made her fingers into a heart-shape while he sang – with his take on the Robbie Williams hit, "Angels."

When it came time to form groups of four, the Idol producers threw a few more curveballs – such as pairing a couple of country crooners with two flamboyant (think glitter and faux fur) dudes Ryan Seacrest described as the show's "resident divas."

The result: a quartet that dubbed themselves Country Queen, which delivered a train wreck of a performance. Still, somehow three of the four made it through.

Meanwhile, Arbos's group experience also proved to be a bit of a disaster – which some of his cohorts blamed on his inability to quickly learn the lyrics and melody to the Beach Boys hit "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Although his main nemesis got the boot, a tearful Arbos got the chance to sing another day.

The day of auditions came to a close with what was possibly the most heartbreaking Idol exit ever. New York City subway singer Frankie Ford got a case of the jitters before going on stage, then proceeded to screw up the lyrics and sing off key – leaving the judges no choice but to pull the plug on his dreams. Before walking off into the night, a sobbing Ford stared into the camera and said, "I swear to God I'm coming back next year and I'm going to win."

There will be more solos Thursday (8 p.m. ET), as the judges have to whittle the 43 men left in the competition down to 20 lucky fellas.

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New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

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Global shares, euro pause ahead of ECB decision

London (Reuters) - The euro, German bonds and shares steadied on Thursday, as investors awaited the European Central Bank's policy meeting later in the day and President Mario Draghi's views on the region's growth prospects.

Testimony from the new head of the Bank of England, bond auctions from France and Spain, earnings reports from a host of major European companies and the start of a two-day European Union summit provide more reasons for investors to be cautious.

The euro was nearly flat at $1.3530, holding above this week's low of $1.3458 plumbed on Tuesday but well shy of a 15-month peak of $1.3711 set last Friday.

The common currency has now soared 20 percent against Japan's yen in just three months, risen 8 percent on sterling and 7 percent on the dollar, increasing tensions among policymakers across the recession-hit region.

The gains will put the spotlight on ECB president Draghi at his 1330 GMT news conference, which follows the bank's meeting, at which interest rates are not expected to be changed.

"The market will want to hear stronger words on the foreign exchange front to stop the upwards trend that's in place, but we doubt this will happen," said Nomura economist Nick Matthews.

Equity markets were being held in check ahead of the news conference, with the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> index of top European shares, London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> all little changed in early trading. <.eu/>

"The medium and long-term positive trend is still intact, although on the short term, we're turning 'neutral'; indexes are very close to key support levels," said Aurel BGC chartist Gerard Sagnier.

German Bund futures reflected the cautious mood, edging up 5 ticks to 142.61, with early attention on a Spanish auction of up to 4.5 billion euros of new debt following a rise in political tensions in Madrid as a corruption scandal threatens to engulf prime minister Mariano Rajoy.

Brent crude was steady in a tight range around $117 per barrel, while gold inched up to about $1,680 an ounce, with traders in all commodity markets wary of the impact of Draghi's comments on the outlook for the euro.

(Additional reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Ally of Ahmadinejad Freed Amid Political Fight, Reports Say

TEHRAN — As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalated a bitter political fight this week with Iran’s most influential political family by disclosing secret film recordings of what he purported were fraudulent business deals, Iran’s political maneuvring took a new turn Wednesday when an imprisoned associate of the president was reported to have been freed.

The release of Saeed Mortazavi, reported by two Iranian news agencies, came as the latest chapter in several days of political drama playing out with prominence in the public eye.

During a Sunday session of Parliament, broadcast on state radio, Mr. Ahmadinejad singled out the head of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, a political rival with strong links to influential Shiite Muslim clerics and one of several brothers who have held top positions in the Iranian government.

His younger brother Sadegh, 52, heads Iran’s judiciary, while his oldest brother, Mohammad Javad, a Berkeley-educated mathematician, is also a judiciary official.

On Monday, a conservative newspaper, Kayhan, hinted that the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been forced to step in to prevent both men from giving potentially damaging news conferences, which were both canceled at the last minute.

This was not the first time Ayatollah Khamenei has been forced to intervene in this feud. In October, he issued an edict aimed at stopping the infighting, saying that those creating divisions before the June 14 presidential elections “betray” the country.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who went to the Parliament in a failed attempt to head off the impeachment of his labor minister, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, said Mr. Larijani and his fellow lawmakers had obstructed the government, stepped beyond their constitutional boundaries and written letters ordering the annulment of government decisions.

Instructed by Mr. Larijani to stick to the subject of the impeachment, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, “Don’t order me to close my mouth because you say it’s the law.”

With that, Mr. Ahmadinejad, who for years has threatened to reveal the names of corrupt officials, played a video clip of a conversation in which another of Mr. Larijani’s brothers, Fazel, appeared to discuss the purchase of a state company under favorable terms, the semiofficial Tabnak Web site reported. While Fazel Larijani used to head a medical association in Iran, his current position is unclear.

The public accusation, rare in Iran, could signal a new phase in an already intense conflict between Mr. Ahmadinejad, who represents a powerful group of young, ambitious politicians, and Mr. Larijani, who is the official representative of the holy city of Qum, the center of Shiite scholarship in Iran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said his associate, Mr. Mortazavi, 45, was also at the taped meeting. In January, Mr. Mortazavi was dismissed as the head of Iran’s enormous social welfare organization under pressure from Parliament. Some days later, however, he was rehired by the president in the same position, this time as official caretaker.

During the conversation, read out in part by Mr. Ahmadinejad to astonished lawmakers, Fazel Larijani appears to try to use his family connections to buy a factory from the social welfare organization. He promises leniency for Mr. Mortazavi, the former Tehran prosecutor who faces several criminal proceedings over accusations that he played a role in the deaths of three protesters in a substandard prison in 2009.

Mr. Mortazavi was arrested Monday evening, the Fars news agency reported, though no reason was given. But, in a new turn to what is likely to be a protracted saga, he was freed on Wednesday, news reports quoted Iranian media as saying. The terms of his release were unclear.

In Parliament on Sunday, the Iranian Students’ News Agency said, Mr. Ahmadinejad declared: “These are audio and video, and the tape is clear.”

He added: “If the honorable Parliament speaker sees fit, we can turn over the 24 to 25 hours to you,” he said of the recordings. On Monday, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency, a mouthpiece for Mr. Ahmadinejad, deepened the split by publishing the audiotape on its Web site.

Ali Larijani, cheered on by the Parliament, which has lost nearly every serious political battle with the president, silenced the room, saying: “Let him tell his words. If there is anything about my family, then let him talk about it.”

Mr. Larijani called the video a “mafia film” and recalled how he had a meeting with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s estranged brother, Davoud. “He said many things against you,” Mr. Larijani told the president, “about economic corruption, about your inner circle and your relations with foreign countries.”

For his part, Fazel Larijani strongly denied any wrongdoing, saying that while he did appear in the clip, the words were not his, but rather had been added in a voiceover. Calling Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Mortazavi “mafialike individuals,” he said he would sue them both for “spreading lies and disturbing public opinion.”

On Monday, several officials criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, accusing them of lacking self-control and bringing shame on the country. “They broke the leader’s heart and gave the friends of the Islamic republic almost a seizure,” said Mojtaba Zolnour, a special consultant to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported. “They provided ammunition for the foreign media on the eve of our election.”

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris.

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