Fiscal deal stalls as clock ticks to deadline

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Efforts to prevent the economy from tumbling over a "fiscal cliff" stalled on Sunday as Democrats and Republicans remained at loggerheads over a deal that would prevent taxes for all Americans from rising on New Year's Day.

One hour before they had hoped to present a plan, Democratic and Republican leaders said were still unable to reach a compromise that would stop the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that could push the economy into recession.

"There are still serious differences between the two sides," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said.

A sticking point appeared to be a Republican proposal floated late on Saturday, which would slow the growth of Social Security retirement benefits in an effort to narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits. Many Democrats, including Reid, have said Social Security should not be touched.

With negotiations at an apparent standstill on Capitol Hill, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he would now try to hammer out an agreement with Vice President Joe Biden.

"I'm willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner," McConnell said.

Any agreement needs to be rushed through both chambers of Congress before midnight on Monday. Even if the two sides reach an agreement, procedural barriers in the Senate and the House of Representatives make quick action difficult.

If the politicians cannot agree, then tax increases and across-the-board government spending cuts will begin on January 1. That would take $600 billion out of the economy, push unemployment up and curb federal spending.

Another major disagreement was over tax hikes on the wealthy, an increase sought by President Barack Obama but opposed by Republicans, particularly fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives.

Republicans aim to pair any tax increase with spending cuts to benefit programs that are projected to grow ever more expensive as the population ages in coming decades.

But their proposal to slow the growth of Social Security benefits by changing the way they are measured against inflation met fierce resistance from Democrats. Obama included the proposal, known as "chained CPI," in an earlier proposal, but many of his fellow Democrats remain opposed.

"POISON PILL"

"We consider it a poison pill - they know we can't accept it. It is a big step back from where we were on Friday," a Senate Democratic aide said.

Obama made a rare appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" to pressure lawmakers into forging a deal.

Senators appearing on other Sunday morning shows expressed optimism that an agreement could be reached.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham conceded that an agreement would end up raising income taxes on the wealthy, thus sparing the rest of the country from the looming income tax hikes.

"President Obama is going to get tax rate increases. The president won," Graham tweeted, echoing earlier comments he made on "Fox News Sunday." He told the show that the chances of a bipartisan deal before the New Year's deadline were "exceedingly good."

Obama has alternatively offered Republicans a deal to increase income taxes for households earning over $250,000 a year, and over $400,000 a year.

A White House aide said the president and his staff had been in touch with congressional leaders through the weekend.

Any deal on taxes in the Senate might meet resistance in the House from conservative Republicans.

On NBC, Obama warned of the fallout in financial markets if the two sides did not reach an agreement.

"If people start seeing that on January 1st this problem still hasn't been solved, that we haven't seen the kind of deficit reduction that we could have, had the Republicans been willing to take the deal that I gave them ... then obviously that's going to have an adverse reaction in the markets," Obama said, adding that he had offered Republicans significant compromises that had been rejected repeatedly.

He said he would avoid tax increases for most Americans, even if the talks fall apart.

"If Republicans do in fact decide to block it, so that taxes on middle class families do in fact go up on January 1st, then we'll come back with a new Congress on January 4th and the first bill that will be introduced on the floor will be to cut taxes on middle class families," Obama said.

John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives, rejected Obama's accusations that Republicans were not being amenable to compromise.

"The president's comments today are ironic, as a recurring theme of our negotiations was his unwillingness to agree to anything that would require him to stand up to his own party," Boehner, who has had trouble convincing his Republican colleagues to support his own proposals, said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, Rachelle Younglai, David Lawder, Fred Barbash and Richard Cowan. Writing by Andy Sullivan, Editing by Alistair Bell and Jackie Frank)

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Syria opposition leader rejects Moscow invitation

ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's opposition leader has rejected an invitation from Russia for peace talks, dealing another blow to international hopes that diplomacy can be resurrected to end a 21-month civil war.

Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old National Coalition opposition group has been recognized by most Western and Arab states as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.

But in an interview on Al Jazeera television, Alkhatib said he had already ruled out such a trip and wanted an apology from Moscow for its support for Assad.

"We have clearly said we will not go to Moscow. We could meet in an Arab country if there was a clear agenda," he said.

"Now we also want an apology from (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov because all this time he said that the people will decide their destiny, without foreign intervention. Russia is intervening and meanwhile all these massacres of the Syrian people have happened, treated as if they were a picnic."

"If we don't represent the Syrian people, why do they invite us?" Alkhatib said. "And if we do represent the Syrian people why doesn't Russia respond and issue a clear condemnation of the barbarity of the regime and make a clear call for Assad to step down? This is the basic condition for any negotiations."

With the rebels advancing steadily over the second half of 2012, diplomats have been searching for months for signs that Moscow's willingness to protect Assad is faltering.

So far Russia has stuck to its position that rebels must negotiate with Assad's government, which has ruled since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.

"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," Lavrov said on Friday.

That was immediately dismissed by the opposition: "The coalition is ready for political talks with anyone ... but it will not negotiate with the Assad regime," spokesman Walid al-Bunni told Reuters. "Everything can happen after the Assad regime and all its foundations have gone. After that we can sit down with all Syrians to set out the future."

BRAHIMI TO MOSCOW

Russia says it is behind the efforts of U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, fresh from a five-day trip to Damascus where he met Assad. Brahimi, due in Moscow for talks on Saturday, is touting a months-old peace plan for a transitional government.

That U.N. plan was long seen as a dead letter, foundering from the outset over the question of whether the transitional body would include Assad or his allies. Brahimi's predecessor, Kofi Annan, quit in frustration shortly after negotiating it.

But with rebels having seized control of large sections of the country in recent months, Russia and the United States have been working with Brahimi to resurrect the plan as the only internationally recognized diplomatic negotiating track.

Russia's Middle East envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who announced the invitation to Alkhatib, said further talks were scheduled between the "three B's" - himself, Brahimi and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.

Speaking in Damascus on Thursday, Brahimi called for a transitional government with "all the powers of the state", a phrase interpreted by the opposition as potentially signaling tolerance of Assad remaining in some ceremonial role.

But such a plan is anathema to the surging rebels, who now believe they can drive Assad out with a military victory, despite long being outgunned by his forces.

"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in Aleppo province, told reporters at his headquarters there.

Oqaidi said the rebels want Assad and his allies tried in Syria for crimes. Assad himself says he will stay on and fight to the death if necessary.

In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up cartoons showing Brahimi speaking to a news conference with toilet bowls in front of him, in place of microphones. Banners denounced the U.N. envoy with obscenities in English.

DIPLOMATS IMPOTENT

Diplomacy has largely been irrelevant to the conflict so far, with Western states ruling out military intervention like the NATO bombing that helped topple Libya's Muammar Gaddafi last year, and Russia and China blocking U.N. action against Assad.

Meanwhile, the fighting has grown fiercer and more sectarian, with rebels mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority battling Assad's government and allied militia dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Still, Western diplomats have repeatedly touted signs of a change in policy from Russia, which they hope could prove decisive, much as Moscow's withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall a decade ago.

Bogdanov said earlier this month that Assad's forces were losing ground and rebels might win the war, but Russia has since rowed back, with Lavrov last week reiterating Moscow's position that neither side could win through force.

Still, some Moscow-based analysts see the Kremlin coming to accept it must adapt to the possibility of rebel victory.

"As the situation changes on the battlefield, more incentives emerge for seeking a way to stop the military action and move to a phase of political regulation," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Meanwhile, on the ground the bloodshed that has killed some 44,000 people continues unabated. According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, 150 people were killed on Thursday, a typical toll as fighting has escalated in recent months.

Government war planes bombarded the town of Assal al-Ward in the Qalamoun district of Damascus province for the first time, killing one person and wounding dozens, the observatory said.

In Aleppo, Syria's northern commercial hub, clashes took place between rebel fighters and army forces around an air force intelligence building in the Zahra quarter, a neighborhood that has been surrounded by rebels for weeks.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Dominic Evans in Beirut and Steve Gutterman and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Phaedra Parks Is Pregnant with Baby No. 2

TV Watch

By Jennifer Garcia

12/28/2012 at 03:00 PM EST

It's a very special holiday season for The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks and her husband Apollo Nida!

The reality star couple tell PEOPLE exclusively they're expecting a second child together next year.

Parks showed off her growing baby bump while on the beach in the Bahamas, where she's vacationing with her family and friends.

The Atlanta entertainment lawyer married Nida, a certified personal trainer, in 2009 and the couple welcomed son Ayden a year later.

The pair recently released their first fitness DVD, Phine Body on Amazon.com.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Wall Street extends losses, Dow slides 1 percent

When Mommy is away, Dad and son will play. And if your dad works in the video production business, that playtime gets filmed, turned into a time-lapse video and instantly goes viral. Emio Tomeoni, 30, of Kansas City, Mo., works odd hours and often finds...

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Russia's Putin signals he will sign U.S. adoption ban

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signaled on Thursday he would sign into law a bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children and sought to forestall criticism of the move by promising measures to better care for his country's orphans.

In televised comments, Putin tried to appeal to people's patriotism by suggesting that strong and responsible countries should take care of their own and lent his support to a bill that has further strained U.S.-Russia relations.

"There are probably many places in the world where living standards are higher than ours. So what, are we going to send all our children there? Maybe we should move there ourselves?" he said, with sarcasm.

Parliament gave its final approval on Wednesday to the bill, which would also introduce other measures in retaliation for new U.S. legislation which is designed to punish Russians accused of human rights violations.

For it to become law Putin needs to sign it.

"So far I see no reason not to sign it, although I have to review the final text and weigh everything," Putin said at a meeting of federal and regional officials that was shown live on the state's 24-hour news channel.

"I intend to sign not only the law ... but also a presidential decree that will modify the support mechanisms for orphaned children ... especially those who are in a difficult situation, by that I mean in poor health," Putin said.

Critics of the bill say the Russian authorities are playing political games with the lives of children, while the U.S. State Department repeated its "deep concern" over the measure.

"Since 1992 American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, and it is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement.

Ventrell added that the United States was troubled by provisions in the bill that would restrict the ability of Russian civil society organizations to work with U.S. partners.

Children in Russia's crowded and troubled orphanage system - particularly those with serious illnesses or disabilities - will have less of a chance of finding homes, and of even surviving, if it becomes law, child rights advocates say.

They point to people like Jessica Long, who was given up shortly after birth by her parents in Siberia but was raised by adoptive parents in the United States and became a Paralympic swimming champion.

However, the Russian authorities point to the deaths of 19 Russian-born children adopted by American parents in the past decade, and lawmakers named the bill after a boy who died of heat stroke in Virginia after his adoptive father left him locked in a car for hours.

Putin reiterated Russian complaints that U.S. courts have been too lenient on parents in such cases, saying Russia has inadequate access to Russian-born children in the United States despite a bilateral agreement that entered into force on November 1.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

But Putin, who began a new six-year term in May and has searched for ways to unite the country during 13 years in power, suggested there were deeper motives for such a ban.

"For centuries, neither spiritual nor state leaders sent anyone abroad," he said, indicating he was not speaking specifically about Russia but about many societies.

"They always fight for their national identities - they gather themselves together in a fist, they fight for their language, culture," he said.

The bid to ban American adoptions plays on sensitivity in Russia about adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed as the social safety net unraveled with the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Families from the United States adopt more Russian children than those of any other country.

Putin had earlier described the Russian bill as an emotional but appropriate response to the Magnitsky Act, legislation signed by President Barack Obama this month as part of a law granting Russia "permanent normal trade relations" (PNTR) status.

The U.S. law imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in a Moscow jail of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-graft lawyer, in 2009.

The Russian bill would impose similar measures against Americans accused of violating the rights of Russian abroad and outlaw some U.S.-funded non-governmental groups.

(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Doina Chiacu)

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Apple CEO’s pay takes big hit vs. record 2011 package

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook’s 2012 compensation package of just over $ 4 million is a huge cut on paper for the top executive of the most valuable U.S. corporation, after a 2011 package fattened by more than $ 376 million in long-term stock awards.

Cook received the largest single pay package awarded to a company CEO in about a decade when he replaced Apple‘s legendary co-founder, Steve Jobs, shortly before Jobs’ death in October 2011.

The maker of the iPhone and iPad made the 2012 compensation disclosures in a regulatory filing on Thursday. Cook, who is in his early 50s, joined Apple in 1998 and became CEO in August 2011.

Virtually all of Cook’s $ 376 million bonus in 2011 was in stock awards that will vest in two chunks – one in 2016 and the other in 2021. This structure was intended to keep Jobs’ longtime lieutenant at the helm for many years.

In terms of base salary, Cook actually received a 50 percent increase to $ 1.4 million for 2012, and the same 200 percent bonus that other top Apple executives like CFO Peter Oppenheimer earned, Apple said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The 2012 compensation package for Cook also pales in comparison with his 2010 pay, which was 14 times higher, when he served as chief operating officer.

But Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group – which counts Apple stock as the biggest holding among the approximately $ 2 billion it manages – said Cook’s package was “normal CEO compensation.”

For example, Yahoo Inc’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, a former Google Inc high-flyer hired this year to try to turn around the struggling Internet icon, won a pay package worth more than $ 70 million. Despite her lack of a CEO track record, her basic pay is comparable to Cook’s, with about $ 1 million in annual salary and up to $ 2 million in an annual bonus.

Oracle Corp’s Larry Ellison, one of the most highly paid chief executives in the United States – and also the world’s sixth-richest man, according to Forbes – received total compensation for the year ended May 31, 2012, of $ 96.2 million – almost all of it in stock options.

That compared with $ 77.6 million for Ellison in the prior year.

Cook’s longtime boss, Jobs, famously received $ 1 a year in salary in the three years before he stepped down, though in 2000 he too received a stock option that analysts say was valued at almost $ 600 million at the time.

Cook will not receive any stock awards for 2012, Apple said in Thursday’s filing.

The 2012 package includes a salary of $ 1.4 million and a nonequity bonus of $ 2.8 million. Cook’s base salary actually increased in 2012 from the $ 900,000 he earned in 2011.

While Apple’s shares are roughly 35 percent higher than when Cook became CEO, they have fallen more than 27 percent since October, when they hit a $ 700.10 high. The stock has declined amid investor worries about intensifying competition in the mobile phone market and growth prospects in important markets including China.

Apple shares were down 1.3 percent at $ 506.35 on the Nasdaq on Thursday afternoon.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew and Liana Baker in New York, Jim Finkle and Tim McLaughlin in Boston and Edwin Chan in San Francisco,; editing by Kenneth Barry and Matthew Lewis)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone Adopt a Dog Together

People Pets

By Amy Jamieson

12/27/2012 at 03:45 PM EST

Andrew Garfield and his new dog Ren

X17online

It's true love for Emma Stone and her beau Andrew Garfield!

The pair have fallen hard for a 2-year-old golden retriever they met just before Christmas at an L.A. rescue.

"She was one of the dogs they first saw, but they weren't sure," a source tells PEOPLE of the pup the pair visited last week at the Spot! Dog Rescue of Los Angeles. "They left and they couldn't stop thinking about her, so they came back for her. And it's true love."

The couple of more than a year initially brought the dog home as a foster pet on Saturday, but officially adopted the purebred on Christmas Eve. The pup, who they've named Ren, came from a high-kill Downey, Calif., shelter where she was surrendered by her previous owner. On Monday, Garfield was spotted showing off their adorable addition on a stroll through the Hollywood Hills.

"She won the doggie lottery," adds the source, who describes the already house-trained pup as "a typical golden puppy. Very, very sweet and loving. They totally fell in love with her."

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Wall Street briefly turns higher in late trading

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks turned higher in late-session trading on Thursday after news that the U.S. House of Representatives scheduled a session for Sunday, with the "fiscal cliff" deadline just around the corner.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 9.76 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,104.83, after briefly trading higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.55 point, or 0.04 percent, at 1,419.28, also after briefly trading higher. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 0.45 point, or 0.02 percent, at 2,990.61.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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