BlackBerry maker co-CEOs step down (AP)

TORONTO ? BlackBerry maker Research in Motion'co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, announced Sunday they are stepping down from the once-iconic company that has struggled to compete in recent years.

The pair who founded RIM will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, a chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG, RIM said.

Balsillie and Lazaridis have headed Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM together for the past two decades.

"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now," Lazaridis said in a statement.

The Canadian company has suffered a series of setbacks and has lost tens of billions in market value. A company that was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago now has a market value of $8.9 billion.

RIM said last month that new phones deemed critical to the company's future will be delayed until late 2012. And its PlayBook tablet, RIM's answer to the Apple iPad, failed to gain consumer support, forcing the company to give it deep discounts to move the devices off store shelves.

A widespread outage also frustrated tens of millions of BlackBerry users in October.

Lazaridis will take on a new role as vice chairman of RIM's board and chairman of the board's new innovation committee. Balsillie remains a member of the board.

"I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company," Balsillie said in the statement. "I remain a significant shareholder and a director and, of course, they will have my full support."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_bi_ge/cn_rim_ceos_resign

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Google's 4Q lobbying bill triples to $3.76 million (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? Google's U.S. lobbying bill more than tripled to $3.76 million in the fourth quarter as the Internet search leader fought proposed changes to online piracy laws and sought to influence a wide range of other issues that could affect its fortunes.

The amount that Google Inc. spent making its political points from October through December is by far the company's highest lobbying tab for any three-month period since Google's Washington office opened in 2005. The total compared with a lobbying budget of $1.24 million during the final three months of 2010 and $2.38 million in the third quarter of 2011.

For all of 2011, Google spent $9.7 million on political persuasion, nearly doubling from $5.2 million in 2010.

The company disclosed its fourth-quarter lobbying figures in documents filed late Friday with the U.S. House clerk's office.

Google's lobbying expenses have been rising steadily against a backdrop of intensified U.S. government scrutiny of the company's acquisitions and business practices. The focus has been prompted by complaints alleging that Google is abusing its dominance of the lucrative Internet search market to stifle competition and muscle its way into other markets.

As a foil, Google last summer hired a dozen lobbing firms to supplement the team that it already employed in its Washington office. The bills coming in from those firms contributed to the sharp rise in Google's fourth-quarter lobbying expenses, according to the company.

Google's emphasis on lobbying mirrors what Microsoft Corp. did during the late 1990s while the U.S. Justice Department pursued an antitrust case asserting the software marker had unfairly bundled its dominant Windows operating system with key personal-computer applications. Microsoft eventually thwarted the government's attempt to break up the company, but not before years of legal wrangling that included a high-profile trial.

With that case behind it, Microsoft now spends far less on lobbying than Google. In the fourth quarter, Google's lobbying expenses doubled Microsoft's $1.88 million bill. For all of 2011, Microsoft's lobbying tab totaled $7.3 million.

Google's fourth-quarter lobbying agenda included a proposed antipiracy law, which inspired an Internet protest last week. While some popular websites such as Wikipedia went dark for 24 hours, Google stamped out its colorful logo to signal its objection to proposed changes to online piracy laws. The company says the changes would result in censorship and discourage Internet innovation. More than 7 million people signed a protest petition posted by Google.

Movie and music studio backed the changes ? dubbed the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA ? as a more effective way to prevent rampant theft of their copyrighted material. Lawmakers postponed the legislation following the online protests.

Google's fourth-quarter lobbying push addressed online advertising, which accounts for most of the company's $38 billion in annual revenue.

Other topics covered by Google's lobbyists included: online security; personal privacy on the Internet; renewable energy; international tax reform; the treatment of corporate earnings outside the U.S.; the availability of wireless Internet access; free speech; and free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

Besides Congress, agencies that Google lobbied in the fourth quarter included: the Federal Trade Commission, the White House; the Federal Communications Commission, the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative.

The outside firms working for Google are: Akin, Gump; Bingham; Capitol Legislative Strategies; Chesapeake Group; Crossroads Strategies; Gephardt Group; Holland & Knight; Normandy Group; Prime Policy; The First Group; The Madison Group; and the Raben Group.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/search/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_google_lobbying

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Rick Santorum On Opposition To Abortion In Cases Of Rape: 'Make The Best Out Of A Bad Situation'

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum explained his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape during an interview Friday, saying that women who face such circumstances should "make the best out of a bad situation."

Asked by CNN's Piers Morgan what he would do if his own daughter approached him, begging for an abortion after having been raped, Santorum explained that he would counsel her to "accept this horribly created" baby, because it was still a gift from God, even if given in a "broken" way.

"Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn't have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice, I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or she doesn't, it will always be her child, and she will always know that," Santorum said.

"And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I've always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created -- in the sense of rape -- but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life we have horrible things happen. I can't think of anything more horrible, but nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation and I would make the argument that that is making the best."

(Video above via CNN)

Santorum has crusaded against abortion throughout his tenure as a legislator and presidential hopeful. A recent analysis of his time as a U.S. senator showed an almost obsessive tendency to talk about abortion-related subjects on the Senate floor. His strict views on the issue, as well as gay rights, have repeatedly drawn aggressive pushback from his detractors on the campaign trail.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Santorum called Obama's support of women's reproductive rights "radical and extreme," arguing that this was illustrated through the president's recent statement on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Other hardline anti-abortion advocates have explained their views much like Santorum has. In 2010, Tea Party-backed Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle was asked to explain her belief that abortions were unacceptable even in the case of a girl being raped by her father.

"I think that two wrongs don't make a right," she answered. "And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/rick-santorum-abortion-rape_n_1224624.html

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Extraordinary Gingrich comeback also vindication (AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. ? To say Newt Gingrich capped an extraordinary comeback with a South Carolina victory doesn't quite capture what happened.

It was more like vindication.

The former House speaker came from behind to overtake Mitt Romney on Saturday in a state that for decades has chosen the eventual Republican nominee. On the way there, Gingrich triumphed over months of campaign turmoil and at least two political near-death experiences as well as millions of dollars of attack advertisements and potentially damning personal allegations.

He did it by finding his voice and rallying conservatives with a populist defiance.

"The American people feel that they have elites who have been trying to force us to stop being Americans," Gingrich told cheering supporters in Columbia after he was declared the victor. "It's not that I am a good debater. It's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people."

It was on the debate stage that the pugnacious Gingrich arguably revived his presidential campaign, not once but twice in the past year, by giving a tea party-infused GOP exactly what it's hungering for ? a no-holds-barred attack dog willing to go after President Barack Obama with abandon. If Gingrich wins the nomination, his confrontational attitude against all things Obama likely will be a big reason Republicans choose him over chief rival Romney.

Gingrich, a political strategist in his own right who has a knack for understanding precisely what the GOP electorate wants, has aggressively taken it to Obama since the moment he entered the race last spring determined to turn his nationwide grass-roots network of support that he's cultivated for a decade into a front-running White House campaign.

But he stumbled early, including by disparaging the House Republicans' Medicare proposal as "right-wing social engineering" and was all but forced to apologize after the conservative outcry. His campaign nearly imploded over strategy squabbles, with virtually his entire senior staff abandoning him before the summer even began. And he was broke after spending lavishly.

Gingrich spent the next six months running his own campaign on a shoestring. The former college professor used a series of debates in the fall ? and the free media they afforded him ? to show Republican voters his political and oratory skills. Their adoration ended up catapulting him back into contention in Iowa. He vowed to stay positive and focus on Obama ? even as his rivals, sensing a very real threat, went on the attack with a barrage of negative TV advertising.

His rivals and allied groups ? primarily the pro-Romney Restore Our Future political action committee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul ? castigated him for a tumultuous speakership and career in Washington after Congress, knocking him way off course and nearly bludgeoning him to political death.

It turned out Gingrich didn't have the money to respond on TV. And his standing slid as the new year began, and he ended up coming in a distant fourth place in the leadoff caucuses on Jan. 3.

He was but an afterthought in the next state to vote, New Hampshire, where he spent a full week on the attack against Romney while complaining about the beating he took in Iowa on the air. But the cash-strapped Gingrich didn't have money to take his criticism of Romney to the TV airwaves. He seemed completely off his game, losing big in the first-in-the-nation primary state.

Then came Sheldon Adelson to the rescue.

The billionaire casino magnate and longtime Gingrich backer ponied up at least $5 million for an outside group ? made up of former Gingrich aides ? to help put his buddy back in the game. It wasn't long before the group ? Winning Our Future ? was exacting payback on Romney for his allies pummeling Gingrich in Iowa. And the group started raising questions about Romney's time at the helm of a private equity firm, Bain Capital, putting Romney on the defensive for the first time during the campaign.

When the race turned to South Carolina, it didn't take long for Gingrich_ a former Georgia congressman ? to hit his stride. The state had always been a campaign firewall for him. He had visited often, built his biggest staff of any of the first three early-voting states and spent $2.5 million on advertising.

Over the past 10 days, he raised questions about Romney's private business experience while Winning Our Future reinforced the message by financing millions of dollars in South Carolina advertising characterizing Romney as a corporate predator who dismantled companies while running Bain Capital. Gingrich also started working to undercut Romney's strength ? the notion that the former Massachusetts governor was the Republicans' best chance to beat Obama in the fall.

"What you are seeing him doing is convincing people first that he can win," senior Gingrich adviser David Winston explained at one point. "He's in the process of crossing that threshold."

It was his performance in two debates last week that may have helped him seal the deal with undecided Republicans who were questioning his viability as a candidate.

He turned his vulnerabilities ? a comment some interpreted as racist and an allegation by an ex-wife that he had wanted an "open marriage" ? into moments of strength by answering questions about those issues with nothing short of a character assassination on the national media. In both instances, he clearly tickled his conservative audience ? many of whom are skeptical of a media industry they view as left-leaning.

In Myrtle Beach last Monday, Gingrich lashed out when FOX News Juan Williams had asked him if comments he made urging poor minority children to work as janitors were racially insensitive.

"The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history," Gingrich retorted ? and then turned up the intensity.

His voice rose and he jabbed a finger into the podium as he said: "I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness. And if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn some day to own the job."

The clip became the heart of Gingrich's final television ad in South Carolina, and won high praise from supporters at the barbecue joints and sportsmen's clubs he visited in the campaign's closing days.

But three days later, Gingrich had what seemed like a problem on his hands.

An ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich, did an interview with ABC News in which she said Gingrich had asked her to allow him to have a mistress while they were married. It was unclear how the allegation would play in a Baptist state where many in the GOP electorate call themselves evangelical.

Gingrich ended up using the allegation to his advantage on a debate stage in Charleston, when CNN moderator John King opened the candidate face-off by asking Gingrich about his ex-wife's claim.

"Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things," an indigent Gingrich said. "To take an ex-wife and make it, two days before the primary, a significant question for a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine."

The audience roared and rose to its feet.

Several things also fell Gingrich's way.

Romney's personal wealth was thrust into the spotlight as he stumbled over whether ? and then eventually when ? he would release his tax returns. Gingrich pounced, suggesting Romney may have something to hide that could pose a liability against Obama. Romney also took a hit when the Iowa GOP declared that Rick Santorum, not Romney had won the leadoff caucuses.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry also quit the race two days before the primary and endorsed Gingrich. And evangelical conservatives in the state largely ignored the pleas of national Christian leaders who had voted to endorse Santorum and started coalescing behind Gingrich, the only other candidate in the race fighting over the support of the right flank.

In the end, South Carolina Republican strategist Chip Felkel said: "His supporters were fired up, and it's contagious, especially given Romney's failure to generate that kind of enthusiasm."

The coming weeks will determine whether Gingrich can stay on top this time.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_el_pr/us_how_gingrich_won

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Analysis: Italy refunding ordeal looks a little less daunting (Reuters)

MILAN (Reuters) ? Italy's goal of refinancing some 90 billion euros of long-term debt by the end of April is beginning to look within reach after months when the weight of its debt burden looked likely to tip the euro zone even deeper into crisis.

In spite of this month's mass downgrade of most euro countries by credit rating agency Standard & Poor's, Madrid romped through a debt sale on Thursday with support from cheap ECB lending to banks and steady interest from domestic investors.

The same factors should also help Rome.

Saddled with a 1.9 trillion euro ($2.5 trillion) public debt, Italy is the euro zone's third largest economy and investors have long feared it may prove too big to bail.

The amount of debt it must refinance between February and April looked almost unmanageable in November after international investors fled Italian bonds, driving even the country's three-year borrowing costs to nearly 8 percent.

But a fall in short-term yields after Italian banks awash with cheap ECB funds snapped up domestic bonds at recent sales has improved the market picture for Italy, now rated among the lower investment grades at BBB+ by S&P, on a par with bailed-out fellow struggler Ireland.

"I am convinced Italy can and will make it," said Intesa SanPaolo fixed-income analyst Chiara Manenti. "Recent auctions tell us tensions eased slightly. Looking ahead, the return of a net demand also on medium- and long-term maturities and a stop to disinvestments from abroad are crucial for Italy," she said.

Much hinges on efforts to persuade investors to accept deep losses on Greek debt, key to avoiding an unruly default there.

"It certainly isn't our main scenario, but we can't assign a zero probability to the event of Italy being shut out of debt markets. In the short term there are risks relating to a possible Greek default," said Matteo Regesta, a strategist at BNP Paribas in London.

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For European debt comparisons: http://link.reuters.com/fat74s

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ECB SUPPORT

Italy itself came dangerously close to sliding towards default in late 2011 and has since been striving to regain market confidence under the leadership of a new technocratic government headed by former EU Commissioner Mario Monti.

Crucially, Italy can count on the support of the European Central Bank both through its bond buying program and an unprecedented liquidity boost. At a December 21 ECB tender of three-year funds, Italian banks took 116 billion euros, almost a quarter of the total.

This cheap funding, analysts say, has fuelled demand for short-term Italian and Spanish paper at recent auctions -- a trend which Rome plans to exploit. With more ECB cash up for grab at a February tender, Italian investors would have enough to fill up any void resulting from lack of foreign interest.

"Domestic investors are likely to continue to participate --and indeed are incentivized to do so in order to protect existing exposure," Citi analysts wrote in a report last week.

Italian investors held 54 percent of the country's 1.6 trillion euro bonds and bills in June, the Bank of Italy said. Analysts estimate this share may have risen towards 60 percent.

"Like many issuers, Italy is relying more and more on its domestic investor base," said Citi analyst Jamie Searle.

To better target retail demand at home, Italy will also start issuing directly to small investors through electronic platforms in the first quarter of 2012.

Maria Cannata, in charge of debt management at Italy's Treasury, said on Tuesday that a higher domestic debt ownership helps but that Italy's debt is too great to rely almost exclusively on local buyers.

WOOING FOREIGN BUYERS

Domestic investors make up the bulk of demand for Italian short-term debt but its sales of longer-term bonds must also target foreign buyers. PM Monti went to woo them in London this week.

Unlike short-term rates, longer-term yields have retreated only modestly. At around 6.40 percent, 10-year yields are two percentage points above three-year ones and not far from the 7 percent mark that has led other countries to seek bailouts.

"It is the 10-year sector where the battle for market access is likely to be won or lost, hence the particular importance of the end-month BTP auctions," Citi analysts said in their report.

Italy is due to sell five- and 10-year BTP bonds on January 30, at an auction that will settle on February 1, when nearly 26 billion euros of BTPs and about 10 billion euros in coupons mature.

Ten years is the longest maturity Italy has attempted to sell since offering an off-the-run 15-year bond in mid-October.

Maturities longer than 10 years fall outside the scope of the ECB's bond purchases, traders say, and these buys are key in indirectly supporting demand at Italian bond sales.

With virtually no bonds maturing in January, Italy has pre-funded some of its redemptions this month. Intesa estimates net issuance at auctions settled in January at up to 39 billion euros including next week's sales of Treasury bills, zero-coupon and inflation-linked bonds.

Cannata said on Tuesday Rome would certainly boost issues of short-term bills, commercial paper and bonds with a maturity of up to three years in the first part of the year.

Once past the February-April refinancing hump, which represents 45 percent of 2012 medium and long-term maturities, Italy would have minimal redemptions in May and June.

But significantly shortening Italy's debt average life of seven years would increase refinancing risks. S&P warned last week that this would weaken an important credit strength for Italy and the Treasury is well aware of the danger.

"Already in the second half of the year we will necessarily have to return to a more uniform distribution along the yield curve to (ensure) a shortening in the average life of the debt ... remains modest," Cannata said. ($1 = 0.7757 euros)

(Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/bs_nm/us_italy_bonds

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Romney may not have won Iowa after all, Santorum now ahead (Americablog)

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Stress blamed for student tics at New York school (Reuters)

BUFFALO (Reuters) ? State health officials have determined stress likely caused a dozen female high school students to suddenly experience tics and other neurological symptoms associated with Tourette Syndrome, they said on Friday.

The Le Roy Central School District, about 50 miles east of Buffalo, scrambled to conduct environmental testing for air quality and mold after 12 students developed tics and impulsive verbal behavior over the course of the last three months.

But state health investigators ruled out environmental factors, latent side-effects from drugs or vaccines like Guardasil, trauma or genetic factors.

The girls were all treated by doctors and most are improving, school officials said.

"Stress is often attributed to these kind of symptoms," Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman with the New York State Department of Health, said on Friday, echoing the opinion of neurologists who have treated the girls.

"The Le Roy school is safe," Hammond said. "The environment or an infection is not the cause of the students' tics. There are many causes of tics-like symptoms."

Dr. David Lichter, clinical professor of neurology at the University at Buffalo, said he evaluated one of the girls who exhibited involuntary movements as well as periods of unresponsiveness.

Lichter said a phenomenon called "mass psychogenic illness," once called mass hysteria, is likely the cause.

He said high levels of stress may increase the chances.

"Subjects turn subconscious psychological stresses into physical symptoms, and they do it without being conscious of it," he said.

"I don't think the girls in this particular school are more stressed. The thing about this outbreak - and it has been documented around the world - is there may be one or two who manifest a true organic disorder, and then modeling behavior takes place," Lichter said.

The health department continues to monitor each case. No new cases have been reported.

(Editing By Barbara Goldberg and Paul Thomasch)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/us_nm/us_tics_school_newyork

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