Rolling Stones aim to roll back years with reunion

LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones return to the stage on Sunday for a mini-tour they hope will prove that advancing years and bad blood are no barriers to satisfaction for sellout crowds.

In a burst of activity to celebrate 50 years in business, the veteran British rockers with an average age of 68 have produced a photo book, written two songs, collaborated on a documentary, released a greatest hits album, played warm-up gigs in Paris and committed to five concerts.

They also faced questions about high ticket prices to the two gigs in London and three in the United States that have given some followers the impression they are more interested in banking cash than bashing out the hits.

Yet that has done little to dampen broad enthusiasm for their return to the big stage five years after the “A Bigger Bang” tour became the most lucrative in pop history at the time, earning nearly $ 560 million.

Adding to the sense of occasion, the full-time quartet of Mick Jagger on vocals, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood on guitar and Charlie Watts on drums will be joined by former members Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor at London’s O2 Arena on Sunday.

Even before they step out for the first of two gigs in the British capital, the question on every Stones fan’s lips is what more they have up their sleeves, amid hints of a full tour and the possibility of a new studio album.

“It would be nice to think that wouldn’t be it,” said Paul Sexton, a music journalist who has met and interviewed the band in the run-up to the latest concerts.

“Once the machine gets fired up again, it’s hard to imagine there won’t be more live shows to come. If these dates went well, you could imagine sufficient momentum for some kind of recording project.”

BICKERING, BUT NO DIVORCE

The Stones first played at the Marquee Club in London in 1962, and with a changing lineup that settled with today’s foursome the band who had to compete with the Beatles quickly became one of the biggest groups in pop history.

Their blues-infused output slowed from the 1980s, and some critics argue they peaked in the 1960s and 70s, but the Stones’ longevity and a catalogue of hits like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Honky Tonk Women” have ensured the music world still cares.

Despite the promise of a major payout and another chance to enhance their legacy, the 50th anniversary celebrations were not always a certainty.

Jagger and Richards have bickered in the past and were at it again recently with Richards calling the charismatic frontman “unbearable” amid a stream of insults in his 2010 memoir “Life”.

He eventually apologized, clearing the way for the reunion.

“If you was married to somebody for 50 years, you can have your little spats here and there, and we don’t mind having them in public occasionally,” the guitarist told Rolling Stone magazine. “We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids!”

The Stones will play two gigs at the O2 Arena, where tickets cost 95 to 950 pounds ($ 1,500) for a VIP seat, before crossing the Atlantic for a show at Barclay Center, Brooklyn on December 8 and two at the Prudential Center, Newark on December 13 and 15.

Jagger has been quick to defend the pricing, saying that the shows were expensive to stage and tickets being traded on secondary sites for greater than their face value did not mean more money for the band.

As to what the five concerts could lead to, Richards said in a recent interview: “My experience with the Rolling Stones is that once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop.”

Jagger and Richards are the only two members of the Stones who were there at its inception in 1962. Watts joined in early 1963 and Wood was recruited in the mid-1970s to replace Mick Taylor when he left.

They are widely acknowledged as the greatest rock and roll band in history, producing more than 20 studio albums, selling an estimated 200 million copies, conquering the United States and charting the social and sexual mores of their time.

Their longevity is all the more surprising given their reputation for living in the fast lane. Wood is in his third year of sobriety after struggling with alcohol addiction and Richards said he is drinking less and “gave up smack” (heroin).

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

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Roche, under fire, offers compromise in flu drug row

LONDON (Reuters) – Roche has offered an olive branch to scientific critics in a bid to end a bitter row over blockbuster flu drug Tamiflu that has led to calls for a boycott of the Swiss drugmaker’s products.

Tamiflu has been approved by regulators worldwide and stockpiled by many governments in case of a global outbreak – but some researchers claim there is little evidence it works and have lobbied since 2009 for Roche to hand over all its data from clinical trials.

Sales of the drug hit close to $ 3 billion in 2009, due to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, although they have since declined.

Roche’s pharmaceuticals head said on Thursday he had written to the Cochrane Collaboration, a non-profit group that reviews trial data to assess the value of drugs, offering to set up a multi-party advisory board to review all the Tamiflu data.

The board of experts from academia and private institutions, including Cochrane critics, would then agree on what analyses were useful in assessing Tamiflu’s public health role.

“We think that would be an appropriate, fair and transparent way of handling this debate,” Daniel O’Day said in an interview.

O’Day said complete transparency had to be balanced against the need to protect patient privacy, respect commercial sensitivity and ensure the scientific merit of any statistical analysis.

He stopped short of matching a promise from rival GlaxoSmithKline to make patient-level data from all company-sponsored clinical trials available on a routine basis.

Roche said it had not handed over the full collection of data requested by Cochrane because the group refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Cochrane, meanwhile, has accused Roche of stonewalling and urged a boycott of the company’s products until it publishes the missing data. Its campaign to force Roche’s hand has been backed by the respected British Medical Journal.

EU AGENCY PROMISES OPENNESS

The new attempt by Roche to break the deadlock comes as regulators and healthcare experts meet in London to discuss ways to increase transparency over clinical trials.

As Reuters reported in July, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) aims to open its data vaults to systematic scrutiny, after a ruling by the European Ombudsman that keeping data secret is not compatible with the public interest.

Guido Rasi, executive director of the EMA, told the London meeting on Thursday that the question now was “how” to publish clinical trials data not “if” it should be released.

The move puts the EMA ahead of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in terms of data transparency.

The EMA stance is also forcing drug companies to review how far they can keep information they hold on medicines under wraps.

Most companies have committed in recent years to publishing results of clinical trials, either in journals or online, but that openness has not so far extended to the raw data that lies behind those trials.

Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline, however, broke ranks last month when it announced that patient-level data from its clinical trials of approved and failed drugs would be made available to other researchers.

Roche’s O’Day said his company responded to requests for such data on a case-by-case basis, provided scientists were prepared to sign confidentiality agreements if needed, but this did not mean all data should be released as a matter of course.

“To what level data will be shared proactively and constantly is something we need to discuss,” he said.

A Roche spokesman said Cochrane had acknowledged receipt of its proposal for a Tamiflu advisory board but had not given any immediate response.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Erica Billingham)

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Black Friday starts on Thursday right after Thanksgiving dinner

Black Friday is the Super Bowl of retail, but some of the nation's largest big-box stores can't wait until the day after Thanksgiving to open their doors to shoppers eager to grab great deals the same day as their turkey dinner.

Traditional Black Friday door-busting deals now start tonight, on what's been dubbed Gray Thursday. Major retail stores such as Kmart, Toys R Us, Walmart and Sears will open their doors beginning at 8 p.m. Target will join the party an hour later.

"It's traditionally been the day after Thanksgiving when the stores go into the black, where they make all their money. But that's not true anymore," retail expert Michelle Madhock said.

With Black Friday sales starting Thursday, that means lines started forming Wednesday, or in some extreme cases a week before as bargain hunters tried to get a turkey leg up on their competition.

Luciana Pendleton pitched a tent outside a Deptford Township, N.J., Best Buy Monday fully equipped with all she needed to spend the next few days away from home so she could be first in line when the doors open.

"I am just happy I beat my competition. They pulled up here around 3 p.m., and we were already here so I was happy," she said Monday.

Last year, some sale seekers became a little too excited and turned holiday shopping into a contact sport. In one ugly incident, a woman was accused of unleashing pepper spray on other shoppers in a dash for electronics at Walmart in Los Angeles.

This year, stores are beefing up security, and Best Buy even participated in training drills to handle the large crowds. More than 147 million people plan to shop this weekend, according to the National Retail Federation.

The hottest deals that are up for grabs this year include a 46-inch Samsung LED flat screen TV at Walmart with $200 off the original price. If that's not good enough, Sears has knocked $500 off the price of a 50-inch Toshiba flat screen. Target is offering the Nook Simple Touch at half price.

Black Friday officially kicks off at midnight for Best Buy, Sports Authority and Macy's.

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Bank of Canada keeps “over time” condition on rate hike

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Tim Lane repeated on Wednesday the central bank‘s message that interest rate increases will likely be needed, but only over time.

The “over time” phrase was introduced in the bank’s key guidance in its rate statement on October 23 as a way of signaling that while the next rate move is likely to be up, such a move was less imminent than it had been.

“Over time, some gradual withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required, consistent with achieving the inflation-control target,” Lane said, according to a prepared presentation he was giving on Wednesday in Moncton, New Brunswick.

Another part of the presentation, which was posted on the central bank’s website, noted: “The Canadian economy continues to operate with a small amount of excess supply.”

The Bank of Canada is alone in the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries in signaling an intention to raise rates despite expectations of modest and unbalanced global growth.

Lane forecast “very robust growth” in emerging markets, stagnation in Europe and significant dampening of U.S. growth due to fiscal consolidation. He said Canada‘s real gross domestic product was still expected to grow at a moderate pace.

(Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson; and Peter Galloway)

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Fitch cuts Sony, Panasonic debt ratings to “junk” status

TOKYO (Reuters) – Ratings agency Fitch downgraded the debt ratings of Japan’s Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp to “junk” status citing weakness in their consumer electronics and TV operations, further diminishing the luster of the once-great Japanese brands.

The cut to below investment grade, the first by a ratings firm, comes as the floundering Japanese tech giants face weak demand and fierce competition from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.

A strong yen and bumps in China, where growth has slowed and Japanese goods have been targeted in sometimes violent protests recently, have also weighed on their earnings.

The two companies, along with Sharp Corp, racked up combined losses of $ 20 billion last year, leading them to axe jobs, sell assets and close facilities.

“Both Sony and Panasonic are struggling to generate operating profits, but each is restructuring and I don’t envision the current situation continuing,” said Masahi Oda, Chief Investment Officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

“A collapse of their core business would be a problem, but we are not at the point yet, and to me Fitch looks too negative,” Oda added.

Fitch downgraded Sony by three notches to BB-minus from BBB- minus, saying meaningful recovery will be slow. The move came after Sony, the maker of PlayStation game consoles and Vaio laptops, last week announced plans to raise 150 billion yen ($ 1.82 billion) through the sale of convertible bonds.

“Fitch believes that continuing weakness in the home entertainment and sound and mobile products and communications segments will offset the relatively stable music and pictures segments and improvement in the devices segment which makes semiconductors and components,” it said in statement.

In a separate statement, Fitch cut Panasonic to BB from BBB-minus, a two-notch downgrade, citing weakened competitiveness in its TVs and display panels as well as weak cash generation from its operations. It has a negative outlook on both the companies.

The downgrade sent Sony’s five-year credit default swaps (CDS), insurance-like contracts against debt default or restructuring, 5 basis points wider to 382.5/402.5 basis points.

Panasonic’s CDS for the same maturity were quoted at 295/315 basis points, 15 basis points wider than in Thursday morning Asian trade.

Standard & Poor’s rates the two consumer electronics makers at BBB, the second lowest of the investment grade, while Moody’s Investors Service has Baa3 on them, the lowest of the high-grade category.

With two of the three major ratings agencies still having the two companies as investment grade, institutional investors won’t face too great a pressure to cut their debt holdings in them, analysts said.

SONY SHARES TUMBLE

Sony shares shed 4.4 percent in Frankfurt on Thursday. The shares ended 1.8 percent higher at 834 yen in Tokyo before the Fitch announcement, trading not too far from their 32-year closing low of 793 yen hit on November 15. Sony stock is down 40 percent so far this year.

Panasonic shares were down 0.6 percent in Frankfurt in low volume. The stock inched up 0.7 percent to close at 407 yen in Tokyo trading, near its 34-year closing low of 385 yen reached on November 13.

Last month, Panasonic cut its forecast and warned it will lose close to $ 10 billion in the year to March, as it writes off billions of yen in tax-deferred assets and goodwill related to its mobile phone, solar panel and small lithium battery businesses.

Ahead of its earnings revision, Panasonic won $ 7.6 billion in loan commitments in October from banks including Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, a funding backstop it says will help it avoid having to seek capital from credit markets.

Sony made a small operating profit in the July-September quarter, helped by the sale of a non-core chemicals business, and kept its forecast for a full-year profit of $ 1.63 billion.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau in Tokyo and Umesh Desai in Hong Kong; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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How to Beat Black Friday Stress

Eva Cevallos with her eleven-month daughter, Quinn, shop at the Pre-Black Friday event at the Walmart Supercenter store in Rosemead, Calif., Nov. 21, 2012. (Image credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Black Friday – a day famous for long lines, scary stampedes and even pepper spray - can be stressful. But with a bit of preparation, you can get great deals without the headache.

Click here to see how to save money on Black Friday.

Check out these tips to beat Black Friday stress.

Use Bricks and Clicks

You might be tempted to avoid the lines by shopping online, but spreading out purchases between stores and sites can help cut stress, according to a 2011 market research study.

“You would think sitting in an armchair wearing a robe waiting for a site to go live would be far less stressful,” John Ross, chief executive officer of Shopper Sciences, told ABCNews.com. “Even though you don’t have the pushing and shoving, shopping purely online tends to be pretty stressful, too.”

Ross said people who shopped in stores and online experienced less stress and spent more money overall, possibly because they found more good deals.

“You can browse online, do your shopping in the morning, have your turkey in the afternoon, line up your day for going into the stores on Friday, and then hit the stores early and get the best of both the online and the offline deals,” Best Buy Online president Scott Durschlag told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It’s really bricks and clicks.”

Click here to check out Cyber Monday deals you can get now.

Tap the Apps

A new set of smartphone apps can help you manage coupons and compare deals on the go. And with online price tags fluctuating throughout the day, some apps can even also help you decide when to pull the trigger.

Click here to see five Black Friday apps.

Don’t Sweat It in Line

The dread of waiting in long snaking lines can quash the excitement of finding great Black Friday deals, according to a 2011 market research study that measured shopper stress with sweat-sensing bracelets.

“The data shows the highest stress level occurred while shoppers were waiting for the store to open,” Shopper Sciences’ Ross said. “Once the store was open, shoppers were really happy, until they had to wait in the checkout line.”

But some simple relaxation techniques can help you keep your cool. Tell yourself, “There’s nothing I can do about it,” Dr. Redford Williams, director of Duke University’s Behavioral Medicine Research Center, said of waiting in lines. “Instead of fuming at the slowness, take a deep breath and say, ‘There’s no way I can make those people go faster, so I might as well just chill.”

Click here for tips on beating holiday stress.

Keep It Clean

It’s cold-and-flu season, and busy stores teem with germs. Make sure you bring home deals and not diseases like the flu by arming yourself with a flu shot and hand sanitizer. And be particularly careful when testing toys and electronics fondled by thousands before you.

“Try out your candidate iPhone, look at it, play with it, and then do your hand sanitizer thing,” Dr. William Schaffner, president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., told ABCNews.com.

Click here to see the germiest places at the mall.

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U.S. troops in Afghanistan celebrate Thanksgiving

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It was Army Sgt. Keith Wells' first Thanksgiving Day away from his family and despite a cornucopia of food provided for the troops, his taste buds were craving his wife's macaroni and cheese back home.

"My wife's a foodie — you know the Food Network, cooking shows. Everything she makes is golden," Wells of Charlotte, N.C., said Thursday at a large international military base in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The dining hall served up mac-and-cheese along with traditional Thanksgiving Day fixings. Wells was thankful for the good food, but he still missed his wife's home-cooking.

Huge hunks of beef greeted the estimated 2,500 diners as soldiers lined up in the dining hall. Red-white-and-blue decorations filled the room. Brochures titled "Learn about combat stress" served as table centerpieces.

There was roast turkey, sliced turkey, ham and rib-eye steaks. The troops were served steaming side dishes of dressing, corn, collard greens, yams and mashed potatoes and gravy that some lapped up with spoons. For dessert, there was a massive cake with a turkey etched in icing, pumpkin spice cookies and scores of pies.

A short walk from the dining hall, service members were playing a modified version of American football.

Parts of the scene could have come from a snapshot of any U.S. city: American guys in sweats tossing the pigskin, a scoreboard, a coin toss to start the game.

But on this military base, concrete barriers surrounded the field. The referees wore camouflaged shirts and the spectators carried rifles. The artificial turf was frayed and so dusty that when one player spiked the football, a puff of dirt rose from the field.

The players used a regulation football, but the game was a mix of football, soccer and rugby to fit the short field.

Some soldiers commented about the 11-year-old war that has claimed the lives of 2,029 American service members.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chuck Minton of Monroe, Ga., who has traveled extensively across Afghanistan, was optimistic. "It's been progressing here, getting better. The Afghans have taken over more missions," Minton said.

President Barack Obama pulled 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan in 2011 and 23,000 more this year, leaving about 66,000 American service members still deployed in the country. Nearly all international combat troops are to withdraw by the end of 2014 when Afghan forces will be fully in charge of securing the nation.

Army Maj. Rodney Gehrett of Colorado Springs, Colo., said he was surprised that the war was barely mentioned during the last U.S. presidential election — evidence that some Americans had tuned out the news from the front line a half a world away.

"The war in Afghanistan wasn't even brought up as a topic of conversation" during the election, Gehrett said. "It was a little surprising to me. Hopefully, that will change and people will realize that we still have troops here and they are fighting every day."

Army Sgt. Adam Draughn of Denver, Colo., said some people back home have the impression that the Afghan people don't want American troops in their country.

"Honestly, I think the biggest misconception in my opinion is that, you know, we actually are loved here," Draughn said. "The nationals do care about us. They do want us here to help them. We're not here uninvited."

Most of the holiday chatter, however, was focused on family.

Taking a break from the game, Army Capt. Robert Mikyska of North Aurora, Ill., pulled out a photocopied photo that was taken of he and his wife just before he deployed to Afghanistan nine months ago.

"Hi, honey!" Mikyska said, looking at the picture. "In a couple weeks, I'll be home. I can't wait to be back."

"My family's here," Army Spc. Ricky Clay, also of Monroe, Ga., said as he smiled and embraced his teammates on the sidelines of the football field.

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SpongeBob Christmas special goes stop-motion

LOS ANGELES (AP) — How does “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” squeeze even more fun out of our porous little hero and the Bikini Bottom gang? By turning the animated characters three-dimensional for their holiday special.

In a tribute to classic fare such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the “SpongeBob SquarePants” crew has been re-imagined as puppets and put through their comedy paces for stop-motion photography.

The story line as dreamed up by Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, and his musical collaborator Andy Paley: The denizens of Bikini Bottom are suddenly rude because of exposure to jerktonium, a plot by naughty Plankton to get on Santa’s (voiced by guest star John Goodman) nice list.

Plankton “wants to put everyone on their worst behavior when they should be on their best behavior, and zany mayhem ensues,” Kenny said.

“It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” debuts 9:30 p.m. EST Friday on CBS, followed by an encore on the show’s home network, Nickelodeon, at 7:30 p.m. EST Sunday, Dec. 9.

The first-time foray into stop-motion is a welcome change for the 13-year-old “SpongeBob,” Kenny said.

“It’s fun that after all these years we can still do stuff that’s a little different. It’s like reinventing the wheel a little bit — if you can refer to a square character as a wheel,” he added, unable to resist the quip.

The actor looks back fondly on childhood memories of “Rudolph” from the Rankin-Bass studio and other stop-action projects. Even the TV commercial that put Santa on an electric razor subbing for a sleigh gets a Kenny shoutout.

Asked if young viewers might be fazed by seeing the familiar characters in a new guise, Kenny mulled the question before rebutting it.

“The characters act the same, the recording process is exactly the same. Our job is exactly the same. … There’s still plenty of the animated mayhem and anarchy that happens in the 2-D version of the show.”

Screen Novelties, the Los Angeles studio that produced the Christmas special, made a feast out of the job. In just one of their inventive approaches, filmmakers used fruit-flavored cereal to create a coral reef.

“I came to the studio and they had hundreds of boxes of cereal open and were hot-gluing it together,” Kenny recalled.

The Patrick Star puppet was covered in wool-like material and SpongeBob “wasn’t a sponge but some kind of weird material they found somewhere,” he said. “They’re like ‘MacGyver,’ always repurposing something.”

The TV special has a small element of recycling. Kenny calls it a testament to “a goofy little song” he and Paley wrote three years ago — “Don’t Be a Jerk, (It’s Christmas).”

“Bring joy to the world, it’s the thing to do. But the world does not revolve around you. Don’t be a jerk, it’s Christmas” is among its bouncy yet cautionary verses.

The tune is among a dozen included on the digital release “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! Album,” most written by Kenny and Paley (a songwriter-producer who’s worked with artists including Brian Wilson and Blondie). Four songs are part of the special.

Music fans might want to check out the album for its craftsmanship. The veterans who play on it include harpist Corky Hale and harmonica player Tommy Morgan, both of whom have backed a roster of big stars, including Billie Holliday and Frank Sinatra.

The recording sessions proved an early holiday gift for Kenny.

“We’d spend a half-hour working and then make the musicians tell stories about who they played with,” he said.

___

Online:

http://spongebob.nick.com/

http://www.cbs.com/

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Greek PM presses for deal on loan

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece has reacted with dismay to the European Union‘s failure to agree to release vital rescue loan funds for the debt-ridden country, with the prime minister warning it was not just Greece’s future that hangs in the balance.

The delay prolongs uncertainty over the future of Greece, which faces a messy default that would threaten the entire euro currency used by 17 EU nations.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras stressed that Greece has done what its creditors from the EU and International Monetary Fund required. “Our partners, along with the IMF, also must do what they have committed to doing,” he said.

He said that “it is not just the future of our country, but the stability of the entire eurozone” that depend on the success of negotiations in coming days.

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Facebook proposes to end voting on privacy issues

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is proposing to end its practice of letting users vote on changes to its privacy policies. The company says it will continue to let users comment on proposed updates.

The world’s biggest social media company plans to announce Wednesday that its voting mechanism, which is triggered only if enough people comment on proposed changes, has become a system that emphasizes the quantity of responses over the quality of discussion.

Facebook began letting users vote on privacy changes in 2009. Since then, it has gone public and its user base has ballooned from around 200 million to more than 1 billion. As part of the 2009 policy, users’ votes only count if more than 30 percent of all Facebook’s active users partake.

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