Antismoking Outlays Drop Despite Tobacco Revenue

Faced with tight budgets, states have spent less on tobacco prevention over the past two years than in any period since the national tobacco settlement in 1998, despite record high revenues from the settlement and tobacco taxes, according to a report to be released on Thursday.

Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

State antismoking spending is the lowest since the 1998 national tobacco settlement.

States are on track to collect a record $25.7 billion in tobacco taxes and settlement money in the current fiscal year, but they are set to spend less than 2 percent of that on prevention, according to the report, by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which compiles the revenue data annually. The figures come from state appropriations for the fiscal year ending in June.

The settlement awarded states an estimated $246 billion over its first 25 years. It gave states complete discretion over the money, and many use it for programs unrelated to tobacco or to plug budget holes. Public health experts say it lacks a mechanism for ensuring that some portion of the money is set aside for tobacco prevention and cessation programs.

“There weren’t even gums, let alone teeth,” Timothy McAfee, the director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, referring to the allocation of funds for tobacco prevention and cessation in the terms of the settlement.

Spending on tobacco prevention peaked in 2002 at $749 million, 63 percent above the level this year. After six years of declines, spending ticked up again in 2008, only to fall by 36 percent during the recession, the report said.

Tobacco use is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 Americans every year, according to the C.D.C.

The report did not count federal money for smoking prevention, which Vince Willmore, the vice president for communications at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, estimated to be about $522 million for the past four fiscal years. The sum — about $130 million a year — was not enough to bring spending back to earlier levels.

The $500 million a year that states spend on tobacco prevention is a tiny fraction of the $8 billion a year that tobacco companies spend to market their products, according to a Federal Trade Commission report in September.

Nationally, 19 percent of adults smoke, down from over 40 percent in 1965. But rates remain high for less-educated Americans. Twenty-seven percent of Americans with only a high school diploma smoke, compared with just 8 percent of those with a college degree or higher, according to C.D.C. data from 2010. The highest rate — 34 percent — was among black men who did not graduate from high school.

“Smoking used to be the rich man’s habit,” said Danny McGoldrick, the vice president for research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, “and now it’s decidedly a poor person’s behavior.”

Aggressive antismoking programs are the main tools that cities and states have to reach the demographic groups in which smoking rates are the highest, making money to finance them even more critical, Mr. McGoldrick said.

The decline in spending comes amid growing certainty among public health officials that antismoking programs, like help lines and counseling, actually work. California went from having a smoking rate above the national average 20 years ago to having the second-lowest rate in the country after modest but consistent spending on programs that help people quit and prevent children from starting, Dr. McAfee said.

An analysis by Washington State, cited in the report, found that it saved $5 in tobacco-related hospitalization costs for every $1 spent during the first 10 years of its program.

Budget cuts have eviscerated some of the most effective tobacco prevention programs, the report said. This year, state financing for North Carolina’s program has been eliminated. Washington State’s program has been cut by about 90 percent in recent years, and for the third year in a row, Ohio has not allocated any state money for what was once a successful program, the report said.

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Stocks kick off the day mixed

The stock market wobbled between small gains and losses in early trading Thursday.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 18 points at 13,016 a half hour after the opening bell.

Boeing led the Dow lower, sliding 1.2 percent. United Airlines said a failed electrical generator in one of its new Boeing 787s caused the plan to make an emergency landing in New Orleans, shortly after taking off from Houston.

Europe's Central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged. Though rates remain at record lows, European unemployment continue to rise. The central bank cut its growth forecast for next year from positive to negative.

The Labor Department said unemployment benefits applications dropped 25,000 last week to 370,000, a level consistent with modest hiring. The decline was also a sign that the spike in applications caused by Superstorm Sandy has faded.

The report comes a day before the government releases its closely watched jobs survey. Private economists forecast that hiring in November sank sharply from the previous month. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 7.9 percent. Some economists say the storm could cause the Labor Department's hiring figures to be much lower.

In other trading, the Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped two points to 1,407. The Nasdaq composite slipped one point at 2,973.

H&R Block jumped 4 percent after posting revenue and earnings that beat analysts' estimates. The country's largest tax preparation company reported a smaller loss, helped by cost-cutting efforts. It typically turns in a loss in the August-to-October period because it takes in most of its revenue during the U.S. tax season. H&R Block gained 77 cents to $18.14.

Apple dropped $2.30 to $536.34. In separate interviews, CEO Tim Cook said Apple will produce one of its existing lines of Mac computers in the United States next year and will spend $100 million in 2013 to shift production of the line from China. The news comes a day after Apple's stock took its worst fall in four years, erasing $35 million from its market value.

Lululemon Athletica fell $1.21 to $67.38. The Canadian yoga wear maker said it expects sales growth to slow. Its fourth-quarter earnings and revenue forecasts also came in below Wall Street's expectations.

In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year note slipped to 1.57 percent. That's down from 1.59 percent late Wednesday.

For the month, the S&P 500 is down 0.5 percent and the Dow is up 0.1 percent. The Nasdaq has lost 1.2 percent.

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Citigroup to cut 11,000 jobs and take $1-billion charge

A Citibank branch office in San Rafael, Calif., in July. The company said Wednesday it would close dozens of branches in the U.S. and several foreign countries. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / December 5, 2012)

By Jim Puzzanghera

December 5, 2012, 7:25 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Citigroup Inc. will cut 11,000 jobs and take a $1-billion pre-tax charge to its fourth-quarter earnings as it tries to reduce costs and reposition itself under new corporate leadership.

The job cuts -- including closing 44 U.S. consumer banking branches -- will save $900 million in 2013 and produce $1.1 billion in annual savings in 2014 and beyond, the company said in announcing the steps Wednesday.

"These actions are logical next steps in Citi's transformation," said Chief Executive Michael Corbat, who took over in October after the surprising departure of Vikram Pandit.

"While we are committed to — and our strategy continues to leverage — our unparalleled global network and footprint, we have identified areas and products where our scale does not provide for meaningful returns," Corbat said.

Citigroup stock was up about 4% in early trading Wednesday.

About 6,200 of the layoffs will come from Citi's consumer banking operations in the U.S. and around the world as the company focuses on the 150 cities with the "highest growth potential," it said. 

In addition to cutting 44 U.S. branches, Citigroup will close 14 in Brazil, seven in Hong Kong, 15 in South Korea and four in Hungary. The company also said it expected to "sell or significantly scale back" its consumer banking operations in Pakistan, Paraguay, Romania, Turkey and Uruguay.

Other cuts include 1,900 jobs in its group serving institutional clients.

ALSO:

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Citigroup chief's quick exit has Wall Street buzzing, speculating

Follow Jim Puzzanghera on Twitter and Google+

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Austrian farmers dip into Internet “milking” craze

VIENNA (Reuters) – Dumping a bottle of milk over your head and filming it for a video post on the Internet has become a popular youth craze, but Austrian farmers say the spillage is a crying shame.

“Milking”, as the trend is known, is among a variety of tongue-in-cheek stunts in which young people shoot pictures or videos of themselves posing as owls, planks of wood, or famous people and then share them on YouTube and other social media.

Austria’s AMA farm lobby on Wednesday launched its own “true milking” campaign to decry the wanton waste of dairy resources and to encourage consumers to drink it instead.

“At a time when too much food already lands in the trash, it is worth questioning dumping milk. This is a valuable product of nature that our farmers provide daily with lots of love and labor,” AMA milk marketing manager Peter Hamedinger said.

Milking has become an Internet hit, with one video from Newcastle in England getting more than half a million clicks on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtJPAv1UiAE

AMA’s marketing arm said the milking craze seemed to reflect a strange youthful protest against authority. It sought to one-up the video trend with its own clip featuring a young man who holds a carton of milk high above his head and drinks the contents without spilling a drop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsJ3OsP1Fks&feature=youtu.be

“In line with the nature of the medium, this message is not communicated in a commercial way and absolutely not with finger pointing, but rather with a wink of the eye for the Internet generation,” the farm products board said in a statement.

(Reporting by Michael Shields, editing by Paul Casciato)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Let the debate end: Grammy noms anybody's guess

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — It's a brutal year to be in the Grammy nominations handicapping game.

Sure, there are a few safe bets. Mumford & Sons and Frank Ocean are expected to take a share of nominations when they're announced Wednesday night on national television during "The Grammy Nominations Concert Live!" in Nashville.

And popular songs by Gotye, fun., Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen may land those artists on the list as well, though Jepsen harbors some doubt her omnipresent song "Call Me Maybe" will net a nod.

"I would be so shocked," the 27-year-old singer said last week. "But this year has taught me to look forward to surprises and just be ready for anything. So, cross your fingers for me."

Viral songs like Jepsen's seemed to be the theme of the year, and with no watershed albums during the nominating period for the 2013 Grammys like Adele's "21" or Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," it's not clear who will turn out as this year's top nominee.

Thus the guessing game.

The Grammy nominations period ended Sept. 30 and three of the year's top four debuting albums — from Swift, One Direction and Jason Aldean — came after that date. Rihanna also released a new album after the period ended. All could have songs nominated, but a popular album is the quickest way to accumulate multiple nods.

Mumford & Sons slipped in just under the deadline. Introduced to much of their burgeoning fan base through a 2011 appearance on the Grammys, the British folk-rock band could return with a flourish after selling 600,000 copies of "Babel" in the first week of release and setting streaming records on Spotify.

And Ocean showed the kind of bravery that might be rewarded by The Recording Academy's voters when he announced in liner notes for his album "channel ORANGE" that he'd had a same-sex encounter, causing an industry-wide discussion of the issue.

Questions surround many of the other artists who might be considered sure bets, however. Gotye should be a lock in multiple categories, but his viral song "Somebody That I Used to Know," featuring Kimbra, wasn't submitted in the song of the year category because of a sample, eliminating one of its most viable prospects.

Others who might be considered possible top nominees like Drake and The Black Keys released their platinum-selling, hit-spawning albums late last year and they'll have to overcome short-term memory issues among voters.

Sean Garrett, a producer for artists like Usher and Beyonce with multiple Grammy nominations, said a lack of clear trends during the nominating period made it difficult to guess going into the show.

"It was sort of an iffy kind of year in my opinion," Garrett said in a phone interview. "I'm going to be honest: I think the politics kind of slowed the music down."

He expects pop stars like Jepsen, Bieber, Swift and Korean sensation PSY to take home nominations, but doesn't see an artist accumulating a high number of nominations. That could leave room for newer acts, including fun., one of his favorites.

"They have a very clever sound," Garrett said. "The lead singer (Nate Reuss) has an amazing, amazing voice. I feel like they just came with something that was a bit different. It was mainstream pop music and it had some edge to it. And there was great songwriting there."

Fun., with their anthemic hit "We Are Young," are among the night's performers, joining Maroon 5, Ne-Yo, Luke Bryan, The Who, Hunter Hayes and others.

"It just feels like we spent the last 12 years pulling back the arrow and this year we just let it go," fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff said. "This last year has been incredible and amazing and hard and I don't even know what it would have been like if we didn't have 10 or 12 years of experience because it still feels like we're learning everything for the first time."

The nominations show is being held outside Los Angeles for the first time in its five-year history. LL Cool J returns, co-hosting the show live on CBS at 10 p.m. EST from Bridgestone Arena with Swift.

It's the first official Grammy activity in Music City since 1973, when the late Johnny Cash kicked off the live broadcast. He'll figure into Wednesday night's as well when Dierks Bentley and The Band Perry pay tribute to the man in black.

"So we're going to do that as a tribute to Johnny, a tribute to Nashville, a tribute to country music, a tribute to being back here," longtime Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich said. "And I think it will be magical."

___

AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report from New York City.

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Online:

http://grammy.com

___

Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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Extended Use of Breast Cancer Drug Suggested

The widely prescribed drug tamoxifen already plays a major role in reducing the risk of death from breast cancer. But a new study suggests that women should be taking the drug for twice as long as is now customary, a finding that could upend the standard that has been in place for about 15 years.

In the study, patients who continued taking tamoxifen for 10 years were less likely to have the cancer come back or to die from the disease than women who took the drug for only five years, the current standard of care.

“Certainly, the advice to stop in five years should not stand,” said Prof. Richard Peto, a medical statistician at Oxford University and senior author of the study, which was published in The Lancet on Wednesday and presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Breast cancer specialists not involved in the study said the results could have the biggest impact on premenopausal women, who account for a fifth to a quarter of new breast cancer cases. Postmenopausal women tend to take different drugs, but some experts said the results suggest that those drugs as well might be taken for a longer duration.

“We’ve been waiting for this result,” said Dr. Robert W. Carlson, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. “I think it is especially practice-changing in premenopausal women because the results do favor a 10-year regimen.”

Dr. Eric P. Winer, chief of women’s cancers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said that even women who completed their five years of tamoxifen months or years ago might consider starting on the drug again.

Tamoxifen blocks the effect of the hormone estrogen, which fuels tumor growth in estrogen receptor-positive cancers that account for about 65 percent of cases in premenopausal women. Some small studies in the 1990s suggested that there was no benefit to using tamoxifen longer than five years, so that has been the standard.

About 227,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States, and an estimated 30,000 of them would be in premenopausal women with ER-positive cancer and prime candidates for tamoxifen. But postmenopausal women also take tamoxifen if they cannot tolerate the alternative drugs, known as aromatase inhibitors.

The new study, known as Atlas, included nearly 7,000 women with ER-positive disease who had completed five years of tamoxifen. They came from about three dozen countries. Half were chosen at random to take the drug another five years, while the others were told to stop.

In the group assigned to take tamoxifen for 10 years, 21.4 percent had a recurrence of breast cancer in the ensuing ten years, meaning the period 5 to 14 years after their diagnoses. The recurrence rate for those who took only five years of tamoxifen was 25.1 percent.

About 12.2 percent of those in the 10-year treatment group died from breast cancer, compared with 15 percent for those in the control group.

There was virtually no difference in death and recurrence between the two groups during the five years of extra tamoxifen. The difference came in later years, suggesting that tamoxifen has a carry-over effect that lasts long after women stop taking it.

Whether these differences are big enough to cause women to take the drug for twice as long remains to be seen.

“The treatment effect is real, but it’s modest,” said Dr. Paul E. Goss, director of breast cancer research at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Tamoxifen has side effects, including endometrial cancer, blood clots and hot flashes, which cause many women to stop taking the drug. In the Atlas trial, it appears that roughly 40 percent of the patients assigned to take tamoxifen for the additional five years stopped prematurely.

Some 3.1 percent of those taking the extra five years of tamoxifen got endometrial cancer versus 1.6 percent in the control group. However, only 0.6 percent of those in the longer treatment group died from endometrial cancer or pulmonary blood clots, compared with 0.4 percent in the control group.

“Over all, the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially,” Trevor J. Powles of the Cancer Center London, said in a commentary published by The Lancet.

Dr. Judy E. Garber, director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber, said many women have a love-hate relationship with hormone therapies.

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Netflix buys exclusive rights to Disney movies

Netflix Inc. has acquired exclusive U.S. rights to movies from Walt Disney Studios in a deal that catapults the Internet video-on-demand service into direct competition with pay TV giants such as HBO and Showtime.

The three-year agreement takes effect in 2016 and is a blow to the pay channel Starz, which currently has the rights to broadcast Disney movies, including its Pixar animated films and Marvel superhero pictures, about eight months after they are released in theaters.

Starz's sole remaining movie provider is now Sony Pictures. That partnership ends in 2016.

VIDEO: Disney buys Lucasfilm - Mickey meet Darth Maul

Disney has also agreed to give Netflix nonexclusive streaming rights to more of its older titles — including "Dumbo," "Pocahontas" and "Alice in Wonderland" — starting immediately.

Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, called the deal "a bold leap forward for Internet television."

"We are incredibly pleased and proud this iconic family brand is teaming with Netflix to make it happen," he said.

Netflix stock soared on the news, rising $10.65, or 14%, to $85.65.

Shares in Starz's parent company, Liberty Media Corp., fell $5.49, or 5%, to $105.56.

Currently, Netflix has nonexclusive rights to movies from Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via a deal with pay channel Epix, as well as an array of library titles from other studios. Its only exclusive movie rights come from independent studios such as Relativity Media and DreamWorks Animation. It also has a wide variety of television reruns.

Sarandos and Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings have long said the company wanted to get exclusive pay TV rights to films from one of Hollywood's six major studios to boost its online entertainment service.

PHOTOS: Disney without Pixar

However, Hastings has also at times downplayed the importance of new movies. Netflix previously had streaming rights to Disney and Sony movies via a deal with Starz. In January, investors expressed their concerns that the pending disappearance of those movies would hurt the service. Hastings said in a letter to investors that Disney films accounted for only 2% of domestic streaming and the loss would not be felt.

Since then, though, the Disney movie slate has become more attractive. At that time, Netflix did not have access to movies from Disney's Marvel superhero unit or the "Star Wars" titles from its pending acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd.

The end of the Starz agreement accelerated a trend that has seen Netflix evolve into a television company, with reruns of shows such as "Mad Men" accounting for about two-thirds of the content streamed by users.

With several original programs launching next year, including the Kevin Spacey political drama "House of Cards," and a direct connection to a growing number of Internet-enabled televisions, Netflix is on the verge of standing on par with many TV networks.

Netflix charges $8 a month for its streaming service, while premium cable networks such as HBO cost $13 to $18 a month, and that's on top of a monthly bill for other channels that typically exceeds $50. It remains to be seen whether the addition of Disney products and more original programming could lead Netflix to increase its price.

PHOTOS: Hollywood back lot moments

The Netflix spending spree could continue, with Sarandos telling Bloomberg News on Monday that his company would bid for rights to Sony movies when its Starz deal expires.

Netflix might have a tougher time wresting away the rights to Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox or Universal Pictures releases from their current deals with HBO, which like Warner is part of Time Warner Inc. Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM are almost certain to stick with Epix, of which the trio are co-owners.

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A Utah craftsman races illness to finish a vintage carousel

PETERSBORO, Utah — By any measure, Vean Woodbrey looms large.

Dressed in denim bib overalls, he stands 6 feet 4, weighs 275 pounds and wears size 16 shoes. His children — all 16 of them — jokingly call him Sasquatch because of the cartoonish spread of his footprint. So do many of his 70 grandchildren and great-grandkids.

And then there is the 7-foot-tall wooden giraffe he's carving inside his home workshop in this farming town near the Idaho border. He runs a gnarled hand along the figure's neck, wiping off the sawdust that covers everything like an early season snow.

"It's simple, but there's a certain beauty to it," Woodbrey, 69, said. "The best part is that it came straight out of my imagination."

Woodbrey is an aging craftsman on a mission to finish an amusement-park-sized carousel for his grandchildren and other other youth in this Mormon community before his declining health finally fails him.

As he painstakingly crafts a menagerie of 22 animals — horses, a panda, a zebra, a lion, a tiger, a camel, an elephant and the giraffe — Woodbrey knows time is running out. He has already battled prostate and bone cancer, both of which have slowed his once-loping gait. He also suffers from a neuropathy that numbs the toes in both feet, making him teeter like a child's top in its final throes of movement. To keep his balance in his shop, he holds onto his animals and various saws and sanders.

Every morning, he slowly scales the ramp onto his second-floor workshop to create his imaginary world out of scavenged lumber. Each day is one more sunrise wrung out of a life as a father, community leader, coach and scoutmaster.

"I've got to get this carousel done," he said. "There's this sense of urgency, but I'm inching my way there."

There have been delays: Once he stapled three fingers together with a nail gun. Then he took a fall and broke five toes on one foot. He's already burned through two drills.

He shakes his head. The illness has made him see things so clearly. The doctors say the bone cancer is 85% licked, but that either could return at any time. "When you have cancer, you take an inventory of what you've done, but there's so many things you still want to do," Woodbrey said. "Every day, my wife knows exactly where I am — up in the wood shop with my animals. I'm a man on a time clock."

****

Woodbrey's fondness for carousels dates to his boyhood in San Diego, where his father took the family's four children to a local amusement park. "My dad would buy one ticket he said would go to the eldest — and that was him," he said. "But he'd grab so many brass rings he'd win free tickets so we could all ride."

When the family moved to Salt Lake City, Woodbrey collected soda bottles to redeem for the money to ride the carousel at a local park. If he was lucky, he'd make enough to buy a drink or an ice cream cone.

Years later, after Woodbrey married his wife, Tonya, and they started raising their 16 kids, he took a job at nearby Hill Air Force Base where, for 40 years, he repaired F-4 fighter jets and, later, Minuteman missile systems. At home, he began making wooden dollhouses for his eight daughters and toys for his eight sons.

At age 58, he was struck with prostate cancer. As he lay in the hospital, one of his kids bought him a copy of a magazine dedicated to carousels. Once again, he was hooked — checking each new issue for trends, seeing which old carousels were up for sale.

Eight years later, Woodbrey was treated for a golf-ball-sized tumor in his skull. After weeks of radiation treatments, weary and depressed, he asked his wife, "What am I going to do?"

"She responded: 'Go do whatever you want. Just don't give up.'"

Woodbrey retired from his job at the base and began scouting a carousel to refurbish. He finally found the 7-ton shell of a 1930s Allan Herschell ride — its animals long ago sold off as antiques by the previous owner — for sale in Montana for $5,000

Woodbrey got the contraption home and set to work. One day, he called his eight sons and eight sons-in-law over to the house for a meal. But first the men were instructed to hoist the carousel's 16-foot center pole aloft into the sky and set it into place. They worked together, grunting and sweating, like Amish barn builders. "I told them nobody could eat until we were done," Woodbrey recalled.

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Swiss spy agency warns U.S., Britain about huge data leak

ZURICH (Reuters) – Secret information on counter-terrorism shared by foreign governments may have been compromised by a massive data theft by a senior IT technician for the NDB, Switzerland‘s intelligence service, European national security sources said.

Intelligence agencies in the United States and Britain are among those who were warned by Swiss authorities that their data could have been put in jeopardy, said one of the sources, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information.

Swiss authorities arrested the technician suspected in the data theft last summer amid signs he was acting suspiciously. He later was released from prison while a criminal investigation by the office of Switzerland’s Federal Attorney General continues, according to two sources familiar with the case.

The suspect’s name was not made public. Swiss authorities believe he intended to sell the stolen data to foreign officials or commercial buyers.

A European security source said investigators now believe the suspect became disgruntled because he felt he was being ignored and his advice on operating the data systems was not being taken seriously.

Swiss news reports and the sources close to the investigation said that investigators believe the technician downloaded terrabytes, running into hundreds of thousands or even millions of printed pages, of classified material from the Swiss intelligence service’s servers onto portable hard drives. He then carried them out of government buildings in a backpack.

One of the sources familiar with the investigation said that intelligence services like the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, routinely shared data on counter-terrorism and other issues with the NDB. Swiss authorities informed U.S. and British agencies that such data could have been compromised, the source said.

News of the theft of intelligence data surfaced with Switzerland’s reputation for secrecy and discretion in government and financial affairs already under assault.

Swiss authorities have been investigating, and in some cases have charged, whistleblowers and some European government officials for using criminal methods to acquire confidential financial data about suspected tax evaders from Switzerland’s traditionally secretive banks.

The suspect in the spy data theft worked for the NDB, or Federal Intelligence Service, which is part of Switzerland’s Defense Ministry, for about eight years.

He was described by a source close to the investigation as a “very talented” technician and senior enough to have “administrator rights,” giving him unrestricted access to most or all of the NDB’s networks, including those holding vast caches of secret data.

Swiss investigators seized portable storage devices containing the stolen data after they arrested the suspect, according to the sources. At this point, they said, Swiss authorities believe that the suspect was arrested and the stolen data was impounded before he had an opportunity to sell it.

However, one source said that Swiss investigators could not be positive the suspect did not sell or pass on any of the information before his arrest, which is why Swiss authorities felt obliged to notify foreign intelligence partners their information may have been compromised.

Representatives of U.S. and British intelligence agencies had no immediate response to detailed queries about the case submitted by Reuters, although one U.S. official said he was unaware of the case.

SECURITY PROCEDURES QUESTIONED

Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber and a senior prosecutor, Carolo Bulletti, announced in September that they were investigating the data theft and its alleged perpetrator. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said she was prohibited by law from disclosing the suspect’s identity.

A spokesman for the NDB said he could not comment on the investigation.

At their September press conference, Swiss officials indicated that they believed the suspect intended to sell the data he stole to foreign countries. They did not talk about the possible compromise of information shared with the NDB by U.S. and British intelligence.

A European source familiar with the case said it raised serious questions about security procedures and structures at the NDB, a relatively new agency which combined the functions of predecessor agencies that separately conducted foreign and domestic intelligence activities for the Swiss government.

The source said that under the NDB’s present structure, its human resources staff – responsible for, among other things, ensuring the reliability and trustworthiness of the agency’s personnel – is lumped together organizationally with the agency’s information technology division. This potentially made it difficult or confusing for the subdivision’s personnel to investigate themselves, the source said.

According to the source, investigators now believe that in the months before his arrest, the data theft suspect displayed warning signs that should have been spotted by his bosses or by security officials.

The source said that the suspect became so disgruntled earlier this year that he stopped showing up for work.

However, according to Swiss news reports, the NDB did not realize that something was amiss until the largest Swiss bank, UBS, expressed concern to authorities about a potentially suspicious attempt to set up a new numbered bank account, which then was traced to the NDB technician.

A Swiss parliamentary committee is now conducting its own investigation into the data theft and is expected to report next spring. Investigators are known to be concerned that the NDB lacks investigative powers, such as to search premises or conduct wiretaps, which are widely used by counter-intelligence investigators in other countries.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Fleetwood Mac readies tour and new music

NEW YORK (AP) — Fleetwood Mac is heading back on the road, and that means the top-selling group will release new music — sort of.

On its 34-city North American tour, which kicks off April 4 in Columbus, Ohio, the band will perform two new songs, and it could mean a new album will follow. Or not.

Stevie Nicks recently sang on tracks that Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie worked on, calling the sessions "great." But Nicks also says she's not sure where the band fits in today's music industry.

"Whether or not we're gonna do any more (songs), we don't know because we're so completely bummed out with the state of the music industry and the fact that nobody even wants a full record," she said. "Everybody wants two songs, so we're going to give them two songs."

Nicks said depending on the response to the new tracks — which Buckingham calls "the most Fleetwood Mac-y stuff ... in a long time" — more material could come next.

"Maybe we'll get an EP out of it or something," Buckingham said.

Nicks will continue to record solo albums, though. The group is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the best-selling "Rumours" album, which has moved some 20 million units in the United States. She knows that's not possible again, despite the success of Adele's "21," which has sold 10 million units in America in less than two years.

"This is Adele's 'Rumours,'" Nicks said. "She had a baby, she's going to take a year off to take care of her baby — that's why I never had any kids. She's going to go back and start writing again, you never know what the next record's going to be. Is it going to sell 10 million records? You don't know," she said.

Buckingham said he initially wanted to record a new album, but Nicks "wasn't too into that." But the guitarist and singer knows that new music isn't a priority for the band's fans.

"It wouldn't matter if they didn't hear anything new. In a way there's a freedom to that — it becomes not what you got, but what you do with what you got. Part of the challenge of this tour is figuring out a presentation that has some twists and turns to it without having a full album," he said.

Fleetwood Mac, which was formed in 1967, last released an album in 2003, though they hit the road in 2009. Nicks and Buckingham — who originally joined the band in 1974 as a couple — both released solo albums and toured last year. Buckingham had suggested that Fleetwood Mac tour last year, but says getting everyone to agree was tough.

"If you look at Fleetwood Mac as a group, you can make the case of saying we're a bunch of individuals who don't necessarily belong in the same group together, but it's the synergy of that that makes us so good. But it also makes the politics a little more tenuous," he said. "You can say that not only can it be a political minefield, someone's always causing trouble, right? I caused trouble for years so I can't point any fingers."

The tour also includes cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and will end June 12 in Detroit.

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Online:

http://www.fleetwoodmac.com/

You can follow Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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