Ashton Kutcher files for divorce from Demi Moore

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ashton Kutcher filed court papers Friday to end his seven-year marriage to actress Demi Moore.

The actor's divorce petition cites irreconcilable differences and does not list a date that the couple separated. Moore announced last year that she was ending her marriage to the actor 15 years her junior, but she never filed a petition.

Kutcher's filing does not indicate that the couple has a prenuptial agreement. The filing states Kutcher signed the document Friday, hours before it was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Kutcher and Moore married in September 2005 and until recently kept their relationship very public, communicating with each other and fans on the social networking site Twitter. After their breakup, Moore changed her name on the site from (at)mrskutcher to (at)justdemi.

Kutcher currently stars on CBS' "Two and a Half Men."

Messages sent to Kutcher's and Moore's publicists were not immediately returned Friday.

Moore, 50, and Kutcher, 34, created the DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, in 2010 to combat the organized sexual exploitation of girls around the globe. They later lent their support to the United Nations' efforts to fight human trafficking, a scourge the international organization estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.

Moore was previously married to actor Bruce Willis for 13 years. They had three daughters together — Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle — before divorcing in 2000. Willis later married model-actress Emma Heming in an intimate 2009 ceremony at his home in Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands that attended by their children, as well as Moore and Kutcher.

Kutcher has been dating former "That '70s Show" co-star Mila Kunis.

The divorce filing was first reported Friday by People magazine.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP.

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The Neediest Cases: The Daughter of a Sick Woman Falls Prey to a Craigslist Scam

Sitting side by side on their living room sofa, Patricia Morales and her daughter, Katherine, could be any mother-daughter duo. Both have dark hair, dark eyes and welcoming, infectious smiles.

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Patricia Morales, 62, at home in the Bronx. Her treatment for ailments like rheumatoid arthritis and hepatitis C led to depression.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,375,394

Recorded Wednesday:

182,251

*Total:

$3,557,645

Last year to date:

$3,320,812

*Includes $709,856 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

But the ties that bind them go beyond their genes, beyond the bodies they were born with.

“It’s called a neck ring. It’s a silver curved barbell, one inch,” Katherine, 20, said as she swept aside her shoulder-length black hair to show the piercing in the back of her neck, a show of solidarity with her mother. She had it done when she was 16. “I wanted to know what it felt like for my mom.”

Her mother then turned around and outlined with her finger two lengthy scars that run down her back.

“I’ve had a lot of physical problems,” Ms. Morales, 62, said. Shaking her head at her daughter’s piercing, she added, “I’ve had rods put in my upper and lower spine, but I could never do that.”

The rods were surgically planted to treat herniated discs, the result of having a cruel combination of osteoporosis, hepatitis C, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. Ms. Morales contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion she received in 1972 after the birth of her only son, she said.

“I didn’t even know about it until 10 years ago,” she said. “My liver blood count was a little high.”

Since the diagnosis, Ms. Morales, a former schoolteacher, has ridden the arduous highs and lows common to patients with hepatitis C. Her treatments for the disease, which debilitates the liver over time, have included pills and injections that can cause depression. Ms. Morales, a single parent, found an unforgiving salve in alcohol.

“I was depressed; I was totally drunk,” she said. “I didn’t want to live anymore.”

Then, about a year ago, she reached a turning point when visiting her hepatitis C specialist.

“I was 210 pounds,” she said. “The doctor said: ‘You have to stop drinking. You have to lose weight.’ ”

To help combat the depression, her doctor referred her to Jewish Association Serving the Aging, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She began weekly counseling sessions with a social worker and started taking an antidepressant medication. The federation drew about $600 from the fund in May so that Ms. Morales could buy a mattress.

“I had a horrible bed,” she said. “I felt like I was sleeping on rocks, and with rods in my back, I was waking up every hour.”

After several months of therapy and starting a diet, Ms. Morales was on her way to losing 60 pounds. Today, she weighs 148.

Light was starting to show itself again when the family took an unexpected financial hit this summer. While taking time off from attending Hostos Community College, Katherine Morales looked for work on Craigslist.

“I saw my mom, and I realized I needed to get a job,” Katherine said shyly. “This guy asked me to be his personal assistant, and he asked me to wire money.”

Offering $400 a week, the man requested help transferring almost $2,000 from what he said was his wife’s account. He transferred the money to Katherine’s account, asking her to wire it to a bank account in Malaysia.

Shortly after she wired the money, the bank froze the account, which Katherine and her mother shared. It was then that Katherine realized she had been the victim of a scam. The money transferred into her account turned out to have been stolen, and she was responsible for repaying it.

Katherine went to detectives immediately with more than 20 pages of evidentiary e-mails, but found that she was unable to file a complaint.

“They told me it wasn’t enough,” she said. “These things happen all the time.”

They lost almost $2,000.

Ms. Morales lives on a fixed income. She receives just over $700 a month from Social Security and $200 month in food stamps. The rent for the apartment she shares with her daughter in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx is $230, and Ms. Morales has a monthly combined phone and cable bill of $140. Ms. Morales has a son, but he is unable to help the family.

Falling behind on her bills, Ms. Morales turned once again to JASA for help paying a combined phone and cable bill of nearly $200, a grant the agency drew from the Neediest Cases Fund.

“It was terrible, because my intention was to help my mom,” said Katherine, who has since found a part-time job at a vitamin shop.

Ms. Morales has been feeling much better, but she is nervous about an appointment with her hepatitis C specialist in January.

“I’m taking things one day at a time, but I’m looking forward to someone taking care of me,” she said. “I want to live a little bit longer, but not that long.”

“Why are you putting a time limit on it?” Katherine said, jokingly. “Seventy’s the new 20!” she added, nudging her mother in the side. “Remember, the doctor said you wouldn’t live past your late 50s, but you did.”

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Stores hope last-minute Christmas shoppers revive holiday sales

With three days left until Christmas, last-minute shoppers are surging into malls in a mad dash for gifts as retailers extend store hours and trot out steep discounts in a final holiday-season push.

Merchants are hoping procrastinators will give them a boost this weekend. Many stores saw a worrying drop in sales in recent weeks after a robust start on Black Friday. Several are rolling out promotions as they try to make up for lost steam.

Toys R Us stores nationwide began an 88-hour, all-day-all-night marathon Friday that continues until 10 p.m. Christmas Eve. Macy's is welcoming shoppers for 48 straight hours at most of its stores on this final weekend before Christmas. Target is staying open until midnight Sunday.

At the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles' Fairfax district, shoppers swarmed the stores and cars jammed the parking lots. Christmas carols blasted from speakers. And fake reindeer and a sleigh arced overhead.

"The panic is coming in waves," sighed Angie Hill, 44, of Huntington Beach. "I've barely just started. There's still a lot of people left to buy gifts for."

The marketing director said she normally starts shopping weeks before Christmas, but a new job left her with little free time. She pointed to bags holding a magic kit for her son and exercise clothes for her husband — the very first gifts she had bought for the big day. "My shopping list is getting bigger every minute."

She's not alone. Two-thirds of Americans — 132 million people — haven't yet finished their holiday shopping, according to a survey released this week by Consumer Reports. About 14% have yet to start buying gifts, and 9% — or 17 million people — will still be rushing to cross items off their Christmas lists on Christmas Eve.

"People are very focused. They have their list and it's bam, bam, bam! They are trying to check off what they need, get in and get out," said Kim Freeburn, a district vice president of Macy's stores. "It's an intense customer this weekend."

Both the Grove and the Americana at Brand shopping mall in Glendale have been besieged with shoppers over the last few weeks and expect a similar surge in the last few days before Christmas, said Paul Kurzawa, chief operating officer of Caruso Affiliated, which owns both shopping centers.

"The last few weeks have been phenomenal, and this weekend is a continuation of that as people rush in for last-minute gift buying," he said. "You have the last weekend and you get an extra bite on Monday as well."

So far, the average American has spent $340 on presents, the Consumer Reports survey said. An earlier report from Gallup found that shoppers planned to shell out $770 apiece for the holiday. The National Retail Federation predicted total holiday spending of $586.1 billion this year, up 4.1% from last year. It's a crucial time for merchants, which can make up to 40% of their annual sales during the season.

"Holiday sales have been off for weeks," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group. He blamed a lack of exciting merchandise and a hyped-up Black Friday that may have pulled sales earlier into the season. "The bad news is this year will be based on price more than merchandise, as consumers have been groomed to wait to be rewarded with better discounts."

CeCe Solorzano, 30, says she always waits until the weekend before Christmas to scoop up the best discounts.

"I'm going to shop all day tomorrow and the weekend. Hopefully I'll be done on the 24th of December," said the Santa Clarita marketing specialist, who has to find presents for a dozen friends and family members. "I've really waited until the last possible moment this year, but the longer you wait, the better the deals."

Target just rolled out its "Last Minute Sale" that will run until Christmas Eve and is focused on popular gadgets and toys such as iPod Nanos and Easy-Bake Ovens.

"We see those last-minute panicked guests" but also shoppers buying treats for themselves, spokeswoman Donna Egan said. "We try to accommodate the surge of guests, procrastinators or not."

At the Best Buy store in Westfield Culver City, there will be one cash register on Christmas Eve dedicated just to buying gift cards, general manager Margie Kenney said. "It's a huge day for gift cards," she said. "Everything is out of stock, so you're like, 'Give me a gift card.'"

Unless shoppers this weekend go over the top, it's shaping up to be a modest holiday season, said Kamalesh Rao, director of economic research at MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse.

"That's in keeping with retail sales growth this year," he said. "There is a possibility if you have a strong weekend it could make up a little bit, since the last couple of days is pretty important, especially for sectors like jewelry."

Expect to see Christian Moreno, 43, and his wife, Hilda, out at the malls every day until Dec. 25. Between their two families, the couple have 34 people to shop for every year.

"We're a huge family," said Moreno, who works as a superintendent at the L.A. and Ontario international airports. "It's a lot of presents left to find."

shan.li@latimes.com

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Obama to nominate John Kerry to be next secretary of State

WASHINGTON – President Obama will nominate John F. Kerry, the five-term senator from Massachusetts, to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State, White House sources confirmed, choosing a longtime political ally who shares much of his foreign policy worldview and is likely to sail through confirmation hearings.

Obama settled on the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee shortly after the wrenching withdrawal of Susan Rice, his envoy to the United Nations, as the top candidate for the post. He delayed the announcement to avoid interfering with national mourning over the mass slaying at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

Kerry, 69, has chaired the Senate Foreign Relatons Committee since 2009. His selection gives the White House a veteran foreign policy hand who has demonstrated his willingness to work with Obama’s inner circle of advisors over the last four years.

The Cabinet position will give Kerry a decorated Vietnam veteran who later helped lead veterans opposed to the war, a career-capping assignment that he has long sought.

But it also risks the loss of what has been a reliable Democratic seat in the Senate. Democrats control the Senate by a 55-45 margin but face midterm elections in two years that could sharply narrow those numbers.

Scott Brown, a Republican who lost his Senate seat in last month’s election but remains popular in the commonwealth, could run again in a special election next year. Several Democrats have indicated interest, including Edward Kennedy Jr., son of the late senator.

Rice withdrew her name from consideration on Dec. 15 after a tenacious campaign by Republicans who said her public comments misled the country after armed militants killed four Americans at the the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in September.

Kerry was the only other leading candidate for the post, and his nomination is expected to easily win Senate approval. Several GOP lawmakers who led the opposition to Rice, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), urged Obama to choose Kerry instead.

White House officials concede they owe a special obligation to Kerry for all he has done for Obama in politics and diplomacy. In 2004, when Kerry was running for president, he chose Obama to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, providing the obscure state senator from Illinois an invaluable introduction to American voters.

Republican hawks could raise questions about Kerry’s resistance to U.S. military intervention abroad in some conflicts. And a group of Vietnam "swift boat" veterans who opposed his presidential campaign have vowed to voice their objections again.

Kerry has shared Obama’s interest in trying to talk without preconditions to adversary regimes, and he shares Obama’s desire to shift the U.S. military from the grueling ground wars of the last decade to a “light footprint” abroad.

Kerry “would much rather solve problems by negotiations and diplomacy than by war,” said Jonah Blank, a former Kerry aide and South Asia specialist. “He’s seen war: He knows it ain’t pretty, and very often it doesn’t work.”

At the beginning of the Obama’s first term, Kerry sought to help the White House work out a broad Mideast peace deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad – a mission that continues to come under strong criticism by Republican hawks.

Kerry also acted on Obama’s behalf as a diplomatic middleman in sensitive talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and helped sooth relations with Pakistani leaders after a period of intense turmoil.

Kerry, whose father was a foreign service officer, has traveled widely and has shown himself willing to take on the wearying drudgery of diplomacy. Also like Mrs. Clinton, he has shown an ability to talk to foreign leaders as fellow politicians, a valuable asset.

Another arguable advantage: Kerry, a tall man with a stentorian voice and what is sometimes described as a patrician bearing, looks and sounds the part of America’s top diplomat.

Rudy DeLeon, a former Senate Democratic aide and Pentagon official during the Bill Clinton administration, said Kerry will come to the job well versed on the issues and with relationships that will be valuable to the White House.

“The Senate is going to be a key participant in much that the administration does on foreign policy, so his relationships there will be an asset,” said DeLeon, now with the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-leaning think tank. “And he has ties to world leaders from China to the Middle East.”

Obama has let slip to aides that he has sometimes found Kerry long-winded. Still, it is clear Obama is comfortable working with him and Kerry has won points by being a good partner to Clinton.

One issue for Kerry will be whether he becomes frustrated with how the administration’s foreign policy has been highly centralized in a small team around Obama.

But foreign policy experts believe Kerry -- like Clinton -- will be willing to take orders from the West Wing as long as he believes his views are being considered.

Kerry is less interested in management, and is likely to need a strong deputy with management skills to oversee running of the State Department.

Kerry’s accomplishments as committee chairman include legislation he pushed, with ranking member Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Valley Village), to restructure and expand aid to Pakistan. Kerry was also an important advocate for the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

Secretary Clinton has indicated that she is willing to remain in her post beyond Obama’s inauguration if necessary. But the selection of Kerry may make that unnecessary.

paul.richter@latimes.com

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Country singer Tate Stevens wins Fox's 'X Factor'

NEW YORK (AP) — Tate Stevens, who was mentored by music exec L.A. Reid on the second season of "The X Factor," has won the Fox singing competition.

The 37-year-old country singer from Belton, Mo., beat runner-up Carly Rose Sonenclar, a 13-year-old schoolgirl from Westchester, N.Y., and teenage girl group Fifth Harmony on the finale that aired live Thursday night.

Stevens wins a $5 million recording contract.

More than 35 million votes were cast by viewers after Wednesday's performance show.

Besides Reid, judges this season included Demi Lovato, Britney Spears and series creator Simon Cowell.

Thursday's show was also the grand finale for Reid. Earlier this month, he said he wouldn't be returning to "The X Factor" next year. No replacement has been announced.

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Stocks fall sharply after Republicans cancel vote

Stocks fell on Wall Street Friday after House Republicans called off a vote on tax rates and left federal budget talks in disarray 10 days before sweeping tax increases and government spending cuts take effect.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 106 points at 13,206 after the first hour of trading.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 12 points at 1,431. The Nasdaq composite index fell 32 to 3,018. All three indexes are still positive for the week.

The House bill would have raised taxes on Americans making at least $1 million per year and locked in decade-old tax cuts for Americans making less. Taxes will rise for almost all Americans on Jan. 1 unless Congress acts.

House Speaker John Boehner had presented what he called "Plan B" while he negotiated with the White House on avoiding the sweeping tax increases and spending cuts, a combination known as the "fiscal cliff."

But Boehner scrapped a vote on the bill Thursday night after it became clear that it did not have enough support in the Republican-led House to secure passage. He called on the White House and the Democratic-led Senate to work something out.

The market opened sharply lower, then recovered some ground in mid-morning trading after Boehner told reporters that he was still open to talks with President Obama to get a deal done. The Dow had been down as much as 154 shortly after the opening bell. Before the market opened, stock index futures suggested that the Dow could lose as much as 200 points when trading opened.

"It's all `fiscal cliff' related," Sal Arnuk, a partner at Themis Trading. Arnuk said the initial sharp drop in the market might have been an overreaction. "It's not a surprise that they weren't able to come to an agreement. I don't think most of Wall Street anticipated that they would come to an agreement."

Technology stocks were among the hardest hit in early trading. Tech stocks in the S&P 500 were down 0.9 percent as a group. Apple, the most valuable company in the country, fell $4.27 to $517.46.

It was not the first time that Wall Street worried about the "fiscal cliff" talks.

On the day after the election, when voters returned divided government to power, the Dow dropped 312 points. On Nov. 14, when President Barack Obama insisted on higher tax rates for the wealthy, the Dow dropped 185 points.

Stocks closed sharply lower Friday in Asia after House Republicans canceled their vote. The Nikkei index in Japan fell almost 1 percent, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropped 0.7 percent. Stocks were also lower in Europe.

In the bond market, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 0.06 percentage point to 1.74 percent, an indication that investors were moving money out of stocks and into ultra-safe government bonds.

The price of oil fell $2.02, or 2.2 percent, to $88.12 per barrel.

Among stocks making big moves:

— Walgreen slumped 98 cents to $36.57 after the nation's largest drugstore chain filled fewer prescriptions and absorbed costs tied to acquisitions and Superstorm Sandy. The results were worse than financial analysts had been expecting.

— Blackberry maker Research in Motion dropped 15 percent, or $2.14, to $11.81 after the company said it won't generate as much revenue from telecommunications carriers once it releases the new BlackBerry 10.

— Nike jumped $5.32 to $104.32 after the world's largest athletic gear maker said strong demand in North America led to a 7 percent increase in revenue in the three months ended Nov. 30, balancing out economic weakness in Europe and a slowdown in growth in China.

— Micron Technology dropped 8 percent, the biggest decline in the S&P 500 index. The semiconductor maker reported a loss late Thursday as weaker demand for personal computers and an oversupply of certain chips hurt its sales. The stock was off 55 cents at $6.24.

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Fearful 'end of world' calls, emails flood NASA as Dec. 21 nears

If there's one government agency really looking forward to Dec. 22, it's NASA.

The space agency said it has been flooded with calls and emails from people asking about the purported end of the world — which, as the doomsday myth goes, is apparently set to take place Friday, Dec. 21.

The myth might have originated with the Maya calendar, but in the age of the Internet and social media, it proliferated online, raising questions and concerns among hundreds of people around the world who have turned to NASA for answers.

Dwayne Brown, an agency spokesman, said NASA typically receives about 90 calls or emails per week containing questions from people. In recent weeks, he said, that number has skyrocketed — from 200 to 300 people are contacting NASA per day to ask about the end of the world.

"Who's the first agency you would call?" he said. "You're going to call NASA."

The questions range from myth (Will a rogue planet crash into Earth? Is the sun going to explode? Will there be three days of darkness?) to the macabre (Brown said some people have "embraced it so much" they want to hurt themselves). So, he said, NASA decided to do "everything in our power" to set the facts straight.

That effort included interviews with scientists posted online and a Web page that Brown said has drawn more than 4.6 million views.

It also involved a video titled "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday." Though the title of the video implies a Dec. 22 release date, Brown said NASA posted the four-minute clip last week to help spread its message.

The website addresses several scenarios — the possibility of planetary alignments, total blackouts, polar shifts and "a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction" — but comes to the same conclusion.

In short, NASA says, "the world will not end in 2012."

"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," the website says.

The Griffith Observatory will also be trying to debunk doomsday predictions. It announced plans to stay open late Friday evening — until one minute past midnight — to "demonstrate that claims regarding the Maya calendar, planetary alignments, rogue planets, galactic beams, and other related phenomena have no basis in fact."

A few years ago, NASA suspected that it might have to create such a campaign when the idea of the world ending began "festering," Brown said. The apocalyptic action movie "2012," released in 2009, didn't help, he said.

"We kind of look ahead — we're a look-ahead agency — and we said, 'You know what? People are going to probably want to come to us' " for answers, Brown explained. "We're doing all that we can do to let the world know that as far as NASA and science goes, Dec. 21 will be another day."

As for Saturday, when the questions — not the world — end: "I wish it was tomorrow."

kate.mather@latimes.com

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Study: Solo stars at higher death risk than bands

LONDON (AP) — Rock 'n' roll will never die — but it's a hazardous occupation.

A new study confirms that rock and pop musicians die prematurely more often than the general population, and an early death is twice as likely for solo musicians as for members of bands.

Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University studied 1,489 rock and pop stars who became famous between 1956 and 2009 and found they suffered "higher levels of mortality than demographically matched individuals in the general population."

American stars are more likely to die prematurely than British ones.

Lead researcher Mark Bellis speculates that could be because bands provide peer support at stressful times.

The research was published Thursday in online journal BMJ Open.

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Female Vaccination Workers, Essential in Pakistan, Become Prey

LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.

Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis. A ninth victim died on Thursday, a day after being shot in the northwestern city of Peshawar, The Associated Press reported.

The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets, while government officials reported that some polio volunteers — especially women — were afraid to show up for work.

At the ground level, it is those female health workers who are essential, allowed privileged entrance into private homes to meet and help children in situations denied to men because of conservative rural culture. “They are on the front line; they are the backbone,” said Imtiaz Ali Shah, a polio coordinator in Peshawar.

The killings started in the port city of Karachi on Monday, the first day of a vaccination drive aimed at the worst affected areas, with the shooting of a male health worker. On Tuesday four female polio workers were killed, all gunned down by men on motorcycles in what appeared to be closely coordinated attacks.

The hit jobs then moved to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which, along with the adjoining tribal belt, constitutes Pakistan’s main reservoir of new polio infections. The first victim there was one of two sisters who had volunteered as polio vaccinators. Men on motorcycles shadowed them as they walked from house to house. Once the sisters entered a quiet street, the gunmen opened fire. One of the sisters, Farzana, died instantly; the other was uninjured.

On Wednesday, a man working on the polio campaign was shot dead as he made a chalk mark on the door of a house in a suburb of Peshawar. Later, a female health supervisor in Charsadda, 15 miles to the north, was shot dead in a car she shared with her cousin.

Yet again, Pakistani militants are making a point of attacking women who stand for something larger. In October, it was Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl advocate for education who was gunned down by a Pakistani Taliban attacker in the Swat Valley. She was grievously wounded, and the militants vowed they would try again until they had killed her. The result was a tidal wave of public anger that clearly unsettled the Pakistani Taliban.

In singling out the core workers in one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health initiatives, militants seem to have resolved to harden their stance against immunization drives, and declared anew that they consider women to be legitimate targets. Until this week, vaccinators had never been targeted with such violence in such numbers.

Government officials in Peshawar said that they believe a Taliban faction in Mohmand, a tribal area near Peshawar, was behind at least some of the shootings. Still, the Pakistani Taliban have been uncharacteristically silent about the attacks, with no official claims of responsibility. In staying quiet, the militants may be trying to blunt any public backlash like the huge demonstrations over the attack on Ms. Yousafzai.

Female polio workers here are easy targets. They wear no uniforms but are readily recognizable, with clipboards and refrigerated vaccine boxes, walking door to door. They work in pairs — including at least one woman — and are paid just over $2.50 a day. Most days one team can vaccinate 150 to 200 children.

Faced with suspicious or recalcitrant parents, their only weapon is reassurance: a gentle pat on the hand, a shared cup of tea, an offer to seek religious assurances from a pro-vaccine cleric. “The whole program is dependent on them,” said Mr. Shah, in Peshawar. “If they do good work, and talk well to the parents, then they will vaccinate the children.”

That has happened with increasing frequency in Pakistan over the past year. A concerted immunization drive, involving up to 225,000 vaccination workers, drove the number of newly infected polio victims down to 52. Several high-profile groups shouldered the program forward — at the global level, donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations and Rotary International; and at the national level, President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa, who have made polio eradication a “personal mission.”

On a global scale, setbacks are not unusual in polio vaccination campaigns, which, by dint of their massive scale and need to reach deep inside conservative societies, end up grappling with more than just medical challenges. In other campaigns in Africa and South Asia, vaccinators have grappled with natural disaster, virulent opposition from conservative clerics and sudden outbreaks of mysterious strains of the disease.

Declan Walsh reported from Lahore, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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Waiting on fiscal cliff compromise, stocks meander

The stock market moved between small gains and losses in early trading Thursday. Uncertainty about the approaching “fiscal cliff,” just days away, was top of mind for many traders.

The House planned to move ahead on what Speaker John Boehner called “Plan B,” though President Barack Obama has threatened to veto it.

Shortly after 10 a.m. EST, the Dow Jones industrial average was up seven points at 13,259. The Standard & Poor's 500 was up two at 1,438. The Nasdaq composite index rose a fraction to 3,045.

Also at the forefront for many traders was the news that NYSE Euronext, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, planned to sell itself to IntercontinentalExchange, an upstart and lesser-known exchange operator based in Atlanta.

NYSE Euronext's stock surged 31 percent, rising $7.40 to $31.45. IntercontinentalExchange fell $2.89 to $125.42. That signals traders think the proposed deal could be more beneficial to NYSE Euronext than to its potential buyer. The marriage still needs the approval of regulators, and it isn't clear if they'll offer it.

In Washington, the Republicans' proposal would raise taxes on the wealthy, something the Democrats have pushed for. But the plan also left in place budget cuts to the military and domestic agencies that Democrats have generally opposed.

If the Republicans and Democrats don't work out a compromise before the end of the month, the U.S. could go over the “fiscal cliff,” a reference to taxes increases and sweeping government spending cuts that would automatically kick in if no budget deal is in place. Some economists fear that would push the U.S. back into recession.

To be sure, many observers expect that a deal will be worked out ahead of the deadline — perhaps at the last minute, and with lots of political theatrics, but worked out nonetheless. In the meantime, the uncertainty has kept the market sluggish and indecisive for weeks.

Even without the complications of the fiscal cliff, the U.S. economy has been difficult to read, a pattern that continued Thursday.

The government said the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent over the summer, higher than the previous estimate of 2.7 percent. But the growth is likely to slow in the current quarter and early next year.

The government also reported that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week, a disappointment after four straight weeks of declines. But the four-week moving average of jobless claims, a less volatile measurement, fell.

A slate of companies reported earnings, with varied results:

—Darden Restaurants, the parent of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, slipped 78 cents to $46.03 after the company reported lower profit and revenue.

—Rite Aid, the drugstore chain, soared 10 percent, rising 11 cents to $1.15, after the company reported its first quarterly profit since 2007.

—Discover Financial Services fell $1.26 to $38.51. The company reported higher profit and revenue, but earnings missed analysts' expectations.

—Scholastic, publisher of the best-selling “The Hunger Games” trilogy, slipped 73 cents to $28.56 after reporting lower profit and revenue.

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