Yen pressured, Asian stocks subdued

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The yen plumbed a 2-1/2 year low against the dollar on Monday as Japan's central bank faced relentless political pressure to deliver bold stimulus, while Asian stocks got off to subdued start with Tokyo closed for a public holiday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday said the Bank of Japan (BOJ) must set a 2 percent inflation target and make it a medium-term, not long-term, goal to show markets it was determined to pursue bold monetary easing to end nearly two decades of deflation.

His comments emboldened yen-bears, who took a fresh swipe at the currency. That saw the U.S. dollar hit a high of 89.67 yen, a level not seen since mid-2010, while the euro climbed as far as 119.84 yen, scaling a 20-month peak.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat in early dealings, but not far from a 17-month peak set on Friday. The index has gained more than 2 percent so far this year on growing optimism about the health of the global economy.

Australian's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.3 percent, while South Korea's KOSPI slipped 0.2 percent, partly weighed by lingering concerns about corporate earnings and a firming local currency.

Analysts at HSBC believe global developments this week will support demand for riskier assets, with U.S. and Chinese data likely to show further momentum in the world's two biggest economies.

"In addition, the Fed speaker calendar is dominated by doves in the early part of the week. These should provide reassurance that the Fed is in no rush to turn off the liquidity tap despite these early signs of encouragement on activity," they said in a client note.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is due to speak later on Monday at the University of Michigan and investors are eagerly waiting for clues on how long the Fed's latest bond purchase program will last.

Any signs that the Fed is in no hurry to end its quantitative easing program could see the U.S. dollar soften against higher-yielding currencies such as the Australian dollar and those of faster growing emerging economies.

The Aussie dollar traded at $1.0531, still remaining within easy reach of a four-month high of $1.0599 set last week.

Against the euro, the greenback dipped to a fresh nine-month low. The single currency rose 0.1 percent to $1.3357, continuing to outperform after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi last week gave no indication the bank would ease monetary policy any further.

Optimism about the global economy also helped stem a slide in oil prices. U.S. crude rose 29 cents to $93.85 a barrel, recovering from Friday's 26-cent fall, while Brent crude was little changed at $110.62 a barrel.

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Bryant's late FG lifts Falcons over Seattle 30-28

ATLANTA (AP) — Matt Bryant pumped his fist and celebrated atop the Falcons logo in the middle of the field. Tony Gonzalez broke down in tears. Matt Ryan relished the thought of not having to answer a familiar question.

The Atlanta Falcons finally showed they could win a playoff game.

And, wow, what a game it was!

After a meltdown in the fourth quarter, the Falcons pulled off a comeback that will long be remembered in championship-starved Atlanta. Ryan completed two long passes and Bryant kicked a 49-yard field goal with 8 seconds remaining, lifting the NFC's top seed to a stunning 30-28 victory over Russell Wilson and the gutty Seattle Seahawks in a divisional game Sunday.

"Wow!" said Falcons coach Mike Smith, summing up this classic as well as anyone could.

Atlanta (14-3) squandered a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter, falling behind for the first time all day when Marshawn Lynch scored on a 2-yard run with 31 seconds left and Ryan Longwell knocked through the extra point for a 28-27 lead.

No team has ever won a playoff game when facing such a daunting deficit in the final period.

The Falcons, thanks to a pair of Matty Ices — Ryan and Bryant — didn't become the first.

Ryan, shaking off his struggles in three previous playoff losses and two interceptions against the Seahawks, hooked up with Harry Douglas on a 29-yard pass in front of the Falcons bench, and Smith quickly signaled a timeout. Then, Ryan went down the middle to his favorite target Gonzalez, a Hall of Famer-to-be playing what could've been his final game.

Gonzalez hauled in the 19-yard throw, and Smith called his final timeout with 13 seconds remaining. Instead of risking another play and having the clock run out, he sent Bryant in for the field goal try.

The Seahawks called time just before the ball was snapped, and Bryant's kick sailed right of the upright. That turned out to be nothing more than practice. The next one was right down the middle as Bryant took off in the other direction, pumping his fist before he was mobbed by his teammates.

"Our quarterback is a special player," Smith said. "They call him Matty Ice, but I feel like we've got two Matty Ices. There's Matty Ice Ryan and Matty Ice Bryant."

The Falcons overcame their reputation for choking in the playoffs, winning their first postseason game since the 2004 season. They'll host San Francisco in the NFC championship game next Sunday with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.

"Nobody flinched," Ryan said. "We just kept battling, kept doing what we do. That's been the makeup of our team all season."

Bryant knocked through his third game-winning kick of the season. But he'd never made one like this, with so much on the line.

"When they scored their touchdown, I walked down (the sideline)," he said. "I told the offensive line, I told Matt (Ryan), I told all the receivers, 'We've done this before.'"

Wilson threw two touchdown passes and ran for another, doing all he could to pull off the most improbable of comebacks for the Seahawks (12-6). But the Seattle defense, which is one of the NFL's best and had totally stymied the Falcons in the fourth quarter, went to a softer coverage and got burned.

Atlanta had just enough time to pull off a comeback of its own.

"We had high, high hopes for the rest of the season," Wilson said. "When the game was over, I was very disappointed. But walking back into the tunnel, I got so excited about next year. The resilience we showed was unbelievable."

Wilson finished with 385 yards passing as the Seahawks wiped out a 27-7 deficit entering the final quarter. When Lynch powered over, the ball breaking the goal line just before it squirted from his arms, Seattle celebrated like it had won its second straight playoff game on the road, having already taken care of Robert Griffin III and the Washington Redskins.

According to STATS, it would've been the greatest fourth-quarter comeback in NFL playoff history.

Not so fast.

Ryan led the Falcons back, wiping out his 0-3 mark in the playoffs, including a crushing loss to Green Bay two years ago when the Falcons were in the same position, the NFC's top-seeded team with home-field advantage in the playoffs.

"The one thing I've learned during my five years in the league, and specifically in the postseason, is that it's hard," Ryan said.

Now, he'll no longer be asked why he can't win in the playoffs.

"That's going to be nice," Ryan conceded. "But our goal is not to win one playoff game. Our goals are still in front of us. We still have two more games to go. That's the mind-set I have. That's the mind-set this team has."

Wilson's last throw, a desperation heave into the end zone, was intercepted by Falcons receiver Julio Jones.

Gonzalez, who had never won a playoff game in his 16-year career, broke down in tears after Bryant's kick went through the uprights.

"I've never cried after a win," said Gonzalez, who has stated repeatedly that he's "95 percent" sure this is his final year. "I was thinking, 'Here we go again. I guess it wasn't meant to be.'"

It was.

The Falcons finally lived up to their excellence during the regular season since Smith, Ryan and general manager Thomas Dimitroff took over in 2008, instantly reviving a franchise that seemed down and out after Michael Vick's dogfighting case. Atlanta has won 56 regular-season games over the last five years, more than any team except New England, but had a reputation for choking in the postseason.

Check that off the list. Atlanta is one win away from the second Super Bowl appearance in franchise history.

Ryan threw three touchdown passes, tying a Falcons playoff record, and finished 24 of 35 for 250 yards — the first time he's eclipsed 200 yards in the postseason. He threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Gonzalez, a 47-yarder to Roddy White and a 5-yarder to Jason Snelling, the latter with 2:11 left in the third quarter to give the Falcons a seemingly commanding lead.

Wilson took over from there, running 1 yard for a touchdown to make it 27-14, then going to Zach Miller on a 3-yard touchdown pass that closed the gap to 27-21.

Finally, taking over at his own 39 after an Atlanta punt, Wilson completed three passes for 50 yards, the last of them a short throw to Lynch that the bruising runner took all the way to the Falcons 3. The rookie quarterback made it all possible, spinning away from blitzing Atlanta linebacker Sean Weatherspoon to keep the play alive.

The Seahawks, though, will spend the offseason kicking themselves for that last Falcons' drive, and for squandering two scoring chances in the first half.

On fourth-and-1 at the Atlanta 11, Seattle passed on a field goal and a chance to give the ball to Lynch, their beast of a back. Fullback Michael Robinson took the handoff and was stuffed for a 1-yard loss by safety William Moore.

Then, with the clock winding down before halftime, Seattle used up all its timeouts and wound up regretting it when Wilson was sacked by Jonathan Babineaux at the Atlanta 20. Time ran out before the Seahawks could get off another play, sending Atlanta to the locker room with a 20-0 lead.

Bryant also connected on field goals of 37 and 39 yards in the first half.

"At halftime, we talked about how we can't get ahead right away. It's going to take a while," Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. "It was an exquisite job of refocusing to a football game after being down like that."

NOTES: The Falcons played the second half without defensive end John Abraham, who re-injured his ailing right ankle. No word whether he'll be able to play next week. ... The Falcons did a good job on Lynch, who was held to 46 yards on 16 carries. ... Atlanta got surprising production out of its maligned running game. Michael Turner rushed for 98 yards, Jacquizz Rodgers added 64 and the Falcons finished with a season-high 167 yards overall.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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Views on Gay People Shift in Singapore

Americans’ views about gay people have shifted dramatically in the past few decades. For instance, a Gallup poll last month showed that support for same-sex marriage in the United States stands at 53 percent — still a polarizing figure, but about double what it was in 1996.

New research shows that positive attitudes toward homosexuals are becoming more common in other countries, too, like Singapore, where the increasing visibility of gay people seems to be helping to move the needle.

A nationally representative survey in the Southeast Asian city-state found that in 2005, 68.6 percent of adults had negative attitudes toward gay people, while 22.9 percent had positive views and 8.5 percent were neutral. By 2010, fewer adults in Singapore had negative attitudes toward homosexuals (64.5 percent), while more expressed positive attitudes (25.3 percent) or were neutral (10.2 percent), the survey found.

Researchers found that older people and those with lower levels of education and income tend to be less accepting of gay people. Meanwhile, those with a more Western cultural orientation and those who don’t greatly value conforming to social norms tend to be more accepting of homosexuals, the study showed.

Singapore’s citizens and residents with gay or lesbian family members, friends, or coworkers are also less likely to have negative attitudes about homosexuals, the survey found. And those who watched more films and television shows with gay characters were more likely to express positive attitudes toward gay people.

“As more Singaporeans come into contact with gay people and with the rising availability of films and television programmes with gay characters via cable television, local cinemas and the Internet, it seems possible that there will be a more significant shift in attitudes towards gays and lesbians over time,” researcher Shirley Ho, of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said in a statement.

Various ideas have been put forth to explain prejudice against gay people, with one line of research finding that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. That link between low IQ and prejudice, including low acceptance of homosexuals, may be explained by the fact that low-intelligence adults tended to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress hierarchy and resistance to change — attitudes that can contribute to prejudice.

The research was detailed in the Asian Journal of Social Psychology in December.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

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Quest: U.S. economy to dominate Davos

The United States and the sorry state of its political and budgetary process will be the center of attention at Davos, writes Quest

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Quest: Davos is a chance to see where the political and economic landmines are in 2013


• Quest: People will be speculating about how dysfunctional the U.S. political process has become


• Quest: Davos has been consumed by eurozone sovereign debt crises for three years

Editor's note: Watch Quest Means Business on CNN International, 1900pm GMT weekdays. Quest Means Business is presented by CNN's foremost international business correspondent Richard Quest. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) -- It is that time of the year, again. Come January no sooner have the Christmas trees been taken down, as the winter sales are in full vicious flood the world of business start thinking about going to the world economic forum, better known as Davos.

For the past three years Davos has been consumed by the eurozone sovereign debt crises.

As it worsened the speculation became ever more frantic.....Will Greece leave the euro? Will the eurozone even survive? Was this all just a big German trick to run Europe? More extreme, more dramatic, more nonsense.

Can China be the biggest engine of growth for the global economy. Round and round in circles we have gone on these subjects until frankly I did wonder if there was anything else to say short of it's a horrible mess!

This year there is a new bogey man. The US and in particular the sorry state of the country's political and budgetary process will, I have little doubt, be the center of attention.

Read more: More 'cliffs' to come in new Congress

Not just because Congress fluffed its big test on the fiscal cliff, but because in doing so it created many more deadlines, any one of which could be deeply unsettling to global markets... There is the $100 billion budget cutbacks postponed for two months by the recent agreement; postponed to the end of February.

At exactly the same time as the US Treasury's ability to rob Peter to pay Paul on the debt ceiling crises comes to a head.

Read more: Both Obama, GOP set for tough talks ahead

The Treasury's "debt suspension period" is an extraordinary piece of financial chicanery that if we tried it with our credit cards would get us locked up!! Then there is the expiration of the latest continuing resolution, the authority by which congress is spending money.

There is the terrifying prospect that all these budget woes will conflate into one big political fist fight as the US faces cutbacks, default or shutdown!!

I am being alarmist. Most rational people believe that the worst sting will be taken out of this tail....not before we have all been to the edge...and back. And that is what Davos will have on its mind.

People will be speculating about how dysfunctional the US political process has become and is it broken beyond repair (if they are not asking that then they should be...)

They will be pondering which is more serious for risk...the US budget and debt crises or the Eurozone sovereign debt debacle. A classic case of between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The official topic this year is Resilient Dynamism. I have absolutely no idea what this means. None whatsoever. It is another of WEF's ersatz themes dreamt up to stimulate debate in what Martin Sorrell has beautifully terms "davosian language" In short everyone interprets it as they will.

What I will enjoy, as I do every year, is the chance to hear the global players speak and the brightest and best thinkers give us their take on the global problems the atmosphere becomes febrile as the rock-stars of finance and economics give speeches, talk on panels and give insight.

Of course comes of these musings, it never does at Davos. That's not the point. This is a chance to take stock and see where the political and economic landmines are in 2013. I like to think of Davos as the equivalent of Control/Alt/Delete. It allows us to reboot.

We leave at least having an idea of where people stand on the big issues provided you can see through the panegyrics of self congratulatory back slapping that always takes place whenever you get like minded people in one place... And this year, I predict the big issue being discussed in coffee bars, salons and fondue houses will be the United States and its budgetary woes.

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Dozens of business leaders endorse gay marriage in Illinois

Dozens of Illinois business leaders and several companies publicly endorsed gay marriage on Sunday, a week after a proposed bill failed to get traction in Springfield and a month before the new General Assembly has chance to consider it again.

The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, which would grant gay and lesbian couples the freedom to marry, is not likely to come up in Springfield until February. But in an open letter issued Sunday, business executives stated their case to lawmakers that marriage equality would strengthen the Illinois work force and boost economic development.

"To be competitive, a state must create an equitable, fair and respectful environment for all of its citizens," the letter said. "For this reason – among others — it is vitally important that Illinois lawmakers enact marriage equality soon."

In addition to Google Inc., Orbitz Worldwide Inc. and Groupon, individual signers of the letter include Desiree Rogers, CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, Lance Chody, CEO of Garrett Popcorn Shops, Fred Eychaner, chairman of the Newsweb Corporation and Laura Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. Eychaner and Ricketts are both openly gay executives who reportedly have funded the statewide push for same-sex marriage.

Earlier this month, opposition overcame supporters' optimism. In addition to Chicago's Cardinal Francis George and other Catholic bishops across the state, a coalition of Muslims, Mormons, Missouri Synod Lutherans and conservative Anglicans urged Illinois lawmakers not to extend marriage to same-sex couples.

The bishops and ministers from about 1,700 Illinois congregations and ministries said the attempt to alter the state's definition of marriage threatens an institution that society counts on as the ideal environment for raising children and teaching men and women to depend on each other.

The religious leaders also worry that, while the law exempts religious institutions from having to consecrate same-sex marriages, the proposed legislation does not protect their rights to freely exercise their religious beliefs because they would have to treat same-sex unions as the equivalent of marriage in their business practices. For example, they might be forced to provide health insurance to an employee's same-sex spouse.

John Rowe, chairman emeritus of Exelon Corporation, said attending the same-sex weddings of friends in New York last year convinced him to sign the endorsement.

"We saw how moving it was for them and I suppose that's part of what caused me to say 'Why deny one group this moment of faith and hope and celebration that everybody else has?' " Rowe said.

The letter contends that states such as New York where gay marriage is legal now have a competitive edge over Illinois.

"States with the metro areas of New York City, Seattle, Boston, and Baltimore have already legalized marriage equality," the letter said. "Here in the Midwest, Iowa has granted full marriage equality, while Minnesota is poised to do the same later this year. Illinois simply cannot afford to be less competitive than other states."

mbrachear@tribune.com

Twitter: @TribSeeker

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France bombs Islamist strongholds in north Mali

BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's north.

The attacks on Islamist positions near the ancient desert trading town of Timbuktu and Gao, the largest city in the north, marked a decisive intensification on the third day of the French mission, striking at the heart of the vast area seized by rebels in April.

France is determined to end Islamist domination of northern Mali, which many fear could act as a base for attacks on the West and for links with al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France's sudden intervention on Friday had prevented the advancing rebels from seizing Bamako. He vowed that air strikes would continue.

"The president is totally determined that we must eradicate these terrorists who threaten the security of Mali, our own country and Europe," he told French television.

Residents and rebel leaders had reported air raids early on Sunday in the towns of Lere and Douentza in central Mali, forcing Islamists to withdraw. As the day progressed, French jets struck targets further to the north, including near the town of Kidal, the epicenter of the rebellion.

In Gao, a dusty town on the banks of the Niger river where Islamists have imposed an extreme form of sharia law, residents said French jets pounded the airport and rebel positions. A huge cloud of black smoke rose from the militants' camp in the city's north, and pick-up trucks ferried dead and wounded to hospital.

"The planes are so fast you can only hear their sound in the sky," resident Soumaila Maiga said by telephone. "We are happy, even though it is frightening. Soon we will be delivered."

Paris said four Rafale jets flew from France to strike rebel training camps, logistics depots and infrastructure around Gao with the aim of weakening the rebels and preventing them from returning southward.

"We blocked the terrorists' advance and from today what we've started to do is to destroy the terrorists' bases behind the front line," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told LCI television.

France has deployed about 550 soldiers to Mali under "Operation Serval" -- named after an African wildcat -- split between Bamako and the town of Mopti, 500 km (300 miles) north.

In Bamako, a Reuters cameraman saw more than 100 French troops disembark on Sunday from a military cargo plane at the international airport, on the outskirts of the capital.

The city's streets were calm, with the sun streaking through the dusty air as the seasonal Harmattan wind blew from the Sahara. Many cars had French flags draped from the windows to celebrate Paris's intervention.

"We thank France for coming to our aid," said resident Mariam Sidibe. "We hope it continues till the north is free."

AFRICAN TROOPS EXPECTED

More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy, but that image unraveled in a matter of weeks after a military coup in March which left a power vacuum for the Islamist rebellion.

France convened a U.N. Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss Mali. French President Francois Hollande's intervention has won plaudits from leaders in Europe, Africa and the United States but it is not without risks.

It raised the threat level for eight French hostages held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara and for the 30,000 French expatriates living in neighboring, mostly Muslim states.

Concerned about reprisals, France has tightened security at public buildings and on public transport. It advised its 6,000 citizens to leave Mali as spokesmen for Ansar Dine and al Qaeda's north Africa wing AQIM promised to exact revenge.

In its first casualty of the campaign, Paris said a French pilot was killed on Friday when rebels shot down his helicopter.

Hours earlier, a French intelligence officer held hostage in Somalia by al Shabaab extremists linked to al Qaeda was killed in a failed commando raid to free him.

Hollande says France's aim is simply to support a mission by West African bloc ECOWAS to retake the north, as mandated by a U.N. Security Council resolution in December.

With Paris pressing West African nations to send their troops quickly, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who holds the rotating ECOWAS chairmanship, kick-started the operation to deploy 3,300 African soldiers.

Ouattara, installed in power with French military backing in 2011, convened a summit of the 15-nation bloc for Saturday in Ivory Coast to discuss the mission.

"The troops will start arriving in Bamako today and tomorrow," said Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast's African Integration Minister. "They will be convoyed to the front."

The United States is considering sending a small number of unarmed surveillance drones to Mali as well as providing logistics support, a U.S. official told Reuters. Britain and Canada have also promised logistical support.

Former French colonies Senegal, Niger and Burkina Faso have all pledged to deploy 500 troops within days. In contrast, regional powerhouse Nigeria, due to lead the ECOWAS force, has suggested it would take time to train and equip the troops.

HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCHES

France, however, appeared to have assumed control of the operation on the ground. Its airstrikes allowed Malian troops to drive the Islamists out of the strategic town of Konna, which they had briefly seized this week in their southward advance.

Calm returned to Konna after three nights of combat as the Malian army crushed any remaining rebel fighters. A senior army official said more than 100 rebels had been killed.

"Soldiers are patrolling the streets and have encircled the town," one resident, Madame Coulibaly, told Reuters by phone. "They are searching houses for arms or hidden Islamists."

Analysts expressed doubt, however, that African nations would be able to mount a swift operation to retake north Mali -- a harsh, sparsely populated terrain the size of France -- as neither the equipment nor ground troops were prepared.

"My first impression is that this is an emergency patch in a very dangerous situation," said Gregory Mann, associate professor of history at Columbia University, who specializes in francophone Africa and Mali in particular.

While France and its allies may be able to drive rebel fighters from large towns, they could struggle to prise them from mountain redoubts in the region of Kidal, 300 km (200 miles) northeast of Gao.

Human Rights Watch said at least 11 civilians, including three children, had been killed in the fighting. A spokesman for Doctors Without Borders in neighboring Mauritania said about 200 Malian refugees had fled across the border to a camp at Fassala and more were on their way.

In Bamako, civilians tried to contribute to the war effort.

"We are very proud and relieved that the army was able to drive the jihadists out of Konna. We hope it will not end there, that is why I'm helping in my own way," said civil servant Ibrahima Kalossi, 32, one of over 40 people who queued to donate blood for wounded soldiers.

(Additional reporting by Adama Diarra, Tiemoko Diallo and Rainer Schwenzfeier in Bamako, Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, Catherine Bremer, Leila Aboud and John Irish in Paris and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Will Waterman and Roger Atwood)

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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Broncos, Ravens tied 28 heading into 4th quarter

DENVER (AP) — Trindon Holliday became the first player in NFL playoff history to return both a punt and a kickoff for scores Saturday, but Peyton Manning's fumble led to the tying touchdown as the Baltimore Ravens and Denver Broncos were tied at 28 heading into the fourth quarter.

If the Broncos come back to win it, this will be the end of the stellar 17-year career of Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, whose fumble recovery in the third quarter was negated by a questionable hands-to-the-face call on cornerback Cary Williams. Lewis has said he'll retire after the Ravens' playoff run.

The Broncos (13-3) were trying to avoid becoming yet another No. 1 seed to lose in the divisional round. Since 2005, eight of the 14 top-seeded teams lost their first game in the playoffs, four in each conference.

They breezed past the Ravens 34-17 in Baltimore on Dec. 16 after racing to a 31-3 lead but this one was going down to the wire, something the Broncos didn't do at all during their 11-game winning streak that they brought into the playoffs.

Holliday, the NFL's shortest — and quite possibly fastest — player, followed an amazing block by Jacob Hester to return the second-half kickoff 104 yards to put Denver ahead 28-21. That was 2 yards longer than the record set in 2010 by Atlanta's Eric Weems.

In the first half, Holliday got the scoring started when he fielded Sam Koch's punt, broke one tackle and raced down the Ravens' sideline for a 90-yard TD return, avoiding the punter as he zipped into the end zone. The previous longest TD on a punt return in a playoff game was Jermaine Lewis' 88-yarder for Baltimore in 2001.

Manning, 0-3 in playoff games below 40 degrees, wore gloves on each hand in the cold. He was sacked and coughed up the ball at his 37 late in the third quarter, Paul Kruger recovering for Baltimore.

Ray Rice carried five times for 37 yards, taking it in from a yard out with 20 seconds left in the quarter to tie it at 28.

The 13-degree temperature at kickoff made this the coldest playoff game ever played in Denver. The wind chill was 2. The only colder game played in Denver was against San Diego on Dec. 10, 1972, when the temperature was 9 degrees.

Holliday also returned a punt and a kickoff for scores in the regular season, and his big day came just an hour after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reiterated his intention to consider this offseason the idea of abolishing kickoffs altogether for safety's sake.

Goodell said he realizes it's an exciting play but worries that players will keep getting head injuries.

The Ravens countered Holliday's speed with Torrey Smith's. The Baltimore receiver breezed past Champ Bailey for two long touchdowns in the first half, including one just before halftime that tied it at 21.

Smith had just two catches in the first half, but they covered 91 yards and both went for scores.

He sped past Bailey for a 59-yard TD in the first quarter and then beat him down the sideline for a 32-yard TD catch 36 seconds left before the break that capped a three-play, 58-yard drive that began after Matt Prater botched a 52-yard field-goal attempt that would have given Denver a double-digit lead.

Running back Knowshon Moreno's first touchdown catch of the season, a 13-yard grab in tight coverage by linebacker Dannell Ellerbe, had given the Broncos a 21-14 lead. Moreno later left with a knee injury.

Manning, the league's only four-time MVP, had lost his three previous playoff games below 40 degrees, all while playing for the Indianapolis Colts, who released him last year after a series of neck operations.

Manning had a stellar bounce-back season in Denver, throwing for 4,659 yards and a team-record 37 TDs.

Wearing gloves on both hands for the first time in his career — the one on the right hand as much a concession to the altered feel of his grip following the four neck surgeries as it was for the wintry weather, Manning threw a 15-yard TD toss to Brandon Stokley to tie it at 14.

Jacoby Jones botched the kickoff return following Holliday's punt return TD, losing the handle on the ball as he brought it out before smothering it at the 6.

After a key pass interference call on Tony Carter allowed the Ravens to get out from the shadow of their end zone, Baltimore tied it at 7 when Smith got behind Bailey and hauled in Joe Flacco's 59-yard touchdown toss.

Forty-two seconds later, cornerback Corey Graham picked off a Manning pass that deflected off receiver Eric Decker and returned it 39 yards for the score — and the Broncos trailed for the first time since Dec. 2 against Tampa Bay.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

___

Follow AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton

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Two Star Clusters Shine in Night Sky This Week

With the moon reaching new phase today (Jan. 11), leaving the sky extremely dark, this upcoming week will be an ideal time to get out your binoculars and explore the profusion of star clusters now evident in our evening sky.

Such clusters represent aggregations of young, recently born stars.  They are in our galaxy’s local spiral arm, into whose interior we are looking at this time of year. These stars condensed out of the interstellar gas in this part of the Milky Way.

Two of the very best are high in our evening sky and toward the south at around 9 p.m. local time now.  You can easily locate them by using the famous three-star belt of Orion, the Mighty Hunter. Extending an imaginary line from the belt, upward and to the right will take you to the clusters of the Hyades and Pleiades of the constellation Taurus, the Bull. 

And as a bonus this winter, shining right in between these two star clusters is brilliant Jupiter, shining like a steady, silvery beacon high in the south. You can’t miss it. [Night Sky Stargazing Guide: January 2013 (Sky Maps)]

Interestingly, Australian aborigines believed that the three belt stars of Orion were three young men dancing to the music played by nearby maidens (the Pleiades). And indeed, the most beautiful and famous star cluster in the night sky is the Pleiades. 

Why Seven Sisters?

The traditional Greek legend for the Seven Sisters, as this cluster has long been known, is that they are the daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Their father, Atlas, rebelled against Zeus, the king of the gods, who retaliated by sentencing him to forever holding up the heavens on his shoulders. This so grieved the sisters that Zeus placed them in the heavens so that they could be close to their father.

To the average eye, this group looks at first like a shimmering little cloud of light. But further examination, aided by good eyesight, will reveal a tight knot of tiny stars.Interestingly, widely separated and totally different cultures have always described the Pleiades as the “Seven Sisters,” “Seven Maidens,” or “Seven Little Girls.” Yet only six stars are readily visible to most. Some with more acute vision can count many more. 

One person, who has claimed to have seen as many as 19 Pleiades with his unaided eyes while observing under pristinely dark skies from rural Arizona, is Allen Seltzer, who three decades ago served as education director at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. Seltzer is blessed with unusually keen vision, which he once demonstrated to me by reading a page from The New York Times from across a nearly 20-foot room.

But why this cluster has been cited by more than one early culture as having seven members remains a mystery. 

About 250 stars have been identified as members of this cluster. Gaze at them through binoculars: The brightest stars glitter like an array of icy blue diamonds on black velvet. Or as Alfred, Lord Tennyson  wrote, they “Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.”

Several stars in the cluster seem to be enveloped in clouds of dust, perhaps left over from the stuff of which they were formed. About 410 light-years away and some 20 light-years across, the group may be no older than 20 million years.

V-shape face

The Pleiades cluster is in the Bull’s shoulder. The Bull’s face is plainly marked by the fine V-shape cluster of the Hyades.

Notice the bright orange star at the end of the lower arm of the V, which represents the Bull’s fiery eye. That’s Aldebaran, “the follower;” it rises soon after the Pleiades and pursues them across the sky. 

Aldebaran ranks as the 13th brightest star in the sky, but this winter, compared to nearby Jupiter, it shines only 1/27 as bright; maybe think of Jupiter as a general and Aldebaran as his lieutenant.

The Hyades are among the nearest of the star clusters, which explains why so many of the separate stars can be readily seen. At a distance of 130 light-years, the Hyades members travel through space like a flock of geese, their paths ultimately converging toward a point between the stars Betelgeuse in Orion and Procyon in Canis Minor, while receding from us at the rate of 100,000 miles per hour (160,000 kilometers per hour). 

Aldebaran, on the other hand, is just an innocent bystander that does not belong at all to the Hyades and is moving toward the south almost at right angles to the cluster’s motion and twice as fast. At 65 light-years away, Aldebaran is half the distance of the Hyades. Taurus’s V-shape head is, therefore, going to pieces. For 25,000 years or more it will pass for a V, but after 50,000 years it will be quite out of shape. 

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Astronomer Geoff Gaherty of Starry Night Education contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Abandoning Afghanistan a bad idea

U.S. Marines from the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines Regiment start their patrol in Helmand Province on June 27.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• White House aide suggested all U.S. troops could be withdrawn from Afghanistan


• Peter Bergen said the idea would be dangerous and send the wrong message


• He says U.S. has abandoned Afghanistan before and saw the rise of the Taliban


• Bergen: U.S. is seeking agreement that military will have immunity from prosecution

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad."

(CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai will meet with President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss the post-2014 American presence in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has already given Obama options under which as few as 6,000 or as many as 20,000 soldiers would remain in Afghanistan after 2014. Those forces would work as advisers to the Afghan army and mount special operations raids against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Read more: U.S. may remove all troops from Afghanistan after 2014

Peter Bergen

But on Tuesday, Ben Rhodes, the White House's deputy national security adviser, told reporters that the Obama administration is mulling the idea of removing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission finishes at the end of 2014.

This may be a negotiating ploy by the Obama administration as it gets down to some hard bargaining with Karzai, who has long criticized many aspects of the U.S. military presence and who is likely to be reluctant to accede to a key American demand: That any U.S. soldiers who remain in Afghanistan after 2014 retain immunity from prosecution in the dysfunctional Afghan court system. It was this issue that led the U.S. to pull all its troops out of Iraq in December, 2011 after failing to negotiate an agreement with the Nuri al-Maliki government.

Read more: Defense officials to press Karzai on what he needs

Or this may represent the real views of those in the Obama administration who have long called for a much-reduced U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and it is also in keeping with the emerging Obama doctrine of attacking al Qaeda and its allies with drones but no American boots on the ground. And it certainly aligns with the view of most Americans, only around a quarter of whom now support the war in Afghanistan, according to a poll taken in September.

Security Clearance: Afghanistan options emerge

In any case, zeroing out U.S. troop levels in the post-2014 Afghanistan is a bad idea on its face -- and even raising this concept publicly is maladroit strategic messaging to Afghanistan and the region writ large.

Why so? Afghans well remember something that most Americans have forgotten.

After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, something that was accomplished at the cost of more than a million Afghan lives and billions of dollars of U.S. aid, the United States closed its embassy in Afghanistan in 1989 during the George H. W. Bush administration and then zeroed out aid to one of the poorest countries in the world under the Clinton administration. It essentially turned its back on Afghans once they had served their purpose of dealing a deathblow to the Soviets.

As a result, the United States had virtually no understanding of the subsequent vacuum in Afghanistan into which eventually stepped the Taliban, who rose to power in the mid-1990s. The Taliban granted shelter to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization from 1996 onward.

Read more: Court considers demand that U.S. release photos of bin Laden's body

After the overthrow of the Taliban, a form of this mistake was made again by the George W. Bush administration, which had an ideological disdain for nation building and was distracted by the Iraq War, so that in the first years after the fall of the Taliban, only a few thousand U.S. soldiers were stationed in Afghanistan.

The relatively small number of American boots on the ground in Afghanistan helped to create a vacuum of security in the country, which the Taliban would deftly exploit, so that by 2007, they once again posed a significant military threat in Afghanistan.

In 2009, Obama ordered a surge of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan to blunt the Taliban's gathering momentum, which it has certainly accomplished.

Read more: Inside the Taliban

But when Obama announced the new troops of the Afghan surge, most media accounts of the speech seized on the fact that the president also said that some of those troops would be coming home in July 2011.

This had the unintended effect of signaling to the Taliban that the U.S. was pulling out of Afghanistan reasonably soon and fit into the longstanding narrative that many Afghans have that the U.S. will abandon them again.

Similarly, the current public discussion of zero U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014 will encourage those hardliner elements of the Taliban who have no interest in a negotiated settlement and believe they can simply wait the Americans out.

It also discourages the many millions of Afghans who see a longtime U.S. presence as the best guarantor that the Taliban won't come back in any meaningful way and also an important element in dissuading powerful neighbors such as Pakistan from interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs.

Read related: Afghanistan vet finds a new way to serve

Instead of publicly discussing the zero option on troops in Afghanistan after 2014, a much smarter American messaging strategy for the country and the region would be to emphasize that the Strategic Partnership Agreement that the United States has already negotiated with Afghanistan last year guarantees that the U.S. will have some form of partnership with the Afghans until 2024.

In this messaging strategy, the point should be made that the exact size of the American troop presence after 2014 is less important than the fact that U.S. soldiers will stay in the country for many years, with Afghan consent, as a guarantor of Afghanistan's stability.

The United States continues to station thousands of troops in South Korea more than five decades after the end of the Korean War. Under this American security umbrella, South Korea has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest.

It is this kind of model that most Afghans want and the U.S. needs to provide so Afghanistan doesn't revert to the kind of chaos that beset it in the mid-1990s and from which the Taliban first emerged.

Read more: What's at stake for Afghan women?

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