Advanced breast cancer edges up in younger women

CHICAGO (AP) — Advanced breast cancer has increased slightly among young women, a 34-year analysis suggests. The disease is still uncommon among women younger than 40, and the small change has experts scratching their heads about possible reasons.

The results are potentially worrisome because young women's tumors tend to be more aggressive than older women's, and they're much less likely to get routine screening for the disease.

Still, that doesn't explain why there'd be an increase in advanced cases and the researchers and other experts say more work is needed to find answers.

It's likely that the increase has more than one cause, said Dr. Rebecca Johnson, the study's lead author and medical director of a teen and young adult cancer program at Seattle Children's Hospital.

"The change might be due to some sort of modifiable risk factor, like a lifestyle change" or exposure to some sort of cancer-linked substance, she said.

Johnson said the results translate to about 250 advanced cases diagnosed in women younger than 40 in the mid-1970s versus more than 800 in 2009. During those years, the number of women nationwide in that age range went from about 22 million to closer to 30 million — an increase that explains part of the study trend "but definitely not all of it," Johnson said.

Other experts said women delaying pregnancy might be a factor, partly because getting pregnant at an older age might cause an already growing tumor to spread more quickly in response to pregnancy hormones.

Obesity and having at least a drink or two daily have both been linked with breast cancer but research is inconclusive on other possible risk factors, including tobacco and chemicals in the environment. Whether any of these explains the slight increase in advanced disease in young women is unknown.

There was no increase in cancer at other stages in young women. There also was no increase in advanced disease among women older than 40.

Overall U.S. breast cancer rates have mostly fallen in more recent years, although there are signs they may have plateaued.

Some 17 years ago, Johnson was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at age 27, and that influenced her career choice to focus on the disease in younger women.

"Young women and their doctors need to understand that it can happen in young women," and get checked if symptoms appear, said Johnson, now 44. "People shouldn't just watch and wait."

The authors reviewed a U.S. government database of cancer cases from 1976 to 2009. They found that among women aged 25 to 39, breast cancer that has spread to distant parts of the body — advanced disease — increased from between 1 and 2 cases per 100,000 women to about 3 cases per 100,000 during that time span.

The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

About one in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, but only 1 in 173 will develop it by age 40. Risks increase with age and certain gene variations can raise the odds.

Routine screening with mammograms is recommended for older women but not those younger than 40.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief medical officer, said the results support anecdotal reports but that there's no reason to start screening all younger women since breast cancer is still so uncommon for them.

He said the study "is solid and interesting and certainly does raise questions as to why this is being observed." One of the most likely reasons is probably related to changes in childbearing practices, he said, adding that the trend "is clearly something to be followed."

Dr. Ann Partridge, chair of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory committee on breast cancer in young women, agreed but said it's also possible that doctors look harder for advanced disease in younger women than in older patients. More research is needed to make sure the phenomenon is real, said Partridge, director of a program for young women with breast cancer at the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The study shouldn't cause alarm, she said. Still, Partridge said young women should be familiar with their breasts and see the doctor if they notice any lumps or other changes.

Software engineer Stephanie Carson discovered a large breast tumor that had already spread to her lungs; that diagnosis in 2003 was a huge shock.

"I was so clueless," she said. "I was just 29 and that was the last thing on my mind."

Carson, who lives near St. Louis, had a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments and she frequently has to try new drugs to keep the cancer at bay.

Because most breast cancer is diagnosed in early stages, there's a misconception that women are treated, and then get on with their lives, Carson said. She and her husband had to abandon hopes of having children, and she's on medical leave from her job.

"It changed the complete course of my life," she said. "But it's still a good life."

____

Online:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/index.htm

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Stock index futures signal mixed open

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a mixed Wall Street open on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes slipping 0.1 percent, while futures for the Dow Jones rose 0.1 percent by 0933 GMT.

U.S. durables goods and homes data due out at 1330 and 1500 GMT respectively should provide further clues on the health of the world's largest economy.

The Pentagon program chief for the F-35 warplane slammed its commercial partners Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to "squeeze every nickel" out of the U.S. government and failing to see the long-term benefits of the project.

Pratt & Whitney is 99 percent sure the fan blade problem that grounded the Pentagon's 51 new F-35 fighter jets was not caused by high-cycle fatigue, which could force a costly design change, according to two sources familiar with an investigation by the enginemaker.

Airbus parent EADS predicted higher profit this year on the heels of stronger than expected 2012 earnings and a clampdown on costs, with the development of its A350 jet remaining the biggest wild card in its bid to match rival Boeing .

Partner Communications , Israel's second-largest mobile phone operator, reported weaker-than-expected quarterly profit and said it could have weak earnings throughout 2013 due to fierce competition that has slashed calling rates.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> was up 0.1 percent at 1,151.69 points by 1010 GMT on Wednesday while the euro zone's Euro STOXX 50 index <.stoxx50e> also advanced 0.1 percent, although concerns over Italy's political stalemate were likely to cap gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 115.96 points, or 0.84 percent, to 13,900.13 at the close on Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 9.09 points, or 0.61 percent, to 1,496.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 13.40 points, or 0.43 percent, to close at 3,129.65.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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Exclusive Pic: Seth Rogen on 'The Mindy Project'

Comedic actor Seth Rogen is set to guest star on Tuesday's episode of Mindy Kaling's The Mindy Project, in which he plays her long-lost lover. ETonline has your exclusive first look.

In his cameo on the comedy series, which premiered its first season last fall, Rogen reunites with Kaling's self-named character, "Mindy," after being her first kiss years ago. According to the episode's synopsis, the reunited pair recall their time at summer camp together and later rekindle their teenage flame.

PICS: Stars Without Makeup!

As we see in the photo, Rogen sports a U.S. Army T-shirt in the episode, which is part of the Hollywood-backed veteran campaign "Got Your 6" that is aimed to "bridge the civilian-military divide."

Watch Rogen's full cameo on The Mindy Project Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. on FOX.

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Koop, who transformed surgeon general post, dies

With his striking beard and starched uniform, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era — and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.

His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who complained President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.

Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard, and access to abortion remained largely intact.

Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.

An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.

Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade ago under President George W. Bush, said Koop was a mentor to him and preached the importance of staying true to the science even if it made politicians uncomfortable.

"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," Carmona said.

Although the surgeon general has no real authority to set government policy, Koop described himself as "the health conscience of the country" and said modestly just before leaving his post that "my only influence was through moral suasion."

A former pipe smoker, Koop carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States; his goal had been to do so by 2000. He said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And he shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS.

Chris Collins, a vice president of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said many people don't realize what an important role Koop played in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

"At the time, he really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," Collins said.

Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.

"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.

In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."

Although Koop eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy, his nomination met staunch opposition.

Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."

But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed after he told a Senate panel he would not use the surgeon general's post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word.

In 1986, he issued a frank report on AIDS, urging the use of condoms for "safe sex" and advocating sex education as early as third grade.

He also maneuvered around uncooperative Reagan administration officials in 1988 to send an educational AIDS pamphlet to more than 100 million U.S. households, the largest public health mailing ever.

Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.

Koop further angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.

Koop maintained his personal opposition to abortion, however. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.

Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.

At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day, but Reagan would not interfere.

Koop, worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, opened his institute at Dartmouth to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.

Koop was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats.

He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.

Koop received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it.

In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children, one of whom died in a mountain climbing accident when he was 20.

Koop was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.

Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients — ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.

Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.

He was by far the best-known surgeon general and for decades afterward was still a recognized personality.

"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."

___

Ring reported from Montpelier, Vt. Cass reported from Washington. AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

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Stock index futures point to small rebound

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 up 0.3-0.4 percent at 0916 GMT.

U.S. stocks had suffered their biggest drop since November on Monday after later results pointed to a strong showing in Italian elections by groups opposed to the country's economic reforms. That triggered worry that Europe's debt problems could once again destabilize the global economy.

European markets were playing catchup with that move in early trade on Tuesday, falling sharply as a result.

Standard & Poor's releases its S&P Case/Shiller Home Price Index for December at 1400 GMT, expected to show a rise of 0.5 percent versus a 0.6 percent rise in the previous month.

One hour later, the Conference Board's February consumer confidence was forecast to come in at 61.0 compared with 58.6 in January.

Also at 1500 GMT, new home sales data for January were seen at 381,000 annualized units, compared with 369,000 in December.

Ben Bernanke delivers the first of two days of congressional testimony on the Federal Reserve's semi-annual monetary policy report. Investors will examine Bernanke's words before the Senate Banking Committee closely for any sign he is growing nervous that the potential costs of the U.S. central bank's bond buying might soon outweigh its benefits.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc will begin its annual job cutting process as early as this week, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday, with its equities-trading business bracing for bigger cuts than fixed-income trading.

JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon leads his new team of managers in an annual day of presentations to Wall Street about the outlook for businesses operated by the biggest U.S. bank. The firm named a new head of auto finance on Monday.

Intel Corp has agreed to make chips on behalf of Altera ALTR.O, a significant step toward opening its prized manufacturing technology to customers on a larger scale, potentially including Apple .

Fuelled by a 48 percent rise in fourth-quarter earnings, the top executive of securities firm Stifel Financial Corp's defended his aggressive acquisition spree on Monday.

Retailer Home Depot is expected to post a $0.14 rise in quarterly earnings per share, seen at of $0.64, one day after rival Lowe's reported better-than-expected profit and boosted its outlook for revenue this year.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 216.40 points, or 1.55 percent, to 13,784.17 on Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 27.75 points, or 1.83 percent, to 1,487.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 45.57 points, or 1.44 percent, to 3,116.25.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; editing by Patrick Graham)

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South Korea's new president demands North drop nuclear ambitions

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's new president Park Geun-hye urged North Korea on Monday to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and to stop wasting its scarce resources on arms, less than two weeks after the country carried out its third nuclear test.

In her inauguration speech, the country's first female president, also called on South Koreans to help revive the nation's export-dependent economy whose trade is threatened by neighboring Japan's weak yen policy.

Park, the 61-year-old daughter of South Korea's former military ruler Park Chung-hee, met with the father of North Korea's current ruler in 2002 and offered the impoverished and isolated neighbor aid and trade if it abandoned its nuclear program.

"I urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without delay and embark on the path to peace and shared development," Park said after being inaugurated on Monday.

Park, usually an austere and demure figure in her public appearances, wore an olive-drab military style jacket and lavender scarf on Monday and smiled broadly and waved enthusiastically as a 70,000 strong crowd cheered her.

Rap sensation Psy was one of the warm up acts on an early spring day outside the country's parliament and performed his "Gagnam Style" hit, but without some of the raunchier actions.

Park's tough stance was supported by the partisan and largely older crowd at her inauguration.

"I have trust in her as the first female president ... She has to be more aggressive on North Korea," said Jeong Byung-ok, 44, who was at the ceremony with her four-year-old daughter.

PARK FACES CHOICE: PAY OFF PYONGYANG OR ISOLATE NORTH

North Korea is ruled by 30-year-old Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to hold power in Pyongyang and the grandson of a man who tried to assassinate Park's father.

The North, which is facing further U.N. sanctions for its latest nuclear test, which was its biggest and most powerful to date, is unlikely to heed Park's call and there is little Seoul can do to influence its bellicose neighbor.

Park's choices boil down to paying off Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons plan, which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and failed in 2006 when the North exploded its first nuclear bomb. Alternatively, Seoul could try to further isolate the North, a move that resulted in the 2010 sinking of a South Korean ship and the shelling of a South Korean island.

Referring to the fast economic growth under her father's rule, which drove war-torn South Korea from poverty to the ranks of the world's richest nations, Park urged Koreans to re-create the spirit of the "Miracle on the Han".

Park wants to create new jobs, in a country where young people often complain of a lack of opportunities, and boost welfare, although she hasn't spelled out how she will do either.

Growth in South Korea has fallen sharply since the days of Park's father who oversaw periods of 10 percent plus economic expansion. The Bank of Korea expects the economy to grow just 2.8 percent this year and 2.8 percent in 2014.

Park also faces a challenge from a resurgent Japan whose exports have risen sharply after new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe embarked on a policy to weaken the yen currency.

The won has jumped five percent in 2013 against the yen after a 23 percent gain in 2012, boosting the competitiveness of Japanese exports of cars and electronics against the same goods that South Korean firms produce.

Park last week said she would take "pre-emptive" action on the weak yen, but has yet to specify what action she will take.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by David Chance and Michael Perry)

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Best Actress Winner Jennifer Lawrence Talks Oscar Fall

First the SAG Awards and now the Oscars!? Jennifer Lawrence isn't having the best of luck with her gowns this awards season.

After suffering an unfortunate fall at Sunday night's ceremony while accepting her Best Actress statuette for Silver Linings Playbook, a mortified Lawrence explained to the Academy Awards press room that she had (once again) fallen victim to her elaborate dress.

Pics: The 15 Best Oscar Dresses of All Time

"I tried to walk up stairs in this dress, that's what happened," the humiliated 22-year-old star said of her stumble moments before, laying the blame on her Dior gown's lengthy train. "I think I just stepped on the fabric and they waxed the stairs."

So what was Lawrence thinking when the embarrassing moment played out live to millions around the world?

Related: The Complete Oscars 2013 Winners List

"[I thought about] a bad word that I can't say [on TV]," she laughed, elaborating that the phrase 'starts with an 'F.'"

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Italians vote in crucial election for euro zone

ROME (Reuters) - Italians began voting on Sunday in one of the most closely watched elections in years, with markets nervous about whether it can produce a strong government to pull Italy out of recession and help resolve the euro zone debt crisis.

Some of the first people to cast their ballots expressed fears that no clear winner would emerge, leading to political stalemate and a coalition that may not govern for long.

"I think we will have to go to elections again ... I expect instability for the next two years," said Vincenzo D'Ouria, voting in Milan.

Italians started voting at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT). Polling booths will remain open until 10 p.m. on Sunday and open again between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Monday. Exit polls will come out soon after voting ends and official results are expected by early Tuesday.

The election is being followed closely by financial markets with memories still fresh of the potentially catastrophic debt crisis that brought technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti to power more than a year ago.

Monti and his wife cast their votes at a polling booth in a Milan school on Sunday morning. His centrist bloc would only enter a future government as a junior partner of a bigger party.

Final polls published two weeks ago showed center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani with a 5-point lead, but analysts disagree about whether he will be able to form a stable majority that can make the economic reforms Italy needs.

Bersani is now thought to be just a few points ahead of center-right rival Silvio Berlusconi, the four-times prime minister who has promised tax refunds and staged a media blitz in an attempt to win back voters.

A huge final rally by anti-establishment-comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo on Friday highlighted public anger at traditional parties.

Grillo's 5-Star movement, made up of political novices, is in third place in its first general election, polls suggest, and popular support from voters across the political spectrum has increased uncertainty about the outcome.

"Italians want change, but you cannot achieve that with Grillo. They are far too inexperienced for the Italian parliamentary machine," said Cristina Rossi, 40, a civil engineer who was on her way to vote for Bersani's Democratic Party in Milan.

"I fear the outcome will be a weak government, but maybe this is just a necessary transition to be able, in one or two years, to chose someone who can really govern Italy."

Italy, the euro zone's third-largest economy, is stuck in deep recession, struggling under a public debt burden second only to Greece's in the 17-member currency bloc and with a public weary of more than a year of austerity policies.

BERLUSCONI CRITICISM

Berlusconi hogged the headlines on Sunday after he used news conference at his soccer club AC Milan's training ground to break the campaign silence imposed on politicians in the day before polls open.

He told reporters that Italy's magistrates were "more dangerous than the Sicilian mafia" and had invented allegations he had held sex parties in order to discredit him.

The 76-year-old billionaire, who is appealing a jail sentence for tax fraud and is on trial accused of having sex with an underage prostitute, was criticized by his rivals for making a political statement during a ban on campaigning.

While the center left is still expected to gain control of the lower house, thanks to rules that guarantee a strong majority to whichever party wins the most votes nationally, a much closer battle will be fought for the Senate, which any government also needs to control to be able to pass laws.

Seats in the upper house are awarded on a region-by-region basis, meaning that support in key areas can decisively influence the overall result.

Pollsters still believe the most likely outcome is a center-left government headed by Bersani and possibly backed by Monti.

But strong campaigning by Berlusconi and the fiery Grillo, have thrown the election wide open. Surveys showed up to 5 million voters will make up their minds at the last minute.

The Interior Ministry urged some 47 million eligible voters in Italy not to let bad weather put them off, and said it was prepared to handle snowy conditions in some northern regions to ensure everyone had a chance to vote.

STAGNANT ECONOMY

Whatever government emerges from the vote will have the task of pulling Italy out of its longest recession for 20 years and reviving an economy largely stagnant for two decades.

The main danger for Italy and the euro zone is a weak government incapable of taking firm action, which would rattle investors and could ignite a new debt crisis.

Monti replaced Berlusconi in November 2011 after Italy came close to Greek-style financial meltdown while the center-right government was embroiled in scandals.

The former European Commissioner launched a tough program of spending cuts, tax hikes and pension reforms which won widespread international backing and helped restore Italy's credibility abroad after the scandals of the Berlusconi era.

Italy's borrowing costs have since fallen sharply after the European Central Bank pledged it was prepared to support countries undertaking reforms by buying unlimited quantities of their bonds on the markets.

But economic austerity has fuelled anger among Italians grappling with rising unemployment and shrinking disposable incomes, encouraging many to turn to Grillo, who has tapped into a national mood of disenchantment.

(Additional reporting by Cristiano Corvino and Lisa Jucca in Milan; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Four Features that Set HTC’s ‘The One’ Smartphone Apart

At a press event today, Taiwan-based smartphone maker HTC unveiled its new flagship phone, which it calls The One. The definite article sets it apart from HTC’s earlier One S, One X, and other “Ones,” none of which are as powerful and all of which had trouble differentiating from each other.

The One, by contrast, is designed to be a premium device, with unique features that go beyond its raw hardware specs. TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington compared HTC’s new approach to Apple’s , where it launches a limited number of easily identifiable products that are set apart more by how they work and feel than by how powerful they are under the hood.

Here’s a look at how these unique features set The One apart from other smartphones, both Apple’s and Android manufacturers’.

Premium speakers and screen

The One has a large 4.7-inch screen, which doesn’t quite place it in the same range as Samsung’s Galaxy Note “phablets” but is the same size as the Google Nexus 4′s. What’s more noteworthy is how sharp it is; at 468 pixels per inch, it beats out even the iPhone 5′s 326 ppi “Retina Display,” which already had pixels so small that they couldn’t be seen by the unaided eye at the normal distance one would use it from.

For sound, The One not only features HTC’s Beats Audio technology, it incorporates it into the phone’s built-in speakers in what it calls BoomSound. Reviewers agree that the stereo speakers are more powerful than those typically found on a smartphone, but The Week’s Chris Gayomali reminds us to “Please don’t be that person” who turns them up loud in public.

“UltraPixel” camera with HTC Zoe

The sensor in The One’s camera has fewer megapixels than most, but much larger pixels which capture more light. Alexandra Chang, writing for Wired’s Gadget Lab, explains how these make for higher-quality pictures with less visual noise and distortion, like collecting rainwater in buckets instead of small cups.

HTC ZOE, meanwhile, is basically an app which automatically edits videos you take and creates three-second highlights reels meant for sharing online — “complete with a theme, soundtrack, and filter,” according to Etherington, who isn’t enamored of the idea of having software do this for him.

BlinkFeed

Photos of The One’s screen show a sort of Windows Phone 8 (or Flipboard) style series of tiles, with the weather at the top and others showing Twitter or news updates. This is actually not Windows Phone 8, but the new HTC BlinkFeed feature running on top of Android. It’s sort of a combination social media and newsmagazine app, and it’s designed to be front-and-center on the home screen.

Price and availability

According to a leak found by HTC Source, The One will launch in the US on March 22 on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, at $ 199 on a two-year contract. This may be subject to change, however, or may not be reliable information. HTC did not specify either a price or release date at its event.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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