Cameroon, Nigeria officials deny French hostages freed

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - The fate of seven French tourists seized in Cameroon by suspected Nigerian Islamist militants was unclear on Thursday after government officials denied French media reports that they had been freed.

The hostages, four children and three adults, were captured this week while on an excursion to the Waza national park near Cameroon's border with Nigeria.

Several French media reported earlier on Thursday that the hostages had been found alive in a house in northern Nigeria and freed.

"The hostages are safe and sound and are in the hands of Nigerian authorities," BFMTV quoted a Cameroon army officer as saying.

"This is a crazy rumor that we cannot confirm. We do not know where is it coming from," Cameroon Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said by telephone from the capital Yaounde.

Sagir Musa, a spokesman for Nigeria's military, told Reuters the report was "not true."

Kader Arif, France's minister for veterans' affairs, told parliament on Thursday that the seven hostages had been released but retracted his statement minutes later, saying he had been quoting media reports and there was no official confirmation.

It was the first case of foreigners being seized by suspected Islamist militants in the mainly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony.

The region is seen as being within the operational sphere of Nigerian sect Boko Haram and another Islamist militant group, Ansaru.

The threat to French nationals in the region has grown since France deployed thousands of troops to nearby Mali to root out al Qaeda-linked Islamists who took control of the country's north last year.

The kidnapping in Cameroon brought to 15 the number of French citizens being held in West Africa.

French diplomatic sources said the government would not confirm the hostages had been released until it had physical proof, or until they were in French hands.

(Reporting By Emile Picy and Nicholas Vinocur in Paris; Additional reporting by Joe Brock in Abuja and Bate Felix and John Irish in Dakar; Editing by Pravin Char and Tom Pfeiffer)

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Dean Cain 'Not Surprised' By Mindy McCready's Death

By Sandra Sobieraj Westfall

02/21/2013 at 08:00 AM EST

Mindy McCready and Dean Cain at the Scream 2 premiere

Fred Prouser/Reuters/Landov

Speaking out for the first time about his former fiancée's suicide, actor and writer-producer Dean Cain tells PEOPLE that Mindy McCready was deeply troubled even 15 years ago, but it was her manipulations and lies – not substance abuse – that sank their future together back then.

"I'm saddened to hear of her passing, but I'm not surprised," says Cain, 46, whose starring role in TV's Lois & Clark ended just as he and McCready began their relationship in 1997.

They lived together and were engaged, but things imploded after a year. From his Los Angeles home on Monday, one day after McCready fatally shot herself, Cain struggled to remember any joy to their relationship: "I can't paint too pretty a picture. She would start arguments, start drama. Things weren't allowed to be good."

Though drugs and alcohol would later send McCready to rehab, Cain said neither was a factor in their relationship – or its demise.

"She was never abusive or addictive with me, but red flags were everywhere," he says. "I saw all the bad signs and told her to get out." At the end, he says he fled his own home for a hotel to escape her. "Everything she did was a manipulation of sorts. She would just get combative."

In the decade and a half that followed, Cain, who fathered a son with a subsequent girlfriend and is single today, severed all ties with McCready.

"When I did speak to her, truth didn't come out," he says. "She was kind of poisonous and not somebody I was going to have in my life anymore – or anywhere around my son."

Now, says Cain, he feels for the two boys McCready left behind.

"My first thought was of the poor kids. To think about the legacy those boys have been left, it's just tragic. ... All her troubles were self-inflicted. She had everything. She was a tremendous talent but everything about it was a waste."

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Adults get 11 percent of calories from fast food

ATLANTA (AP) — On an average day, U.S. adults get roughly 11 percent of their calories from fast food, a government study shows.

That's down slightly from the 13 percent reported the last time the government tried to pin down how much of the American diet is coming from fast food. Eating fast food too frequently has been seen as a driver of America's obesity problem.

For the research, about 11,000 adults were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours to come up with the results.

Among the findings:

— Young adults eat more fast food than their elders; 15 percent of calories for ages 20 to 39 and dropping to 6 percent for those 60 and older.

— Blacks get more of their calories from fast-food, 15 percent compared to 11 percent for whites and Hispanics.

— Young black adults got a whopping 21 percent from the likes of Wendy's, Taco Bell and KFC.

The figures are averages. Included in the calculations are some people who almost never eat fast food, as well as others who eat a lot of it.

The survey covers the years 2007 through 2010 and was released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The authors couldn't explain why the proportion of calories from fast food dropped from the 13 percent found in a survey for 2003 through 2006.

One nutrition professor cast doubts on the latest results, saying 11 percent seemed implausibly low. New York University's Marion Nestle said it wouldn't be surprising if some people under-reported their hamburgers, fries and milkshakes since eating too much fast food is increasingly seen as something of a no-no.

"If I were a fast-food company, I'd say 'See, we have nothing to do with obesity! Americans are getting 90 percent of their calories somewhere else!'" she said.

The study didn't include the total number of fast-food calories, just the percentage. Previous government research suggests that the average U.S. adult each day consumes about 270 calories of fast food — the equivalent of a small McDonald's hamburger and a few fries.

The new CDC study found that obese people get about 13 percent of daily calories from fast food, compared with less than 10 percent for skinny and normal-weight people.

There was no difference seen by household income, except for young adults. The poorest — those with an annual household income of less than $30,000 — got 17 percent of their calories from fast food, while the figure was under 14 percent for the most affluent 20- and 30-somethings with a household income of more than $50,000.

That's not surprising since there are disproportionately higher numbers of fast-food restaurants in low-income neighborhoods, Nestle said.

Fast food is accessible and "it's cheap," she said.

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Wal-Mart holiday profit rises despite lackluster sales

(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc posted a larger-than-expected rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, as a lower-than-anticipated tax rate helped to overcome some weakness in sales at its major Walmart U.S. unit that persisted into the beginning of February.

The world's largest retailer also raised its dividend payout. Its shares fell 1 percent in premarket trading.

Wal-Mart earned $1.67 per share from continuing operations in the fiscal fourth quarter, up from $1.51 per share a year earlier. Wal-Mart had forecast a profit of $1.53 to $1.58 per share from continuing operations, and analysts expected it to earn $1.57 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Walmart U.S. has had a slow start to February, which Walmart U.S. Chief Executive Bill Simon attributed largely to a delay in income tax refunds. The company expects sales at Walmart U.S. stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, to be about flat during the current first quarter. A year earlier, such sales rose 2.6 percent.

Efforts such as extending its layaway program and matching competitors' prices attracted shoppers during the competitive holiday season, but Walmart U.S. same-store sales rose just 1 percent in the fourth quarter. The company had forecast an increase of 1 percent to 3 percent, and analysts, on average, had looked for a 1.5 percent gain.

A year earlier, Walmart U.S. same-store sales rose 1.5 percent.

Still, Wal-Mart said that its biggest unit gained market share in major categories of food, consumables, health and wellness and over-the-counter medications, as well as in entertainment and toys, which are big sellers during the holiday period, citing data from Nielsen and the NPD Group.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Boca Raton, Florida; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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Bulgarian government resigns amid growing protests

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt crisis.

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union's poorest member, now faces a tough task to prop up eroding support ahead of a probable early election.

Wage and pension freezes and tax hikes have bitten deep in a country where living standards are less than half the EU average and tens of thousands of Bulgarians have rallied in protests that have turned violent, chanting "Mafia" and "Resign".

On Tuesday, 11 people were hospitalized - including one man bleeding heavily from the head - and 11 arrested after protesters threw flares at police, who fought demonstrators with shields and truncheons.

"I will not participate in a government under which police are beating people," Borisov, who began his career guarding the Black Sea state's communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, said as he announced his resignation on Wednesday.

Parliament is expected to accept the resignation later in the day.

The spark for the protests was high electricity bills, after the government raised prices by 13 percent last July. But it quickly spilled over into wider frustration with Borisov's domineering manner and unpredictable decision making.

The prime minister made sacrifices in an attempt to cling on, sacking his finance minister, cutting power prices and risking a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic by punishing foreign-owned companies, a move that conflicted with EU norms on protection of investors and due process.

Borisov's rightist GERB party is the dominant faction in parliament but will not take part in talks to form a new government, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said, indicating that an election planned for July will now be held early.

"He made my day," student Borislav Hadzhiev, 21, in central Sofia said, commenting on Borisov's resignation. "The truth is that we're living in an extremely poor country."

IRE

GERB's popularity has held up well and it still leads, just, in the polls, largely because budget cutbacks have been relatively mild compared with those in many other European countries. Salaries and pensions were frozen rather than cut.

But the last opinion poll, taken before protests grew last weekend already showed the opposition Socialists were nearly tied with the ruling party and analysts said the protests had boosted the Socialists' chances.

Unemployment in the country of 7.3 million is far from the highs hit in the decade after the end of communism but remains at 11.9 percent and average salaries are stuck at around 800 levs ($550) a month.

Millions have emigrated in search of a better life, leaving swathes of the country depopulated and little hope for those who remain.

The measures announced this week has also put the country on a collision course with the EU and financial investors without easing the tension at home.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas demanded an explanation from Bulgaria and accused it of "politicizing" the power sector by threatening to revoke the electricity distribution license of central Europe's largest listed company CEZ, 70 percent of which is owned by the Czech state.

There have also been fines for another Czech company, Energo-Pro and Austria's EVN.

The precedent is unlikely to encourage other foreign investors, who already have to navigate complicated bureaucracy and widespread corruption and organized crime if they want to take advantage of Bulgaria's 16-percent flat tax rate.

"The resignation is the only responsible move," said Kantcho Stoychev, an analyst with pollster Gallup International. "It also gives Borisov some legitimacy to stay in political life in the future, despite the violent police actions last night."

(Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Patrick Graham)

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Robin Roberts Welcomed Back to GMA by the Obamas

By Stephen M. Silverman

02/20/2013 at 07:50 AM EST

From left: Josh Elliott, Sam Champion, Robin Roberts, Lara Spencer, and George Stephanopoulos

Heidi Gutman/ABC

A standing ovation from her crew greeted Robin Roberts at the door of the ABC Times Square studio of Good Morning America, even before the sun rose Wednesday – exactly five months after the anchor had a bone marrow transplant to treat myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, a rare blood disorder.

Outside, in the street, a crowd of fans had already gathered with placards, banners and even an ebullient fellow from Dallas waving what he called the world's largest wristband, hailing his heroine. It read, "WELCOME BACK ROBIN."

Once the show hit the air, Roberts, with her colleagues surrounding her, looked into the camera, broke into a great big smile, and announced: "Hi, it's Robin. I've been waiting 174 days to do this: Good Morning America!"

Said her co-anchor George Stephanopoulos: "We've been waiting for that drumroll. It is official now. Welcome back, Robin."

From Jimmy Kimmel and Bradley Cooper, sitting at Kimmel's talk show desk in Hollywood: "Welcome back, girlfriend."

And from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: "Good morning, America, and welcome back, Robin," said President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama sitting with him.

"Robin," said Mrs. Obama, "we just want you to know that the whole Obama family, we've been thinking about you, and praying for you, and rooting for you every step of the way."

"You've been an inspiration to all of us," said the President, "and we couldn't be happier that you're back here, doing what you do best."

Said Roberts, 52 – besides claiming she wasn't wearing the froggy slippers she had sported around her apartment ("Or, am I?" she said) – "I keep pinching myself and I realize that this is real. This is really happening.

"Faith, family and friends have brought me to this moment and I am so full of gratitude."

Her medical team was introduced later in the show. Before that, Roberts said, "There's so many people that I want to thank throughout the morning, my doctors and nurses and family and colleagues and people who have sat in this chair and those who have blazed the trail before me."

"As my mother said, 'We all have something.' Everyone’s story has purpose and meaning and value, and I share this morning, this day of celebration with everyone."

She added later, after witnessing an impromptu jam session taking place in her honor outside the studio, "Our viewers have been incredible."

Roberts recently received the all-clear from her doctors, as tests have shown no abnormalities and she has continued to gain strength. She had already been back in the studio, doing a series of dry runs before her official return Wednesday.

A special edition of 20/20 on Feb. 22 will offer a behind-the-scenes look at Roberts's experience and those who have been inspired by her example.

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Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year

CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.

"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.

In 2010, the CDC reported, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide. Medicines, mostly prescription drugs, were involved in nearly 60 percent of overdose deaths that year, overshadowing deaths from illicit narcotics.

The report appears in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

It details which drugs were at play in most of the fatalities. As in previous recent years, opioid drugs — which include OxyContin and Vicodin — were the biggest problem, contributing to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths.

Frieden said many doctors and patients don't realize how addictive these drugs can be, and that they're too often prescribed for pain that can be managed with less risky drugs.

They're useful for cancer, "but if you've got terrible back pain or terrible migraines," using these addictive drugs can be dangerous, he said.

Medication-related deaths accounted for 22,134 of the drug overdose deaths in 2010.

Anti-anxiety drugs including Valium were among common causes of medication-related deaths, involved in almost 30 percent of them. Among the medication-related deaths, 17 percent were suicides.

The report's data came from death certificates, which aren't always clear on whether a death was a suicide or a tragic attempt at getting high. But it does seem like most serious painkiller overdoses were accidental, said Dr. Rich Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The study's findings are no surprise, he added. "The results are consistent with what we experience" in ERs, he said, adding that the statistics no doubt have gotten worse since 2010.

Some experts believe these deaths will level off. "Right now, there's a general belief that because these are pharmaceutical drugs, they're safer than street drugs like heroin," said Don Des Jarlais, director of the chemical dependency institute at New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center.

"But at some point, people using these drugs are going to become more aware of the dangers," he said.

Frieden said the data show a need for more prescription drug monitoring programs at the state level, and more laws shutting down "pill mills" — doctor offices and pharmacies that over-prescribe addictive medicines.

Last month, a federal panel of drug safety specialists recommended that Vicodin and dozens of other medicines be subjected to the same restrictions as other narcotic drugs like oxycodone and morphine. Meanwhile, more and more hospitals have been establishing tougher restrictions on painkiller prescriptions and refills.

One example: The University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is considering a rule that would ban emergency doctors from prescribing more medicine for patients who say they lost their pain meds, Zane said.

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Stobbe reported from Atlanta.

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Online:

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

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com

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Stock futures flat with data, Fed minutes on tap

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures were little changed on Wednesday, ahead of data on the housing market and inflation, as well as minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's January meeting.

Housing starts and permits for January along with the January producer price index are due at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT).

Economists in a Reuters survey forecast the housing starts data to show a 925,000-unit annualized rate in January versus 954,000 in December, and a total of 915,000 permits in January compared with 909,000 in the prior month. PPI is expected to show a 0.4 percent rise compared with a 0.3 percent drop in December. Excluding volatile food and energy items, PPI is expected to rise 0.2 percent versus with a 0.1 percent increase in December.

Later in the session, investors will look to the minutes from the Fed's January meeting for any clues on how long the current monetary policy will remain in effect.

The S&P 500 <.spx> is up 7.4 percent for the year, fueled by legislators' ability to sidestep an automatic implementation of spending cuts on tax hikes on January 1, better-than-expected corporate earnings and modestly improving economic data that has been tepid enough for the Fed to maintain its stimulus policy.

S&P 500 futures slipped 0.5 point and were slightly below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 14 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 2 points.

As earnings season winds down, S&P 500 companies set to report include Devon Energy Corp and Fluor Corp .

According to the Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning, of the 391 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 70.1 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

European shares traded flat, consolidating after the previous session's sharp gains, held back by weak earnings newsflow and as traders cited caution ahead of the minutes from the Fed's January policy meeting. <.eu/>

Asian shares scaled their highest levels since August 2011 after an improving global economic outlook whetted investor appetite for risk, while the yen firmed amid doubts over Japan's commitment to drastic reflation.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Chavez back in Venezuela, on Twitter with 4 million followers

CARACAS (Reuters) - After Hugo Chavez spent two months out of the public eye for cancer surgery in Cuba, the Venezuelan government hailed his homecoming on Monday and said the president had achieved another milestone - four million followers on Twitter.

The 58-year-old flew back from Havana before dawn and was taken to a military hospital. No new details were given on his health, and there were no images of his arrival. Officials say his condition remains delicate.

The normally loquacious socialist leader, who is struggling to speak as he breathes through a tracheal tube, took to Twitter with a passion back in April 2010, tweeting regularly and encouraging other leftist Latin American leaders to do likewise.

His @chavezcandanga account quickly drew a big mixed following of fans, critics and others just curious to see how his famously long speeches and fiery anti-U.S. invective would work within the social media network's 140-character limit.

But as he fought the cancer and underwent weeks of grueling chemotherapy and radiation therapy, he began to tweet less and less frequently, before stopping altogether on November 1.

Early on Monday morning, he made his reappearance.

"It was 4:30, 5 a.m. He got to his room and surprised everyone: rat-tat-tat, he sent three or four messages, and at that moment fireworks began to go off around the country," Vice President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised cabinet meeting.

During the day, Maduro added, the president's number of followers had shot up to well over four million.

"It's incredible, in just a few hours ... he's the second most-followed president in the world (after Barack Obama), and the first if we make the comparison by per capita," he said.

Obama has more than 27 million Twitter followers and is No. 5 most followed globally. Chavez is Twitter's No. 190 globally.

4TH MILLION FOLLOWER

Maduro said Chavez's four millionth follower was a 20-year-old single Venezuelan woman named Alemar Jimenez from the gritty San Juan neighborhood in downtown Caracas, near the military hospital where the president arrived earlier in the day.

"She's one of the golden generation of youth who support the fatherland and have been waiting with growing love for commander Hugo Chavez," Maduro said, before presenting a dazzled-looking Jimenez to the cameras and giving her a bunch of flowers.

"We were really emotional" she said, recounting how she was with her mother when they heard Chavez had returned. "I sent him a message on Twitter saying he must get better."

There are still big questions over the president's health. He could have come back to govern from behind the scenes, or he may be hoping to ease political tensions and pave the way for a transition to Maduro, his preferred successor.

Chavez has often ordered followers to fight back against opposition critics of his self-styled revolution by using social media, leading from the front himself on Twitter and referring to the Internet as a "battle trench."

As his ranks of followers grew, Chavez said he hired 200 assistants to help him respond to messages - which he said were a great way to receive first-hand the requests, demands, complaints and denunciations of citizens in the thousands.

During his re-election campaign last year, the government launched an SMS text message service that forwards his tweets to cellphones that lack Internet service, broadening their reach to the poorest corners of the South American country.

"He's a communication revolution!" Maduro said, later unbuttoning his shirt on TV to show he was wearing a T-shirt bearing Chavez's eyes emblazoned across his chest.

For the tens of thousands who signed up on Monday to follow Chavez on Twitter, it is unclear how much will be posted there in the weeks and months ahead. Venezuela's 29 million people are mostly wondering something similar.

(Additional reporting by Diego Ore; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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Oscar Pistorius Charge Upgraded to Premeditated Murder

Breaking News

By Stephen M. Silverman

02/19/2013 at 07:20 AM EST

Oscar Pistorius

Antonie de Ras/Reuters/Landov

Charges against Oscar Pistorius have been upgraded to premeditated murder, after the judge in Pretoria, South Africa, said during Tuesday's bail hearing that he could not rule out the possibility that the "Blade Runner" track star planned the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, reports CNN.

Magistrate Desmond Nair said he would consider downgrading the charge at a later date. Wearing a blue shirt and gray suit, and sometimes clenching his jaw, Pistorius also openly wept in the packed courtroom as prosecutors provided details of their accusations.

Prosecutors said Pistorius, 26, opened fire on Steenkamp, 29, four times through a locked bathroom door of his home in a gated community last Thursday after attaching his prosthetic legs and walking more than 20 feet from a bedroom.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel said Steenkamp, a model who only recently had made her debut in a reality TV show, had been in a room less than 20 square feet when the shots were fired, reports The New York Times.

"She could not go anywhere," said Nel. "It must have been horrific."

A lawyer for Pistorius, Barry Roux, said the defense would "submit that this is not a murder," citing a lack of evidence or motive.

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