Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.

Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> has gained 5.4 percent this year and closed above 1,500 - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> is 2.2 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007. The Dow ended Friday's session at 13,895.98, its highest close since October 31, 2007.

The S&P has risen for four straight weeks and eight consecutive sessions, the longest streak of days since 2004. On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended at 1,502.96 - its first close above 1,500 in more than five years.

"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, New Jersey. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."

The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is 3.1 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on October 11, 2007.

The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.

That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.

MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS COME BACK

All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

Energy shares <.5sp10> lead the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials <.5sp20>, up 6.3 percent. Telecom <.5sp50>, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.

More than 350 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.

"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts , Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minnesota.

The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index <.spcy> has jumped 6.7 percent and the S&P mid-cap index <.mid> has shot up 7.5 percent so far this year.

Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.

"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.

The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.

JOBS DATA MAY TEST THE RALLY

In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.

Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.

The market's resilience could be tested next week with Friday's release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.

"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Alabama. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."

A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .

On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.

Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.

"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."

For the week, the Dow climbed 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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IHT Rendezvous: Which Companies' Sustainability Promises Do You Believe?

H&M, the Swedish clothing retail giant, has vowed to become greener and more sustainable when it comes to the water it uses to make its clothes.

“Water is a key resource for H&M, and we are committed to ensuring water is used responsibly throughout our value chain. We do this to minimize risks in our operations, protect the environment and secure availability of water for present and future generations,” said Karl-Johan Persson, the head of H&M, according to a press statement released yesterday.

The World Wildlife Fund, the venerable environmental group, will monitor the effort and collaborate with H&M in a campaign called “Pioneering Water Stewardship for Fashion” over the next three years.

With 94,000 employees selling clothes in 48 countries and 750 direct suppliers, H&M is a significant global force in the garment industry.

WWF sees H&M’s commitment to changing all aspects of its water use — from cotton to the customer — as a chance to change the way an entire industry deals with water use and pollution. (H&M’s new corporate water strategy)

“This partnership marks an evolution in the corporate approach to water,” said Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International, according to the statement.

Just two years ago Greenpeace UK condemned H&M for wasting water, shaming it with commitments Puma, Adidas and Nike had made to do better. At the time Greenpeace charged: “H&M had links to factories discharging a range of hazardous chemicals into China’s rivers.”

The German sportswear-maker Puma (owned by the French PPR) has been scoring points with environmentalists on several sustainability campaigns. Two years ago, the company introduced an accounting tool that measures the sustainability of products in terms of the greenhouse gases emitted and water consumed to make them. More visible to consumers, the company has received much praise for its environmentally friendly packaging.

Even the corporate behemoth Nike, which in the 90s was forced to fight against the image of profiting from child labor, has long vowed to be a good and sustainable corporate citizen. In 2011, it announced it wanted to stop discharging hazardous chemicals by 2020.

Join our sustainability discussion. Do you trust these multinational companies when they announce sustainability plans? Or are such announcements more public relations and marketing than honest goals?

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New PlayStation 4 details emerge: 8-core AMD ‘Bulldozer’ CPU, redesigned controller and more

2013 is a huge year for gamers. Nintendo (NTDOY) just launched the Wii U ahead of the holidays and both Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) are expected to issue next-generation consoles before the year is through. We’ve seen plenty of rumors about both systems over the past few months, and the latest comes from Kotaku and focuses on Sony’s PlayStation 4.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 said to be overhyped, RIM’s comeback chances remain slim]

The site claims to have gotten its hands on documents describing Sony’s developer system given to premier partners so they can build games ahead of the next-generation console launch. The specs, if accurate, will obviously line up with the release version of the system. Included in the specs Kotaku is reporting are an AMD64 “Bulldozer” CPU with eight cores total, an AMD GPU, 8GB of system RAM, 2.2GB of video memory, a 160GB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, four USB 3.0 ports and more.

[More from BGR: Apple: ‘Bent, not broken’]

Sony also reportedly has a redesigned controller in the works that will include a capacitive touch pad.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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American Idol Auditions in Baton Rouge Are (Almost) Drama-Free

TV Watch

American Idol

By Steve Helling

01/24/2013 at 10:00 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

George Holz/FOX

There were no catfights on Thursday's American Idol. No one stormed off the set. Everyone was on their best behavior as contestants auditioned in Baton Rouge, La.

That's not to say that things didn't get weird. Nicki Minaj nicknamed one contestant "Mushroom" and rubbed her fingers through his hair to bestow her "special powers" on him. (Whenever Minaj speaks, Mariah Carey simply stares off into space, as if she's just trying to find her happy place.) The Idol producers also began a baffling trend of splicing footage of squealing farm animals between the bad auditions.

But there were some bright spots: Burnell Taylor, a Hurricane Katrina survivor, made Carey cry with his capable rendition of "I'm Here" from the musical The Color Purple. "This is what we came for," said Minaj, who was apparently speaking about Taylor's voice, not Carey's tears. "While everyone else auditioned, you entertained us."

Hulking firefighter Dustin Watts wowed the judges with his version of Garth Brooks's "She's Every Woman." And yes, ladies, he's single. We know this because Minaj continued her practice of asking good-looking guys if they have a girlfriend. "You have a great style," Keith Urban told Watts. "You've got a confidence about you."

Tennessean Paul Jolley's family seemed shocked that he made it to Hollywood, which may have been overdone, considering that the 22-year-old singer has opened for country stars Chely Wright, Lorrie Morgan and Aaron Tippin. His pleasant version of "I Won't Let Go" by Rascal Flatts impressed the judges. "It was effortless," said Carey. "I know that people are going to love you."

Perhaps the most unique contestant of the night was Calvin Peters, a 27-year-old physician from Fort Worth, Texas. The third-year resident is known as "the singing doctor," and wowed the judges with his audition of Maxwell's "Whenever, Wherever, Whatever." Carey called him "handsome," which seems to be a trend this season.

Most of the night's successful women were lumped into a montage, except for Miss Baton Rouge Megan Miller, who impressed the judges while auditioning on crutches. Perhaps the lack of female character development is a reason why the show hasn't crowned a woman champ since Jordin Sparks won in 2007. Then again, the judges this season seem confident a female singer is going to win.

Before the episode could end without a drop of drama, Urban accidentally referred to Minaj as "Mariah." Both women shot him withering looks and commanded him to say more than 1000 Hail Marys.

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Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.

The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.

For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration. But older smokers could face a heavy hit on their household budgets at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses tend to emerge.

Workers covered on the job would be able to avoid tobacco penalties by joining smoking cessation programs, because employer plans operate under different rules. But experts say that option is not guaranteed to smokers trying to purchase coverage individually.

Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don't come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung problems and cancer, contributing to nearly 450,000 deaths a year.

Insurers won't be allowed to charge more under the overhaul for people who are overweight, or have a health condition like a bad back or a heart that skips beats — but they can charge more if a person smokes.

Starting next Jan. 1, the federal health care law will make it possible for people who can't get coverage now to buy private policies, providing tax credits to keep the premiums affordable. Although the law prohibits insurance companies from turning away the sick, the penalties for smokers could have the same effect in many cases, keeping out potentially costly patients.

"We don't want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage," said California state Assemblyman Richard Pan, who is working on a law in his state that would limit insurers' ability to charge smokers more. The federal law allows states to limit or change the smoking penalty.

"We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment," added Pan, a pediatrician who represents the Sacramento area.

Obama administration officials declined to be interviewed for this article, but a former consumer protection regulator for the government is raising questions.

"If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don't want in your pool, the ones you really don't want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years," said Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "You would have the flexibility to discourage them."

Several provisions in the federal health care law work together to leave older smokers with a bleak set of financial options, said Pollitz, formerly deputy director of the Office of Consumer Support in the federal Health and Human Services Department.

First, the law allows insurers to charge older adults up to three times as much as their youngest customers.

Second, the law allows insurers to levy the full 50 percent penalty on older smokers while charging less to younger ones.

And finally, government tax credits that will be available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the cost of penalties for smokers.

Here's how the math would work:

Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama's law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can't be used to offset the penalty, the smoker's total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That's considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

"The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.

In today's world, insurers can simply turn down a smoker. Under Obama's overhaul, would they actually charge the full 50 percent? After all, workplace anti-smoking programs that use penalties usually charge far less, maybe $75 or $100 a month.

Robert Laszewski, a consultant who previously worked in the insurance industry, says there's a good reason to charge the maximum.

"If you don't charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers," said Laszewski. "They are going to have to play defense."

___

Online:

Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator — http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

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Asian shares down; Seoul hit by weak techs but Nikkei surges

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Friday, hurt by a drop in regional technology stocks and on caution ahead of the corporate earnings season, but gains in Japan and Australia limited overall losses for equities.

Upbeat manufacturing reports from the United States, Germany and China underpinned sentiment for other assets, supporting copper while curbing selling pressure in oil.

"The PMI indicators from the U.S., Europe and China should serve to keep markets tracking higher," said CMC Markets senior trader Tim Waterer in Sydney.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> eased 0.5 percent, and was set for a weekly drop of 1 percent, its biggest such loss in two months.

A 1.4 percent slide in the technology sector <.miapjit00pus> dragged the pan-Asian index down, as tech-heavy markets such as South Korea and Taiwan fell.

Seoul shares <.ks11> declined 0.9 percent, weighed by weak profits for automakers, while tech shares continued to falter as Samsung Electronics announced cautious spending plans for the first time since the global financial crisis.

Shares of Apple Inc's suppliers extended their declines after Apple's below-estimate results announced earlier in the week: Taiwan's Largan Precision weakened and Samsung shares shed as much as 3.3 percent.

Hong Kong <.hsi> and Shanghai <.ssec> were the other laggards as investors took profits from recent rallies and remained cautious ahead of the upcoming earnings season.

A 0.3 percent rise in London copper to $8,118 a metric ton and gold prices steadying around $1,669 an ounce helped push commodity-reliant Australian shares <.axjo> up 0.5 percent to a fresh 21-month high, marking an eighth straight session of gains.

U.S. crude eased 0.1 percent to $95.87 a barrel and Brent inched down 0.2 percent to $113.11.

"It now seems that the stronger tone in global equity markets, coupled with a notable easing in European and US market tensions, is leading to short-term pressure on gold," said Ed Meir, an analyst at INTL FCStone, in a research note.

European markets are seen falling, with financial spread-betters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open down as much as 0.4 percent. U.S. stock futures were down 0.2 percent, pointing to a softer Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>

JAPAN IN SPOTLIGHT

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> outperformed its Asian peers with a 2.9 percent surge as the yen hit fresh lows versus the dollar and the euro on expectations Japan will continue to pursue bold policies to beat deflation and stimulate growth. The Nikkei rose for an 11th straight week. <.t/>

"Trading on Japan is gaining momentum among foreign investors, centering around the dollar/yen, which has dictated Nikkei's direction," said Tetsuro Ii, the chief executive of Commons Asset Management.

The yen's slide bolsters sentiment for Japanese equities as it lifts earnings prospects for exporters, ahead of the quarterly earnings season set to start next week.

The dollar scaled its highest level since June 2010 to reach 90.695 yen early on Friday and the euro rose to 121.32, its highest since April 2011. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new administration has made clear it wants a weaker yen, providing investors a reason to short the currency.

More than 80 percent of Japanese firms are in favor of Abe's drive for aggressive monetary easing and huge fiscal spending, though most also feared Japan would face a debt crisis within a few years, according to a Reuters poll.

The yen's two-month decline has more legs, many traders and analysts believe, noting the yen has barely caught up to levels before a potential debt default by Greece sparked the euro zone debt crisis and sent the euro plummeting nearly three years ago.

The yen was around 95 yen against the dollar and 123 yen against the euro early in May 2010 when protests flared up in Greece against its austerity steps in exchange for a bailout.

Despite the recent rallies, the Nikkei remains well below levels before the 2008 financial crisis while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> and Germany's benchmark stock index have both already exceeded that level, thanks to the weakness of the euro and the dollar, measured against a basket of currencies.

"JPY weakness should continue over the coming year driven by an expansion of the Bank of Japan's balance sheet relative to the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve," said Kit Juckes, FX strategist at Societe Generale in a note. "I don't know how long the USD/JPY is going to pause at around 90, but a move to 100 still seems very likely in the longer run."

(Additional reporting by Victoria Thieberger in Melbourne and Rujun Shen in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

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IHT Rendezvous: Britons Promised Vote on Europe, Again

LONDON — A British political leader faces dissent within his own party over the country’s membership in Europe. He promises to renegotiate the terms and to hold a referendum on the issue if he wins the next election.

That was Harold Wilson, the Labour Party leader, who as prime minister in 1975 fulfilled an election pledge to hold a nationwide vote on Britain’s continued membership in what was then the European Economic Community.

Plus ça change, as the French would say.

David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister who was 8 at the time of Britain’s first and only referendum, has now promised a rerun, announcing on Wednesday in a long-anticipated speech:

“It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics.”

There seemed little doubt that he had been pushed to the decision by Euro-skeptic sentiment in his own party and the emerging electoral challenge from the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party, which is threatening to capture Tory votes.

Divisions over Europe used to be the Labour Party disease. The left of the party viewed the E.C.C. as a club for the rich that had more to do with enhancing the profits of transnational business than enhancing the lot of the common man.

“The development of the Community since its inception has been largely directed to business rather than social goals,” the Trades Union Congress, the umbrella group for British labor unions, argued at the time. “The effect has been to increase the mobility of capital . . . enabling business to avoid more easily its obligations to employees.”

The split continued to dog the Labour Party, in and out of government, long after two-thirds of voters opted in 1975 to remain in Europe.

These days, labor union spokesmen are as likely to argue that Europe has been good for workers in terms of Continent-wide rights and protections.

But Euro-skepticism was never confined to the Labour Party. For the Conservatives, it was and remains a divisive issue between a broadly pro-European mainstream and right wingers who rail at loss of sovereignty and an overweening Brussels bureaucracy.

Harold Wilson’s 1975 referendum was a gamble that paid off. He supported Britain’s continued membership in the face of opponents who included members of his own cabinet.

Will David Cameron’s own “dangerous gamble” silence Conservative dissent? Or will Britain end up sleepwalking out of Europe, as some have warned?

Peter Kellner, a veteran political commentator, says there’s an “uncanny resemblance” between public opinion in 1975 and today.

So, if there is a referendum in which Britons again opt to stay in, will that be the end of the argument?

Tell us what you think. Is David Cameron playing domestic politics over Europe and, if so, what are the risks? And, if you’re British, which way would you vote?

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Google Wants to Own the Airwaves, Now

As if Google‘s launching a free Wi-Fi network in New York City earlier this month wasn’t curious enough, now the search giant is asking the Federal Communications Commission for a license to create an “experimental radio service.” What’s an experimental radio service, you ask? Well, Google won’t say exactly what its doing with the air above its Mountain View, California headquarters, but the details of the FCC application suggest it’s trying to build its own proprietary wireless network.

RELATED: Who’s Winning the Facebook-Google Tech War

Oh, so this must have something to do with Google Fiber and Google‘s becoming an Internet service provider, offering insanely fast Internet, right? Again, not exactly. “Google‘s small-scale wireless network would use frequencies that wouldn’t be compatible with nearly any of the consumer mobile devices that exist today, such as Apple’s iPad or iPhone or most devices powered by Google‘s Android operating system,” explain The Wall Street Journal‘s Amir Efrati and Anton Troianovski. “The network would only provide coverage for devices built to access certain frequencies, from 2524 to 2625 megahertz.” However, networks using those frequencies are under construction in Asia, just waiting for devices that support them. And last year, Google purchased Motorola Mobility, a mobile phone manufacturer that could ostensibly manufacture such devices. This is starting to sound sort of shady.

RELATED: You Were Right to Delete Your Google History

While it’s too soon to understand the extent of the company’s plans, it certainly looks like Google actually wants to own the airwaves now. Could we see a Google phone that works on a custom built Wi-Fi network, one that nobody else can use? It’s very possible. For now, Google‘s official answer to that line of questioning is that the company experiments all the time with all kinds of things. But according to Steven Crowley, a wireless engineer who first spotted the FCC application, ”The only reason to use these frequencies is if you have business designs on some mobile service.” 

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Nicki Minaj Storms Off American Idol Set in Charlotte, N.C.

TV Watch

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

01/23/2013 at 10:50 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

Michael Becker/FOX.

As American Idol's talent search headed to Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday, the already-tense relationship between judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj went even further south.

Things got so heated that the production had to shut down for a bit, leaving a speedway full of aspiring singers sitting idle. The cause of the friction? Disagreements over the judges' varying styles of critique – particularly when it came to 20-year-old Summer Cunningham.

"Why are we picking her apart?" Minaj asked after Carey questioned whether the contestant's voice was best-suited for country music.

"Really? Is that what I did?" responded Carey. "We're trying to help her as opposed to just talk about her outfit."

That retort caused Minaj to throw a fit. "Oh, you're right. I'm sorry I can't help her. Maybe I should just get off the [BLEEP] panel," she said before walking off the set.

As Minaj left, Carey got in one more shot: Referring to Minaj storming off, she said, "I was going to do that the next time she ragged on me."

But the judging panel – including Keith Urban and Randy Jackson – also had plenty moments of togetherness in Charlotte. They gave unanimous thumbs up to Brian Rittenberry, 27 – a dad from Jasper, Ga., whose wife bounced back from battling cancer – for belting out "Let It Be" with a big booming voice.

They also swooned over 16-year-old Isabel Gonzalez, who Jackson plucked out of a high school class to audition for Idol as part of this season's new nomination segments. And they were all in agreement that 20-year-old Joel Nemoyer from Carlisle, Pa., should try a different line of work after he tried crooning a Michael Bublé song while lying flat on his back.

Even without the histrionics, Minaj proved to be the most entertaining of the judges. Between her ongoing habit of assigning nicknames to all the contestants – she dubbed singers everything from "collard greens" to "Jumanji" – Minaj also managed to ask hilariously bizarre questions ("Have you ever lived in Tokyo?") and put new and sometimes creepy twists on her positive critiques. "I want to skin you and wear you," she told one girl she was particularly fond of.

Even with the short interruption due to the judges' kerfuffle, the Idol gang managed to find 36 contestants to put through to Hollywood.

And they'll be back for more auditions in Baton Rouge, La., on Thursday.

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Women have caught up to men on lung cancer risk

Smoke like a man, die like a man.

U.S. women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago, partly because they are starting younger and smoking more — that is, they are lighting up like men, new research shows.

Women also have caught up with men in their risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses. Lung cancer risk leveled off in the 1980s for men but is still rising for women.

"It's a massive failure in prevention," said one study leader, Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society. And it's likely to repeat itself in places like China and Indonesia where smoking is growing, he said. About 1.3 billion people worldwide smoke.

The research is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. It is one of the most comprehensive looks ever at long-term trends in the effects of smoking and includes the first generation of U.S. women who started early in life and continued for decades, long enough for health effects to show up.

The U.S. has more than 35 million smokers — about 20 percent of men and 18 percent of women. The percentage of people who smoke is far lower than it used to be; rates peaked around 1960 in men and two decades later in women.

Researchers wanted to know if smoking is still as deadly as it was in the 1980s, given that cigarettes have changed (less tar), many smokers have quit, and treatments for many smoking-related diseases have improved.

They also wanted to know more about smoking and women. The famous surgeon general's report in 1964 said smoking could cause lung cancer in men, but evidence was lacking in women at the time since relatively few of them had smoked long enough.

One study, led by Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, looked at about 217,000 Americans in federal health surveys between 1997 and 2004.

A second study, led by Thun, tracked smoking-related deaths through three periods — 1959-65, 1982-88 and 2000-10 — using seven large population health surveys covering more than 2.2 million people.

Among the findings:

— The risk of dying of lung cancer was more than 25 times higher for female smokers in recent years than for women who never smoked. In the 1960s, it was only three times higher. One reason: After World War II, women started taking up the habit at a younger age and began smoking more.

—A person who never smoked was about twice as likely as a current smoker to live to age 80. For women, the chances of surviving that long were 70 percent for those who never smoked and 38 percent for smokers. In men, the numbers were 61 percent and 26 percent.

—Smokers in the U.S. are three times more likely to die between ages 25 and 79 than non-smokers are. About 60 percent of those deaths are attributable to smoking.

—Women are far less likely to quit smoking than men are. Among people 65 to 69, the ratio of former to current smokers is 4-to-1 for men and 2-to-1 for women.

—Smoking shaves more than 10 years off the average life span, but quitting at any age buys time. Quitting by age 40 avoids nearly all the excess risk of death from smoking. Men and women who quit when they were 25 to 34 years old gained 10 years; stopping at ages 35 to 44 gained 9 years; at ages 45 to 54, six years; at ages 55 to 64, four years.

—The risk of dying from other lung diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis is rising in men and women, and the rise in men is a surprise because their lung cancer risk leveled off in 1980s.

Changes in cigarettes since the 1960s are a "plausible explanation" for the rise in non-cancer lung deaths, researchers write. Most smokers switched to cigarettes that were lower in tar and nicotine as measured by tests with machines, "but smokers inhaled more deeply to get the nicotine they were used to," Thun said. Deeper inhalation is consistent with the kind of lung damage seen in the illnesses that are rising, he said.

Scientists have made scant progress against lung cancer compared with other forms of the disease, and it remains the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. More than 160,000 people die of it in the U.S. each year.

The federal government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the cancer society and several universities paid for the new studies. Thun testified against tobacco companies in class-action lawsuits challenging the supposed benefits of cigarettes with reduced tar and nicotine, but he donated his payment to the cancer society.

Smoking needs more attention as a health hazard, Dr. Steven A. Schroeder of the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a commentary in the journal.

"More women die of lung cancer than of breast cancer. But there is no 'race for the cure' for lung cancer, no brown ribbon" or high-profile advocacy groups for lung cancer, he wrote.

Kathy DeJoseph, 62, of suburban Atlanta, finally quit smoking after 40 years — to qualify for lung cancer surgery last year.

"I tried everything that came along, I just never could do it," even while having chemotherapy, she said.

It's a powerful addiction, she said: "I still every day have to resist wanting to go buy a pack."

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Online:

American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org

National Cancer Institute: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/tobacco/smoking and http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/lung

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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