Freed Iranians arrive in Damascus after prisoner swap

DAMASCUS/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Forty-eight Iranians freed by Syrian rebels in exchange for more than 2,000 civilian prisoners held by the Syrian government arrived in central Damascus on Wednesday, a Reuters witness reported.

The Syrian government has not referred to the prisoner swap and the whereabouts of the civilian prisoners was not immediately known.

Opposition groups accuse it of detaining tens of thousands of political prisoners during his 12 years in office and say those numbers have spiked sharply during the 21-month-old civil war.

The Syrian rebel al-Baraa brigade seized the Iranians in early August and initially threatened to kill them, saying they were members of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent to fight for President Bashar al-Assad.

The Islamic Republic, one of his staunchest allies, denied this, saying they were Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims visiting shrines, and it asked Turkey and Qatar to use their connections with Syrian insurgents to help secure their release.

The freed Iranians arrived at a Damascus hotel in six small buses, looking tired but in good health, each carrying a white flower, and they were welcomed by Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani. They did not speak to reporters.

Bulent Yildirim, head of the Turkish humanitarian aid agency IHH which helped broker the deal, told Reuters by telephone from Damascus shortly beforehand that the reciprocal release of 2,130 civilian prisoners - most of them Syrian but also including Turks and other foreign citizens - had begun.

Syrian government forces have struck local deals with rebel groups to trade prisoners but the release announced on Wednesday was the first time non-Syrians were freed in an exchange.

The Damascus government has periodically freed hundreds of prisoners during the conflict but always stressed such detainees "do not have blood on their hands."

Given the number of political prisoners held during the course of Assad's rule, missing persons became a key issue when street protests against him first erupted in March 2011.

Turkey is one of Assad's fiercest critics, a strong backer of his opponents and proponent of international intervention. It has denounced Iran's stance during the Syrian uprising, which has killed around 60,000 people according to a U.N. estimate.

Turkey, Gulf Arab states, the United States and European allies support the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels, while Shi'ite Iran supports Assad, whose Alawite minority is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

A pro-government newspaper said on December 31 that Syrian forces arrested four Turkish fighter pilots who were trying to sneak into a military airport with an armed group in the northern province of Aleppo.

The Damascus-based al-Watan newspaper said the arrests at the Koers military base, 24 km (15 miles) east of Aleppo city, proved "scandalous Turkish involvement" in Syria's crisis.

TURKEY, QATAR INTERVENE

The al-Baraa brigade, part of the umbrella rebel organization, the Free Syrian Army, said in October it would start killing the Iranians unless Assad freed Syrian opposition detainees and stopped shelling civilian areas.

But Qatar, following a request from Iran, urged the rebels not to carry out the threat.

Insurgents fighting to topple Assad accuse Iran of sending fighters from the Revolutionary Guards to help his forces crush the revolt, a charge the Islamic Republic denies.

The rebels now control wide areas of northern and eastern Syria, most of its border crossings with Turkey and a crescent of suburbs around the capital Damascus.

But Assad's government is still firmly entrenched in the capital and controls most of the densely populated southwest, the Mediterranean coast and the main north-south highway.

The IHH has been involved in previous negotiations in recent months to release prisoners, including two Turkish journalists and Syrian citizens, held in Syria.

The humanitarian group came to prominence in May 2010 when Israeli marines stormed its Mavi Marmara aid ship to enforce a naval blockade of the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists on board.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Nick Tattersall)

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Lawyers in Ohio football rape case want trial moved

(Reuters) – Attorneys for two Ohio teenage football players accused of raping a 16-year-old student have asked that the trial be moved because potential witnesses are afraid to come forward in defense of the boys, one of the lawyers said on Monday.

Walter Madison, the attorney for one of the accused rapists, Ma’lik Richmon, said social media efforts to bring the alleged rape into the national spotlight have led to an atmosphere of intimidation and coercion.

“This has a chilling effect on witnesses who could come forward to be part of this process so my client can get a fair and full proceeding,” he told Reuters. “So, we’re left without the opportunity to make our case. That’s pretty serious.”

Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16 and members of the Steubenville High School football team, are charged with raping a 16-year-old fellow student at a party last August.

The two students are set to be tried as juveniles in February in Steubenville, a city of 19,000 about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh.

Madison said his client’s mother has had to change her cell phone number multiple times due to threats and harassment.

Last week, the online activist group Anonymous made public a picture allegedly of the rape victim, being carried by her wrists and ankles by two young men, and of a video that showed several other young men joking about an alleged assault.

Madison said that Richmond is not seen in the video.

A county sheriff under fire for how he has handled the high school rape investigation faced down a crowd of protestors on Saturday and said no new charges will be brought against anyone involved in the case.

Activists say there had been a cover-up by local officials to protect the integrity of the high school’s football program.

Meanwhile, a petition to the White House calling for the two rape suspects to be tried as adults reached 25,000 signatures Monday, the threshold required to receive a response from the Obama Administration.

Moving the case to the adult court system would allow for a jury trial and a more severe penalty, the petition says.

“This is a serious offense and this needs to be an example for everyone that this type of behavior should not, and will not be tolerated in our society,” it says.

The petition, created December 25, more than doubled its number of supporters overnight. It had 11,000 signatures on Sunday.

It was submitted to the White House through its online petition website, We The People. Now that it has the required 25,000 signatures, the Obama Administration will give an official statement at some point in the future. The petition has no legal impact.

(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Andrew Hay)

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Larry Hagman's J.R. Ewing Will Be Honored with Dallas Funeral Episode

TV Watch

By Andrea Billups

01/08/2013 at 10:15 AM EST

Patrick Duffy and Larry Hagman

Ramey

The late Larry Hagman will not be forgotten when Dallas returns to television on Jan. 28.

Hagman, who shot to fame as the show's star patriarch oil baron, J.R. Ewing, will be honored in upcoming episodes this season, including a funeral, set for the series' March 11 episode, EW.com reports.

The actor passed away on Nov. 23 at 81 from cancer, forcing the show's producers to make significant changes to the storyline, even as they mourned the show's longtime villain who was also a great friend. Extra scenes with J.R. that had previously been cut were put back in for episode 6, said executive producer Cynthia Cidre, who had to explain to viewers as she wrote future episodes why the key character was absent.

The tribute show will include many faces from the original Dallas series, which premiered in 1978, Cidre said. "It will be funny and appropriate to J.R., but it will also be sad because his family loved him," she said. "As do the fans."

His castmates continue to remember him and the indelible mark he left on the show over the decades. Patrick Duffy, who plays J.R.'s brother Bobby, said he and costar Linda Gray hold hands often on set for support and to remember their friend fondly.

"I'll reach over and just hold her hand for a while. As she will for me," Duffy told EW.com. "We just sit and smile and think, 'Gosh, that guy was our friend for 35 years. How lucky are we?'"

Hagman, a Texas native who had been married to his wife Maj Axelsson since 1954, will remain on the production's call sheets for the rest of the year as tribute. His Airstream trailer will also remain on set with a sign that says: "No. 1 is on hold."

Duffy said all of it was fitting: "This is the house that Hagman built."

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Wall Street dips as earnings season begins

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed at the open on Tuesday as an earnings season expected to show sluggish corporate growth gets under way.

Profits in the fourth quarter are seen above the previous quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Quarterly earnings are expected to grow by 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

If earnings growth appears to be "less bad" than expected that would translate into a near-term uptick in the market, according to Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in New York.

"But I think there's still ample areas for concern," he said, listing policy worries in Washington and uneven economic activity as a result of Superstorm Sandy during last quarter.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 40.65 points, or 0.30 percent, to 13,343.64. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 4.28 points, or 0.29 percent, to 1,457.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 5.04 points, or 0.16 percent, to 3,093.78.

German data showed industrial orders fell more than forecast in November due to a sharp drop in demand from abroad, reinforcing concerns that Europe's largest economy may have contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Monsanto Co shares rose 3.2 percent to $99.05 after hitting a more than four-year high at $99.99. The world's largest seed company raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2013 and posted strong first-quarter results.

Education provider Apollo Group and Dow component Alcoa Inc , the largest U.S. aluminum producer, round out the start of earnings season after the closing bell.

Shares of restaurant-chain operator Yum Brands Inc fell 4.6 percent to $64.78 a day after the KFC parent warned sales in China, its largest market, shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter.

London-traded Vodafone shares rose almost 2 percent after its partner in U.S. joint venture Verizon Wireless said it would be "feasible" to buy out the British group. U.S.-traded Vodafone stock fell 1.5 percent.

Sears Holdings shares fell 1.4 percent to $42.31 a day after the company said its chief executive will step down for family health reasons. The U.S. retailer also reported a 1.8 percent decline in quarter-to-date sales at stores open at least a year.

GameStop shares fell 7.1 percent to $23 after it reported sales for the holiday season and cut its guidance.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Tunisia frees man held over attack on U.S. consulate in Libya

Tunis (Reuters) - Tunisia has freed, for lack of evidence, a Tunisian man who had been suspected of involvement in an Islamist militant attack in Libya last year in which the U.S. ambassador was killed, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Ali Harzi was one of two Tunisians named in October by the Daily Beast website as having been detained in Turkey over the violence in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other American officials were killed.

"The judge decided to free Harzi and he is free now," lawyer Anouar Awled Ali told Reuters. "The release came in response to our request to free him for lack of evidence and after he underwent the hearing with American investigators as a witness in the case."

A Tunisian justice ministry spokesman confirmed the release of Harzi but declined to elaborate.

A month ago, Harzi refused to be interviewed by visiting U.S. FBI investigators over the September 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

The Daily Beast reported that shortly after the attacks began, Harzi posted an update on an unspecified social media site about the fighting.

It said Harzi was on his way to Syria when he was detained in Turkey at the behest of U.S. authorities, and that he was affiliated with a militant group in North Africa.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Disney joins JAKKS, LA billionaire to bring toys to life

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Walt Disney toys are sold around the world. Now, children can find them in the cloud as well.

The media giant is teaming up with toy company JAKKS Pacific and Patrick Soon-Shiong, Los Angeles’ wealthiest person, on a new line of toys – with a nifty technological twist designed to link the goodies that kids lug home from the store with Disney’s stable of well-known animated characters.

“DreamPlay“, developed by Soon-Shiong’s NantWorks company, and JAKKS works via an app that can be downloaded on Apple Inc devices like the iPad, or smartphones and tablets running Google Inc Android software. When a device’s camera is trained on any toy specifically designed to work with DreamPlay, it triggers one of thousands of preset animations that appear on the device’s screen and seem to be unfolding in the real world.

With viewers’ eyes locked on the tablet or smartphone screen, fairies appear to glide in and out of buildings, animated critters start playing musical instruments, mythical characters prance on a toy piano’s keyboard.

Disney, which licensed its characters to DreamPlay, and its partners hope that children will take to the new approach, which is intended to extend and expand the life of the toy. But it remains to be seen if the concept will prove to be more than a novelty, and be able to arrest a child’s infamously short attention span.

The three will demo their concept on Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but Reuters got a sneak peak at the technology on Monday.

In a showroom in the 20th floor of a Santa Monica, Calif. building, visitors to JAKKS’ demonstration are treated to an animated version of Sebastian – the red Jamaican crab from Disney’s “Little Mermaid” movie – who pops up onscreen on an iPad seconds after the tablet’s camera is trained on a real-life set of toy bongo drums.

The animated crab pounces on the drums and proceeds to bang out a calypso song onscreen, with both Sebastian and the physical drum set appearing together as if the two shared the same cartoon.

REAL, VIRTUAL INTERACTION

DreamPlay allows not just Sebastian, but also Tinker Bell and a host of other well-loved Disney characters to “interact” virtually with specially made toys via image-recognition software. The software was developed by Soon-Shiong, a former cancer surgeon who created drugs to fight diabetes and breast cancer and then sold the companies that produced them for $ 8.6 billion.

Soon-Shiong teamed with JAKKS, a $ 678 million-a-year toy maker and licensee of toys based on the Princess line of dolls, Marvel action figures and other Disney toys, among others.

The technology works via the “cloud” – images and video clips stored on remote servers that are streamed to kids’ mobiles when the app recognizes a particular item.

“It’s a tremendous way to combine great technology and Disney’s magical story telling to extend the time a child can play with a toy,” said Bob Chapek, president of Disney’s consumer products unit. “Kids find out that playing with their toy doesn’t end when they get it home.”

Since taking over in 2011, Chapek has repositioned Disney’s consumer product unit to expand its use of technology with its toys. DreamPlay is the first of what Chapek says are other products that will twin technology with familiar Disney toys, although he won’t name them.

Down the road, Disney may explore new business models, including selling subscriptions to content created specifically to be used with a particular toy, said Chapek.

The market is hardly certain for a product that requires a child to hold up a phone or tablet, and peer through it to play with a toy that’s stationary. Will children want to see Rapunzel endlessly dancing on the keys of a piano or Rosetta, a fairy from Disney’s “Tinker Bell” movies, fly in and out of a cottage?

“The technology may be great, but no one has proven to me yet that a kid will sit in front of an iPhone or iPad instead of playing with a toy that’s right in front of him,” said Sean McGowan, a toy analyst with Needham & Co who downgraded JAKKS to hold in September along with other toy companies, and then downgraded JAKKS to underperform in October.

JAKKS intends to begin selling DreamPlay versions of toys from the Disney Princess line in October. It will then expand its offerings next year, with international sales starting in 2014, said Stephen Berman, JAKKS President and CEO.

DreamPlay toys will be “a couple of dollars” costlier than the regular version, he says.

Target stores and Toys R Us are among the U.S. retailers who will carry the DreamPlay line, Berman says. Top-Toy, the giant Nordic retailer, has also signed on, while Beijing Hualian Group, which operates supermarkets and department stores across China, is coming onboard as well.

“Kids don’t own iPhones or iPads but they all know how to use them,” says Berman. “Kids have so much more imagination than we do. Imagine recording a bunch of the videos and giving the kid an iPad to play with them on a trip to see the grandparents.”

JAKKS will ramp up marketing for the DreamPlay line, said Berman. DreamPlay toys will be prominently displayed at all the partner-retailers, he added, and shoppers will be encouraged to use their smartphones to view them.

Those that aim smartphones at a boxed Tinker Bell, for instance, may get a start as the fairy from “Peter Pan” literally soars out of the box, leaving an empty package behind.

“Technology can help people live better, work better, play better,” said Soon-Shiong as he showed off the line of toys. “This is the way they will play better.”

(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Edited By Edwin Chan)

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Bethenny Frankel Steps Out After Filing For Divorce

People Pets

By Maggie Coughlan

01/07/2013 at 10:50 AM EST

It's business as usual for Bethenny Frankel.

After filing for divorce from husband Jason Hoppy a few days earlier, the Skinnygirl mogul took her beloved dog, Cookie, for a walk in New York's Tribeca neighborhood on Sunday.

Bundled up in a down jacket and boots, Frankel, 42, shielded her face with sunglasses as she strolled down the street with her pup trailing behind her.

Frankel first announced the couple's separation via a statement on Dec. 23. "It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating. This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family," she said at the time.

The couple – who married after a whirlwind courtship and surprise pregnancy in 2010 – are parents to Bryn, 2½.

While Frankel and Hoppy's relationship played out in front of the cameras on Bethenny Getting Married and Bethenny Ever After, last year Frankel took time off from her life in the spotlight to focus on her marriage.

"Bethenny is devastated," a friend of Frankel's told PEOPLE earlier this month.

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes

CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.

Wait, what?

If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.

Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.

Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.

"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.

He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.

It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.

Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.

Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."

She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.

Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.

She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.

Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."

Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.

A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.

Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.

"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.

NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.

Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.

Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."

Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.

___

Online:

Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa

___

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

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Wall Street falls after five-year high, earnings in focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Monday as traders cashed in recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high on Friday and awaited Tuesday's start of the fourth-quarter earnings season.

Last week was the best for U.S. stocks in more than a year as a budget deal and economic data boosted investor confidence.

Investors will likely turn their attention to the fourth-quarter earnings season that kicks off this week. Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.

"We have a cautious market entering fourth-quarter earnings season," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "I think it's going to be a disappointing one this time around."

Financial shares will be in focus a day after global regulators known as the Basel Committee gave banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers, scaling back moves that aimed to help prevent another financial crisis.

"Basel giving banks four more years to get their act together will be good" for stocks, Cardillo said.

Bank of America shares rose 0.5 percent to $12.17 after hitting their highest since May 2011 as it reached a settlement with Fannie Mae worth roughly $11.6 billion to resolve agency mortgage repurchase claims.

The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.

Nationstar rose 16.8 percent to $38.80 and Walter Investment added 7 percent to $47.13.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 63.59 points, or 0.47 percent, to 13,371.62. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 6.53 points, or 0.45 percent, to 1,459.94. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> lost 12.56 points, or 0.41 percent, to 3,089.09.

Walt Disney Co started an internal cost cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters. Disney shares fell 1.4 percent to $51.46.

Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 4 percent to $99.78 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.

Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised its rating on the stock. Shares were up 3.6 percent at $268.50.

Roche's chairman was quoted as saying the Swiss pharmaceutical group is no longer considering a bid for the U.S. gene-sequencing company Illumina . Illumina shares were off 8 percent at $50.20.

Major U.S. technology companies could miss estimates for fourth-quarter earnings as budget worries likely led some corporate clients to tighten their belts last month.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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