Flu Season ‘Worse Than Average,’ Officials Say

This year’s flu season is shaping up to be “worse than average and particularly bad for the elderly,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the nation’s top federal disease-control official, said Friday.

But the season appears to have peaked, added Dr. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with new cases declining over most of the nation except for the far West.

Spot shortages of flu vaccine and flu-fighting medicine are occurring, but that reflects uneven distribution, not a supply crisis, federal officials said. They urged people seeking flu shots to consult flu.gov and doctors to check preventinfluenza.org for suppliers.

Vaccine-makers will ultimately be able to deliver 145 million doses, 10 million more than projected earlier, the officials said. The Food and Drug Administration has allowed the maker of Tamiflu to release 2 million doses it had in storage.

The older Tamiflu is perfectly good, said Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the commissioner of the F.D.A., who joined Dr. Frieden on a telephone news conference. “It’s not outdated, it just has older labeling,” she said. “Repackaging it would take weeks,” she added, so her agency told the company not to bother.

Weekly recorded deaths from flu and pneumonia are still rising, and are well above the “epidemic” curve for the first time. But how severe a season ultimately proves depends on how long high weekly death rates persists. Flu deaths often aren’t recorded until March or April, well after new infections taper off.

Dr. Frieden said the season appeared to resemble the “moderately severe” season of 2003-2004, which also had an early start and was dominated by an H3N2 strain. In such seasons, 90 percent of all deaths occur among those over 65. Flu hospitalization rates are “quite high” now, Dr. Frieden said, and most of those hospitalized are elderly.

Last year’s flu season was unusually mild. At the end of the season last year, 34 children had died.

So far this year, the C.D.C.'s count of pediatric flu deaths, which includes premature infants and teenagers up to age 17 — has risen to 29, although this is acknowledged to be an undercount as it is only of lab-confirmed influenza cases reported to the agency.

Henry L. Niman, a flu-watcher who follows state death registries and news reports, counts about 40 pediatric deaths so far and predicted that the total would ultimately be close to the 153 of the 2003-04 season, but much less than in the 2009-2010 “swine flu” pandemic, when 282 children died. That flu was a strain never seen before and many more children caught it. The elderly had surprising resistance to getting it, presumably because similar flus that circulated 40 or more years ago had given them some immunity. But among those elderly who did catch it, the death rates were high.

Dr. Frieden suggested that the elderly avoid contact with sick children. “Having a grandparent baby-sit a sick child may not be a good idea,” he said.

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Your Money: Finding Investment Advice for More Modest Retirement Accounts

If you’re perfectly capable of running your own retirement savings, selecting the right mix of low-cost investments, rebalancing at the right time and not buying and selling out of fear or greed, then good for you.

But the majority of people — maybe the vast majority — are not like that. They may be smart enough to do the right thing, in theory, but they forget or slip up or are taken in by well-meaning friends bearing stock tips or annuity-peddling scoundrels who make nice to them over free steak dinners.

For people with more than $500,000 or so to invest, finding first-class help is hard but not impossible. If you have more than $1 million, you’ll have your choice of many of the best financial advisers in town. But until recently, it was tough for people with a few hundred thousand dollars or less to find reasonably priced assistance, especially if they were insistent on putting money in the kind of low-cost investments that would not pay a commission or other fee to the person helping them.

On Friday, the latest entrant in an increasingly crowded field of services trying to serve this customer is introducing its offering, which is called Rebalance IRA. As the name suggests, it exists only to help you with your Individual Retirement Account, perhaps one that you’ll fill with money that’s been sitting around in several 401(k) or similar accounts at previous employers.

Rebalance IRA representatives will talk with you about your goals, invest your money in a low-cost collection of index fundlike exchange-traded funds that don’t try to make big bets on individual stocks, and rebalance the investments when necessary. In exchange, you agree to hand over one half of 1 percent of your assets each year, with a minimum annual fee of $500.

The company’s single-minded focus on retirement savings is somewhat narrow, but it makes sense given how much money is at stake and how badly many people mess things up when they do it on their own.

There is more money in I.R.A.’s than in any other type of retirement vehicle, according to estimates from the Investment Company Institute. I.R.A. balances totaled $5.3 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2012. That’s more than the $5 trillion in 401(k), 403(b) and other similar plans; the $4.8 trillion in government retirement plans; and the $2.6 trillion in traditional pensions.

According to the Department of Labor, the professionals who run pension plans earned an 8.3 percent annual return from 1991 to 2010. People fending for themselves in 401(k) and similar plans earned 7.2 percent. Nationwide I.R.A. performance figures are more scarce, though one 2006 study by the Center for Retirement Research put the figure for 1998 to 2003 at 3.8 percent annually, roughly 2 to 3 percentage points worse than pension fund managers and 401(k) investors did during that same period.

These numbers are a bit squishy, given that pensions often make bets in markets that 401(k) investors can’t access and the high fees that many 401(k) participants pay that pension managers don’t. Still, there are about a thousand reasons plenty of do-it-yourselfers (who, after all, did not volunteer to manage their retirement money) would be likely to get worse returns than, say, pension managers.

To start with, large numbers of people make extreme bets. At Vanguard, 10 percent of retirement plan participants invested only in stocks in 2011, while 8 percent had no stocks at all. At least this is better than 2004, when 35 percent of its customers were that far out of balance. Then, there are the emotional challenges. To stick with the mix of investments you’ve selected, you need to sell things that have done well and buy investments that have lagged recently. That’s hard to do.

Then there’s the grab bag of other feelings. The bad experience with a broker you may have had in the past. The spouse who may scold you for doing the wrong thing. The fear that may have caused you to bail out in early 2009 or the greed that has you pouring money into stocks today, now that they’re looking up again. This can be intensely hazardous to your long-term financial health.

All of this should be self-evident, but because we’re playing on the field of emotions, it isn’t. Still, it wasn’t immediately obvious to Mitch Tuchman, the man behind Rebalance IRA, who started a service for do-it-yourself index investors called MarketRiders in 2008.

A former software entrepreneur, Mr. Tuchman had a midlife conversion to passive investing and not trying to beat the market, and he wanted to help others invest in the same way. “We thought we could build such great software that we could turn everyone into a do-it-yourselfer,” he said. “And people said they didn’t have time or they didn’t care to do it themselves.”

MarketRiders charges subscribers $150 a year for instructions on how to adjust their portfolios and when, and it will continue to exist. But Mr. Tuchman, who had also started managing millions of dollars on the side for friends and family who simply could not be bothered to do it themselves, eventually realized that his sideline was where the real mass-market opportunity lay.

So why would you let this guy handle your money? It’s a perfectly reasonable question, and plenty of start-ups in the money management space don’t do a particularly good job of answering it.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 18, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name in one instance of the author of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.” He is Burton G. Malkiel, nor Markiel.

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Intel’s revenue forecast short of expectations

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Intel Corp forecast current-quarter revenue that was slightly below expectations as the personal computer industry grapples with falling sales and a shift toward tablets and smartphones.

PC makers are struggling to stop a decline in sales as consumers hold off on buying new laptops in favor of spending on more nimble mobile gadgets.

Microsoft Corp‘s long-awaited launch of Windows 8 in October brought touchscreen features to laptops but failed to spark a resurgence in sales that Intel and many PC manufacturers had hoped for.

Intel said its capital spending in 2013 would be $ 13 billion, plus or minus $ 500 million, exceeding what many analysts had expected.

In the fourth quarter, Intel’s revenue was $ 13.5 billion, compared with $ 13.9 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected $ 13.53 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Intel estimated first-quarter revenue of $ 12.7 billion, plus or minus $ 500 million. Analysts expected $ 12.91 billion for the current quarter.

Net earnings in the December quarter were $ 2.5 billion, or 48 cents a share, compared with $ 3.4 billion, or 64 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Richard Chang)

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The Lede Blog: An Irish Hostage Is 'Safe and Free' in Algeria, But Britons Are Told to Brace for Bad News

An Arabic-language video report from Al Jazeera showing the gas facility in Algeria where dozens of workers were taken hostage by Islamist militants.

Following a military raid on a gas facility in Algeria, where a heavily armed group of Islamist militants took dozens of workers hostage, the Irish government confirmed on Thursday that a man from Belfast who had been part of the group taken captive was freed. The fate of other hostages remained unclear.

Algeria’s communications minister, Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, said that many of the hostages had been freed, but some were killed in the rescue effort, along with “a large number of terrorists.” A news agency in neighboring Mauritania reported that a spokesman for the Islamists claimed that a number of hostages were killed in the Algerian government raid.

Ireland’s foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, said at a news conference, “while naturally we are delighted that Stephen McFaul is free and safe, our thoughts are with his fellow workers and the other people who have not been so fortunate. Our thoughts are particularly with the citizens of other countries who have still not been accounted for.”

Video of Ireland’s foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, speaking to reporters about an Irish citizen, Stephen McFaul, who was freed from the custody of kidnappers in Algeria on Thursday.

Mr. McFaul was physically unharmed and being held at a military base, the minister said. He declined to provide further details of the Mr. McFaul’s ordeal, out of respect for the families of the other hostages.

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain confirmed in an interview posted online by Britain’s Channel 4 News that at least one British hostage had been killed and said, “we should be prepared for the possibility of further bad news, very difficult news, in this extremely difficult situation.”

A spokesman for the Norwegian oil firm Statoil, which jointly operates the gas facility with BP, told reporters, “We have received information about two of our employees being physically hurt, not serious, but the situation is unclear and very difficult to follow.”

Agence France-Presse video of a statement by a Norwegian oil company official on the hostage crisis at a facility in Algeria.

In Belfast, Mr. McFaul’s family expressed joy and relief in interviews with Ulster Television and BBC News. “I feel over the moon. I’m just really excited. I just can’t wait for him to get home,” his young son told UTV, as he broke down in tears.

The Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, said in a statement:

I am greatly relieved to hear that Stephen is safe and well. I believe he has already spoken to his family in Belfast and I wish him a safe return home to his loved ones. I would like to pay tribute to all those who have been involved in the effort to resolve this crisis and my thoughts are with the other oil field workers and their families who have found themselves at the center of this traumatic situation.

In the interview with UTV, Mr. McFaul’s family said he had called his wife after reaching safety. “I was delighted, I could not get better news,” said his mother, Marie. “I feel sorry for the other hostages and their families,” Mr. McFaul’s father, Christopher, said.

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Manti Te'o girlfriend's death apparently a hoax

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Not long before Notre Dame played Michigan State last fall, word spread that Fighting Irish linebacker Manti Te'o had lost his grandmother and girlfriend within hours of each other.

Te'o never missed a practice and made a season-high 12 tackles, two pass breakups and a fumble recovery in a 20-3 victory against the Spartans. His inspired play became a stirring story line for the Fighting Irish as they made a run to the national championship game behind their humble, charismatic star.

Te'o's grandmother did indeed die. His girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, never existed.

In a shocking announcement, Notre Dame said Te'o was duped into an online relationship with a woman whose "death" from leukemia was faked by perpetrators of an elaborate hoax. The goal of the scam wasn't clear, though Notre Dame said it used an investigative firm to dig into the details after Te'o disclosed them three weeks ago.

The hoax was disclosed hours after Deadspin.com posted a lengthy story, saying it could find no record that Kekua ever existed. The story suggests a friend of Te'o may have carried out the hoax and that the football player may have been in on it — a stunning claim against a widely admired All-American who led the most famed program in college football back to the championship game for the first time since 1988.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said Wednesday night in a statement. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. "

However, he stopped short of saying he had ever met her in person or correcting reports that said he had, though he did on numerous occasions talk about how special the relationship was to him.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," he said. "In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

Word of the hoax spread quickly and raised questions about whether the school somehow played a role in pushing the tale.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference that Te'o told coaches on Dec. 26 that he had received a call from Kekua's phone number while at an awards ceremony during the first week of December.

"When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same person he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead. Manti was very unnerved by that, as you might imagine," Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said the school hired investigators and their report indicated those behind the hoax were in contact with each other, discussing what they were doing.

The investigators "were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that was certainly the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking," Swarbrick said. "The casualness among themselves they were talking about what they accomplished."

Te'o asked the woman he thought was his girlfriend to converse via Skype, where he could see her online, but she always found an excuse not to, Swarbrick said.

"As part of the hoax, several meetings were set up where Lennay never showed, including some in Hawaii," said Swarbrick, who offered only vague details of the scheme to dupe his player, and others.

"We know, for example, that these perpetrators didn't limit themselves to Manti in the targets," he said. "There are a remarkable number of characters involved. We don't know how many people they represent. There are male and female characters, brothers, cousins, mother, and we don't know if it's two people playing multiple characters or multiple people. But, again, it goes to the sophistication of this, that there are all these sort of independent pieces that reinforce elements of the story all the way through."

As for Te'o being gullible, Swarbrick said the linebacker was the "perfect mark."

"He was not a person who would have a second thought about offering his assistance and help in engaging fully," Swarbrick said.

For Te'o, "the pain was real," Swarbrick said. "The grief was real. The affection was real. That's the nature of this sad, cruel game."

Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not take the matter to the police, saying that the school left it up to Te'o and his family to do so. He added that Notre Dame did not plan to release the findings of its investigation.

"We had no idea of motive, and that was really significant to us. ... Was somebody trying to create an NCAA violation at the core of this? Was there somebody trying to impact the outcome of football games by manipulating the emotions of a key player? Was there an extortion request coming? When you match the lack of sort of detail we lacked until we got some help investigating it with the risk involved, it was clear to me until we knew more we had to just to continue to work to try to gather the facts," Swarbrick said.

The Deadspin report changed all that.

Friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told Deadspin they believe he created Kekua. The website said Te'o and Tuiasosopo knew each other. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Tuiasosopo by telephone were unsuccessful.

As for Kekua, Deadspin said she does not have a death certificate. Stanford, where she reportedly went to school, has no record of anybody by that name, the website said. Deadspin said a record search produced no obituary or funeral announcement. There is no record of her birth in the news.

There are a few Twitter and Instagram accounts registered to Lennay Kekua, but the website reported that photographs identified as Kekua online and in TV news reports are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua.

Te'o talked freely about their relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.

In a story that appeared in The South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted an anecdote about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. He said Kekua had told Te'o not to miss a game if she died. The linebacker turned in one of his best performances of the season and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season. He finished second in Heisman voting.

"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life," Te'o said in his statement.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been."

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life," he said in his statement, "and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL draft."

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Life, Interrupted: Brotherly Love

Life, Interrupted

Suleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer.

There are a lot of things about having cancer in your 20s that feel absurd. One of those instances was when I found myself calling my brother Adam on Skype while he was studying abroad in Argentina to tell him that I had just been diagnosed with leukemia and that — no pressure — he was my only hope for a cure.

Today, my brother and I share almost identical DNA, the result of a successful bone marrow transplant I had last April using his healthy stem cells. But Adam and I couldn’t be more different. Like a lot of siblings, we got along swimmingly at one moment and were in each other’s hair the next. My younger brother by two years, he said I was a bossy older sister. I, of course, thought I knew best for my little brother and wanted him to see the world how I did. My brother is quieter, more reflective. I’m a chronic social butterfly who is probably a bit too impulsive and self-serious. I dreamed of dancing in the New York City Ballet, and he imagined himself playing in the N.B.A. While the sounds of the rapper Mos Def blared from Adam’s room growing up, I practiced for concerto competitions. Friends joked that one of us had to be adopted. We even look different, some people say. But really, we’re just siblings like any others.

When I was diagnosed with cancer at age 22, I learned just how much cancer affects families when it affects individuals. My doctors informed me that I had a high-risk form of leukemia and that a bone marrow transplant was my only shot at a cure. ‘Did I have any siblings?’ the doctors asked immediately. That would be my best chance to find a bone marrow match. Suddenly, everyone in our family was leaning on the little brother. He was in his last semester of college, and while his friends were applying to jobs and partying the final weeks of the school year away, he was soon shuttling from upstate New York to New York City for appointments with the transplant doctors.

I’d heard of organ transplants before, but what was a bone marrow transplant? The extent of my knowledge about bone marrow came from French cuisine: the fancy dish occasionally served with a side of toasted baguette.

Jokes aside, I learned that cancer patients become quick studies in the human body and how cancer treatment works. The thought of going through a bone marrow transplant, which in my case called for a life-threatening dose of chemotherapy followed by a total replacement of my body’s bone marrow, was scary enough. But then I learned that finding a donor can be the scariest part of all.

It turns out that not all transplants are created equal. Without a match, the path to a cure becomes much less certain, in many cases even impossible. This is particularly true for minorities and people from mixed ethnic backgrounds, groups that are severely underrepresented in bone marrow registries. As a first generation American, the child of a Swiss mother and Tunisian father, I suddenly found myself in a scary place. My doctors worried that a global, harried search for a bone marrow match would delay critical treatment for my fast-moving leukemia.

That meant that my younger brother was my best hope — but my doctors were careful to measure hope with reality. Siblings are the best chance for a match, but a match only happens about 25 percent of the time.

To our relief, results showed that my brother was a perfect match: a 10-out-of-10 on the donor scale. It was only then that it struck me how lucky I had been. Doctors never said it this way, but without a match, my chances of living through the next year were low. I have met many people since who, after dozens of efforts to encourage potential bone marrow donors to sign up, still have not found a match. Adding your name to the bone marrow registry is quick, easy and painless — you can sign up at marrow.org — and it just takes a swab of a Q-tip to get your DNA. For cancer patients around the world, it could mean a cure.

The bone marrow transplant procedure itself can be dangerous, but it is swift, which makes it feel strangely anti-climactic. On “Day Zero,” my brother’s stem cells dripped into my veins from a hanging I.V. bag, and it was all over in minutes. Doctors tell me that the hardest part of the transplant is recovering from it. I’ve found that to be true, and I’ve also recognized that the same is true for Adam. As I slowly grow stronger, my little brother has assumed a caretaker role in my life. I carry his blood cells — the ones keeping me alive — and he is carrying the responsibility, and often fear and anxiety, of the loving onlooker. He tells me I’m still a bossy older sister. But our relationship is now changed forever. I have to look to him for support and guidance more than I ever have. He’ll always be my little brother, but he’s growing up fast.

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Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-LAKE-uh ja-WAD) is a 24-year-old writer who lives in New York City. Her column, “Life, Interrupted,” chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer, appears regularly on Well. Follow @suleikajaouad on Twitter.

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DealBook: BlackRock Reports 29% Increase in Earnings

4:41 p.m. | Updated

The giant money manager BlackRock said that investors are showing an increasing willingness to take on risk after years of shying away from it, helping the firm post record profits for the final quarter of 2012.

Over the last few months, BlackRock’s customers have been opting for stocks, or equities, instead of the apparently low-risk investments in bonds that they have favored since the financial crisis, the company’s chief executive, Laurence D. Fink, said. The trend has, if anything, sped up the new year, Mr. Fink said. In the first week of 2013, investors put more money into stock-based mutual funds than any other week in the last five years, according to the data company EPFR.

“It was an extraordinary amount of reallocation into equities and we are benefiting from that,” Mr. Fink said Thursday in a call with analysts. “I think this is going to be one of the major themes of 2013.”

A steady improvement in stock prices has encouraged many investors, but they have also been pushed into stocks by the low interest rates being offered by benchmark government bonds.

Within BlackRock the clearest sign of this movement came in the company’s exchange traded funds business, iShares. During the final three months of 2012, customers put $35.7 billiion into iShares E.T.F.’s, which are baskets of assets that can be traded as a single stock. That is the biggest inflow since BlackRock acquired the iShares business from Barclays in 2009. Most of the new money, $30.1 billion, went into E.T.F.s that hold individual stocks.

BlackRock has aggressively courted this business by starting an aggressive marketing campaign last year and creating a new series of low-cost E.T.F.’s in part to compete with other fund managers who have lowered their fees. Mr. Fink said the new low-cost funds attracted about $4 billion. BlackRock also acquired Credit Suisse’s European E.T.F. business at the end of the fourth quarter.

The influx of money helped push up BlackRock’s revenues and profit, though the company saw growth across most of its business lines, including its hedge funds and consulting operations. The company reported net income of $695 million in the fourth quarter, or $3.96 a share, on an adjusted basis. The earnings were significantly better than the $3.73 a share that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters predicted.

“This is our strongest quarter ever,” Mr. Fink, said in an interview. “Things just all came together.”

The firm said that its board had voted to increase the quarterly dividend 12 percent, to $1.68, and to increase its share buyback program. BlackRock’s stock rose sharply after the announcement, closing the day up 4.4 percent, at $232 a share.

The company’s success in the fourth quarter was driven in part by customers entrusting it with more money to manage. The total amount of money being managed by BlackRock climbed 8 percent from a year earlier, to $3.79 trillion. But the profits were also helped by customers moving or being put into products that charge higher fees.

Last year, it appeared that the breakneck growth that BlackRock had been experiencing for years was slowing, with quarterly profits slipping. Now, though, the company has found a way through marketing, management changes and new acquisitions to continue growing despite its size. Mr. Fink said that the slower growth had been caused by acquisitions and by investments the company was making, which are now helping the company’s performance.

“We’ve said it was going to take some time to reorganize,” Mr. Fink said . “It’s all starting to pay off.”

The fourth-quarter results excluded several one-time adjustments related mostly to charges incurred as a result of regulatory changes. Factoring in those adjustments, BlackRock earned $690 million on $2.5 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter.

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China Arrests 7 in New Effort to Stop Tibetan Self-Immolations

BEIJING — The authorities in northwest China have detained seven people they claim organized the fatal self-immolation of a Tibetan villager in October, photographed his burning body and then sent the images abroad.

The arrests, announced Tuesday by Xinhua, the official news agency, suggest that the Chinese government is increasing the use of its newest strategy against the politically motivated suicides in Tibetan areas of China: punishing friends and relatives of those who self-immolate.

The Xinhua report blamed a Tibetan advocacy group in India for convincing the villager, Sangye Gyatso, a 27-year-old father of two, that self-immolation was a “heroic deed” and that it would improve his family’s standing.

A spokesman for the group, the Tibetan Youth Congress, rejected the accusations, calling them “ridiculous.”

With the accumulated toll of self-immolations approaching 100, Beijing has been scrambling to find effective deterrents to such acts, which began in 2009 as a desperate attempt to publicize what many Tibetans consider heavy-handed Chinese policies. In the early months of the crisis, officials sought to demonize self-immolators as terrorists or mentally deranged people. The authorities also locked down the most restive towns and monasteries, preventing monks from leaving or foreign journalists from entering.

Such measures appear to have done little to quell the protests, prompting officials to try new tactics. In Tongren County, in Qinghai Province, the authorities recently issued new regulations that permanently revoke public benefits for the families of self-immolators and cancel government-financed projects in their hometowns. If a monk or nun visits the home of a self-immolator, their monastery is to be shut down as punishment, according to the rules.

In recent weeks, more than a dozen people across the region have been charged with inciting self-immolations or accused of spreading information about the incidents via text message or e-mail. Last month, eight people were detained on accusations of trying to publicize a self-immolation near a government office in Luchu County in Gansu Province. Among those arrested, exile groups say, was a relative of the deceased.

In October, four young Tibetans in Sichuan Province were given sentences ranging from 7 to 11 years; two were convicted of encouraging their friend to self-immolate, and the other two for leaking news of the incident to “outside contacts.”

In the most recent case in Gansu Province, Xinhua said one of the seven detained men, a Buddhist monk named Khyi Gyatso, had joined the Tibetan Youth Congress in Dharamsala, India, after escaping in 2000. But the monk, Xinhua said, stayed in touch with his boyhood friend, Sangye Gyatso, and persuaded him through phone calls and e-mails to “contribute to the cause of Tibetans” by setting himself on fire.

Xinhua said Sangye Gyatso — whom it described as a convicted thief, perennially unemployed and a chronic womanizer — fell under the monk’s sway. He later told three friends about the time and place of his self-immolation so they could take photographs and share them with overseas groups, including representatives of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader regarded by China as a subversive. “Shortly thereafter,” Xinhua said, “the Dalai clique launched a high-profile ‘propaganda’ campaign on the well-orchestrated incident, claiming there was a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in China and calling for the international community to interfere.”

Tenzin Norsang, joint secretary of Tibetan of Youth Congress in Dharamsala, said the group had no connection to Sangye Gyatso’s death, adding that the intense government restrictions and monitoring limited communication between Tibetans in China and abroad.

“Those who are self-immolating have been living under Chinese rule for more than 50 years — they don’t need anyone to tell them what to do,” he said. “Instead of blaming outsiders, the Chinese government could end the self-immolations by re-examining and changing their own repressive policies.”

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Eagles get their man, hire Oregon's Chip Kelly

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In the end, Chip Kelly chose the NFL, giving the Eagles their guy.

Philadelphia hired Kelly on Wednesday, just 10 days after he decided to stay at Oregon. The 49-year-old Kelly, known as an offensive innovator, becomes the 21st coach in team history and replaces Andy Reid, who was fired on Dec. 31 after a 4-12 season.

He'll be introduced at a news conference Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at the Eagles' practice facility.

Kelly, who was 46-7 in four years at Oregon, interviewed with the Eagles, Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills in a two-day span after leading the fast-flying No. 2 Ducks to a victory over Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 3.

The Eagles are known to have interviewed 11 candidates, including two meetings with Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley. All along, Kelly was thought to be Philadelphia's first choice in a long, exhaustive process that took many twists.

"Chip Kelly will be an outstanding head coach for the Eagles," owner Jeffrey Lurie said in a statement. "He has a brilliant football mind. He motivates his team with his actions as well as his words. He will be a great leader for us and will bring a fresh energetic approach to our team."

On the day he fired Reid, Lurie appeared to be describing Kelly when he said he wanted to find a "real smart, forward-thinking coach" who is "strategic, a strong leader, very comfortable in his own skin."

The enigmatic Kelly reportedly was close to signing with the Browns after a long interview on Jan. 4. He met with the Eagles for nine hours the next day, setting up a soap-opera scenario in which the Eagles were competing with Browns CEO Joe Banner, their former president and longtime friend of Lurie who left the organization after a falling out.

But that roller coaster ended when Kelly opted to remain — temporarily — in Eugene, Ore. At the time, it was the second straight year Kelly had entertained overtures from NFL teams only to reject them. He turned down Tampa Bay's job deep into negotiations last season.

The Eagles interviewed two other high-profile college coaches — Penn State's Bill O'Brien and Notre Dame's Brian Kelly. Both of them elected to stay with their schools and Philadelphia issued a statement saying it would continue its search as planned.

"There is no question we spent a considerable amount of time and effort looking at who we thought were the best collegiate candidates. We did so knowing that there was a remote chance that these coaches would leave their current posts," the team stated on Saturday. "We understood that going into the process, but we wanted to leave no stone unturned while trying to find the best coach. We have no regrets about the effort we made in that direction."

Bradley was considered by many to be the leading contender, though former Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt and former Ravens coach Brian Billick were in the mix.

That all changed when Kelly had a change of heart.

The visor-wearing Kelly built Oregon into a national powerhouse. The Ducks went to four straight BCS bowl games — including a bid for the national championship against Auburn two seasons ago — and have won three Pac-12 championships.

Kelly originally went to Oregon in 2007 as offensive coordinator under Mike Bellotti. Before that, he was offensive coordinator at New Hampshire, where he started devising the innovative hurry-up offense the Ducks are known for now.

Oregon finished last season 12-1. The team was ranked No. 1 and appeared headed for another shot at the national championship until a 17-14 overtime loss to Stanford on Nov. 17.

It's unknown whether the possibility of NCAA sanctions based on Oregon's use of recruiting services factored into Kelly's reversal. Kelly indicated in Arizona that he isn't running from anything.

"We've cooperated fully with them," he said. "If they want to talk to us again, we'll continue to cooperate fully. I feel confident in the situation."

Following the bowl, Kelly said he wanted to get the interview process over "quickly." Turns out, it was anything but.

"It's more a fact-finding mission, finding out if it fits or doesn't fit," Kelly said after the Ducks defeated the Wildcats, 35-17. "I've been in one interview in my life for the National Football League, and that was a year ago. I don't really have any preconceived notions about it. I think that's what this deal is all about for me. It's not going to affect us in terms of we're not on the road (recruiting). I'll get an opportunity if people do call, see where they are.

"I want to get it wrapped up quickly and figure out where I'm going to be."

Kelly, who never said if he was leaning one way or another following the bowl, doesn't have any pro coaching experience, but aspects of his up-tempo offense are already being used by some NFL teams, including New England and Washington.

"I said I'll always listen, and that's what I'll do," he said at the time. "I know that people want to talk to me because of our players. The success of our football program has always been about our guys. It's an honor for someone to say they'd want to talk to me about maybe moving on to go coach in the National Football League. But it's because of what those guys do. I'll listen, and we'll see."

The Eagles fired Reid after two forgettable years. A late flurry brought the team to an 8-8 finish last season, but this season, Philadelphia endured an eight-game losing streak, and dropped 11 of its final 12 games. A 3-1 start soon washed away, and Reid's 14-year tenure ended not long after. Within a week, Reid was Kansas City's new coach.

Still, Kelly has tough shoes to fill. Reid won more game than any coach in franchise history and led the Eagles to nine playoff appearances, six division titles, five conference championship games and a loss to New England in the Super Bowl following the 2004 season.

Kelly and the Eagles, who have won just 12 games the last two seasons, after winning the NFC East in 2010, have the No. 4 overall pick in the draft as well as some talented players on offense who could fit his up-tempo scheme. Running back LeSean McCoy and wide receivers DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin seem like an ideal match. Quarterback Nick Foles, however, isn't.

"I've never run the zone read," Foles said after the season. "I'm more of a dropback guy. I've been under center. I've been in the gun. If I can adapt, I want to. But I'm not a zone-read quarterback. Some people are gifted with different things. That's just not one of my skill sets. I can work on the speed in the offseason and get better with that. But I've always been a dropback guy in the pocket. I've been able to make plays on my feet throwing the ball or running for a first down."

On the other hand, Michael Vick could be perfect. But it's unlikely the Eagles would want to pay the $16 million they'd have to shell out for an injury-prone quarterback, who will be 33 next season.

Kelly had high praise for Foles after Oregon beat Arizona 56-31 in September 2011.

"I'll tell you what; I'm glad Nick Foles is graduating," Kelly said at that time. "I catch myself watching him in awe sometimes. Nick is a hell of a football player. That kid's a warrior. He's as good as anyone in the country."

Others interviewed by Lurie, general Howie Roseman and president Don Smolenski were former Bears coach Lovie Smith, Atlanta assistants Mike Nolan and Keith Armstrong, former Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden.

The first Eagles to react to Kelly's hiring on Twitter were defensive players.

Defensive end Brandon Graham wrote: "Happy to have Chip Kelly!! Now it's time to get to work!"

Safety Kurt Coleman wrote: "Welcome Chip Kelly to the Eagles family. Can't wait to see what he brings to the team in 2013!"

Oregon's players gave Kelly a Gatorade bath at the end of his last game, and some seemed resigned to their coach moving on.

"We're all behind him. He's an unbelievable coach," quarterback Marcus Mariota said. "He's not only a coach, but he's someone that you can look to and learn a lot of life lessons from. Whatever happens, happens.

"We'll see where it takes us."

Kelly took the road to Philadelphia and the NFL.

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Follow Rob Maaddi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobMaaddi

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

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Study Links Segregation and Lung Cancer Deaths in Blacks

African-Americans who live in highly segregated counties are considerably more likely to die from lung cancer than those in counties that are less segregated, a new study has found.

The study was the first to look at segregation as a factor in lung cancer mortality. Its authors said they could not fully explain why it worsens the odds of survival for African-Americans, but hypothesized that blacks in more segregated areas may be less likely to have health insurance or access to health care and specialty doctors. It is also possible that lower levels of education mean they are less likely to seek care early, when medical treatment could make a big difference. Racial bias in the health care system might also be a factor.

“If you want to learn about someone’s health, follow him home,” said Dr. Awori J. Hayanga, a heart and lung surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who was the lead author of the study.

The study, published in JAMA Surgery on Wednesday, divided all counties in the country into three levels of segregation: high, medium and low. It found that lung cancer mortality rates, a ratio of deaths to a population, were about 20 percent higher for blacks who lived in the most segregated counties, than for blacks living in the least segregated counties.

Lung cancer is the top cause of preventable death in the United States. Blacks have the highest incidence of it and are also more likely to die from it. For every million black males, 860 will die from lung cancer, compared with 620 white males among every million white males. The rates were calculated over the period of the study, from 2003 to 2007.

The study drew on federal mortality data from that period, and segregation data from about a third of United States counties that had African-American populations large enough to measure. About 28 percent of the American population lives in counties with low segregation, 40 percent in counties with moderate segregation, and 32 percent in counties with high segregation.

The gap in outcomes persisted even after accounting for differences in smoking rates and socio-economic status, said Dr. Hayanga said.

For whites, high levels of segregation had the opposite effect, a finding that surprised the authors. Whites who lived in highly segregated counties had about 6 percent lower mortality rates from lung cancer than those who lived in the least segregated counties, though researchers pointed out that the difference was slight enough that it was not clear whether it was meaningful.

Dr. David Chang, director of outcomes research at the University of California San Diego Department of Surgery, who wrote an accompanying editorial, said he hoped that the study would focus attention on the environmental factors involved in the stark disparities in health outcomes in the United States because they lend themselves to change through policy. Medical researchers tend to focus on factors like the genetics and the behaviors of individuals that are harder to change.

“We don’t need drugs or genetic explanations to fix a lot of the health care problems we have,” he said.

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