BOSTON — The average cost of a gallon of gas in Massachusetts has dropped another 4 cents, and is now down 23 cents in the past month.
AAA Southern New England reports Monday that self-serve, regular is now selling for $3.43 per gallon.
That's still 9 cents per gallon higher that the national average but 45 cents lower than the in-state price one year ago.
AAA found self-serve, regular selling for as low as $3.26 per gallon and as high as $3.65.
NEW YORK — They speak different languages, live in countries rich and poor, face horrible job markets and healthy ones. When it comes to money, though, they act as one: They're holding tight to their cash, driven more by a fear of losing what they have than a desire to add to it.
Five years after U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis and shattering confidence worldwide, families in countries as varied as the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany remain hunkered down, too spooked and distrustful to take chances with their money.
An Associated Press analysis of households in the 10 biggest economies shows that families continue to spend cautiously and have pulled hundreds of billions of dollars out of stocks, cut borrowing for the first time in decades and poured money into savings and bonds that offer puny interest payments, often too low to keep up with inflation.
"It doesn't take very much to destroy confidence, but it takes an awful lot to build it back," says Ian Bright, senior economist at ING, a global bank based in Amsterdam. "The attitude toward risk is permanently reset."
A flight to safety on such a global scale is unprecedented since the end of World War II.
The implications are huge: Shunning debt and spending less can be good for one family's finances. When hundreds of millions do it together, it can starve the global economy.
Weak growth around the world means wages in the United States, which aren't keeping up with inflation, will continue to rise slowly. Record unemployment in parts of Europe, higher than 35 percent among youth in several countries, won't fall quickly. Another wave of Chinese, Brazilians and Indians rising into the middle class, as hundreds of millions did during the boom years last decade, is unlikely.
Some of the retrenchment is not surprising: High unemployment in many countries means fewer people with paychecks to spend. Some people who lost jobs got new ones that pay less or are part time. But even people with good jobs and little fear of losing them remain cautious.
"Lehman changed everything," says Arne Holzhausen, a senior economist at global insurer Allianz, based in Munich. "It's safety, safety, safety."
The AP analyzed data showing what consumers did with their money in the five years before the Great Recession began in December 2007 and in the five years that followed, through the end of 2012. The focus was on the world's 10 biggest economies — the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., Brazil, Russia, Italy and India — which have half the world's population and 65 percent of global gross domestic product.
Key findings:
— RETREAT FROM STOCKS: A desire for safety drove people to dump stocks, even as prices rocketed from crisis lows in early 2009, and put their money into bonds. Investors in the top 10 countries pulled $1.1 trillion from stock mutual funds in the five years after the crisis, or 10 percent of what they had invested at the start of that period, according to Lipper Inc., which tracks funds.
They put even more money into bond mutual funds — $1.3 trillion — even as interest payments on bonds plunged to record lows.
— SHUNNING DEBT: Household debt surged at an unprecedented rate in the five years before the financial crisis. In the U.S., the U.K. and France, it soared more than 50 percent per adult, according to Credit Suisse. For all 10 countries, it jumped 34 percent. Then the financial crisis hit, and people slammed the brakes on borrowing. Debt per adult in the 10 countries fell 1 percent in the 4½ years after 2007. Economists say debt hasn't fallen in sync like that since the end of World War II. People chose to shed debt even as lenders slashed rates on loans to record lows. In normal times, that would have triggered an avalanche of borrowing.
"Given what they've lived through, households are loath to borrow again," says Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of BMO Private Bank in Chicago. "They're not going to stretch. They want a cushion."
— HOARDING CASH: Looking for safety for their money, households in the six biggest developed economies added $3.3 trillion, or 15 percent, to their cash holdings in the five years after the crisis, slightly more than they did in the five years before, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The growth of cash is remarkable because millions more were unemployed, wages grew slowly and people diverted billions to pay down their debts. They also poured money into bank accounts knowing they would earn little interest on their deposits, often too little to keep up with inflation.
— SPENDING SLUMP: Cutting debt and saving more may be good in the long term, but to do that, people have had to rein in their spending. Adjusting for inflation, global consumer spending rose 1.6 percent a year during the five years after the crisis, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accounting and consulting firm. That was about half the growth rate before the crisis and only slightly more than the annual growth in population during those years.
Consumer spending is critically important because it accounts for more than 60 percent of GDP.
— DEVELOPING WORLD NOT HELPING ENOUGH: When the financial crisis hit, the major developed countries looked to the developing world to take over in powering global growth. The four big developing countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — recovered quickly from the crisis. But the potential of the BRIC countries, as they are known, was overrated. Although they have 80 percent of the people, they accounted for only 22 percent of consumer spending in the 10 biggest countries last year, according to Haver Analytics, a research firm. This year, their economies are stumbling.
Consumers around the world will eventually shake their fears, of course, and loosen the hold on their money. But few economists expect them to snap back to their old ways.
One reason is that the boom years that preceded the financial crisis were as much an aberration as the last five years have been. Those free-spending days, experts now understand, were fueled by families taking on enormous debt, not by healthy wage gains. No one expects a repeat of those excesses.
More importantly, economists cite a psychological "scarring" that continues to shape behavior. Scarring is a fear of losing money that grips people during a period of collapsing jobs, incomes and wealth, and then doesn't let go.
The desire for safety remains even after jobs return, wages rise and financial and housing markets recover. Think of Americans who suffered through the Great Depression and stayed frugal for decades, even as the U.S. economy boomed after World War II.
Although not on a level with the Depression, some economists think the psychological blow of the financial crisis was severe enough that households won't increase their borrowing and spending to what would be considered normal levels for another five years or longer.
To better understand why people remain so cautious five years after the crisis, AP interviewed consumers around the world. A look at what they're thinking — and doing — with their money:
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INVESTING
Rick Stonecipher of Muncie, Ind., doesn't like stocks anymore, for the same reason that millions of investors have turned against them — the stock market crash that began in October 2008 and didn't end until the following March.
"My brokers said they were really safe, but they weren't," says Stonecipher, 59, a substitute school teacher.
That individual investors would sell while markets plunged is not surprising. Households nearly always bail out as stocks drop, only to buy again after they rise.
But this time was different. In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average rocketed 118 percent over the next four years and reached a record high in March. In Germany, the DAX Index soared 116 percent and hit a record in May. In the U.K., the FTSE 100 index rose 85 percent. Yet small investors mostly sold during that period, an extraordinary vote of no confidence.
Americans pulled the most money out over five years — $521 billion from stock mutual funds, or 9 percent of their holdings, according to Lipper. But investors in other countries sold an even larger share of their holdings: Germans dumped 13 percent; Italians and French, more than 16 percent each.
The French are "not very oriented to risk," says Cyril Blesson, an economist at Pair Conseil, an investment consultancy in Paris. "Now, it's even worse."
It's gotten worse in China, Russia, Japan and the United Kingdom, too.
Fu Lili, 31, a psychologist in Fu Xin, a city in northeastern China, says she made about 20,000 yuan ($3,267) buying and selling stocks before the crisis, more than 10 times her monthly salary then. But she won't touch them now, because she's too scared.
In Moscow, Yuri Shcherbanin, 32, a manager for an oil company, says the crash proved stocks were dangerous and he should content himself with money in the bank.
Hirokazu Suyama, 26, a musician in Tokyo, dismisses stock investing as "gambling."
In London, Pavlina Samson, 39, owner of a jewelry and clothes shop, says stocks are too "risky." What's also driving her away may be something that runs deeper: "People feel like they're being ripped off everywhere," she says.
Holzhausen, the Allianz economist, says people are shunning stocks for the same reason they're shunning other investments that involve risk — less a cold calculation of whether the price is right and more a mistrust of nearly everything financial.
"People want to get as much distance as possible from the financial system," he says. "They want to be in control of their financial matters. People no longer trust in the markets."
In India, where the growing middle class seems perfect for stocks, people were pulling out even before the economy deteriorated in recent months. Indians dumped 15 percent of their holdings in the five years after the crisis.
Pradeep Kumar, owner of a fast-expanding manufacturer of water pumps and parts for electric fans, says he finds stocks confusing and prefers investing in real estate and plowing money back into his business.
"I will not venture into something I don't understand," says Kumar, 41, a father of two from Varanasi in northern India.
What people do understand are bonds — boring, seemingly safe and, in terms of interest payments, unrewarding. In the five years after the crisis struck, investors in the six biggest developed countries poured $2 trillion into bond mutual funds, an increase of 60 percent. During that time, interest payments fell by half.
Investors have barely been compensated for inflation, if at all.
Consider a favorite German investment: funds run by insurers that hold mostly government bonds. Half the payments investors receive are tax free if they hold onto the funds long enough. Even with that tax savings, though, the investor returns can be dreadfully low. For new policies, the guaranteed interest rate is currently 1.75 percent a year, roughly the rate of inflation.
In recent months, Americans have shown more courage, inching back into stock mutual funds. But they've bought one week, only to sell the next, and they appear almost as wary of the market as they were during the crisis.
In April, one month after the Dow recovered the last of its losses from the crisis and reached a record high, 75 percent of Americans in an AP-GfK poll described the stock market as "risky." That was only slightly better than the 78 percent who felt that way in a CBS News/New York Times poll in January 2009 when the market was plunging.
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DEBT
Jerry and Madeleine Bosco have been forced to switch to a strange, new role for Americans: from big spenders, with credit cards in hand, to penny pinchers.
After the financial crisis hit, Jerry, who helps prepare booths for trade shows, had to take a 15 percent pay cut. Suddenly, the couple found themselves facing $30,000 in credit card debt with no easy way to pay it off. So they sold stocks, threw most of their credit cards in the trash, stopped eating out with friends and cut out ski vacations with their two sons and weekend trips up the coast from their home in Tujunga, Calif.
Today, most of the debt is gone but Jerry still hasn't gotten a raise, and the lusher life of the boom years is a distant memory.
"We had credit cards and we didn't worry about a thing," says Madeleine, 55. "Our home price was going up. We got DirecTV, and got each of the boys Xbox" game consoles.
From the start of record-keeping by the U.S. Federal Reserve in 1951 through June 2008, in booms and busts alike, Americans never failed to add to debt from one quarter to the next. Fortunately, their incomes also rose most of that time.
Then wages stagnated in the new millennium. And instead of slowing their borrowing, Americans sped it up. Debt rose from less than 90 percent of annual take-home pay in 2000 to 130 percent in 2007.
Americans weren't the only ones who borrowed recklessly. In the 10 years before the crisis, household debt as a percentage of annual pay rose by a third or more in nine European countries. It topped 170 percent in the Netherlands, Ireland and the U.K.
Then came the financial crisis and the hard times that followed.
In the U.S., debt per adult fell 12 percent the first 4 ½ years after the crisis, mostly a result of people defaulting on loans. In the U.K., debt per adult fell a modest 2 percent, but it had soared 59 percent in a comparable period before the crisis.
Germans and Japanese are culturally averse to borrowing and didn't build up debt before the crisis. Nevertheless, they've cut back since — 1 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
"We don't want to take out a loan," says Maria Schoenberg, 45, of Frankfurt, Germany, explaining why she and her husband, a rheumatologist, decided to rent after a recent move instead of borrowing to buy. "We're terrified of doing that."
Such attitudes are rife when it has rarely been cheaper to borrow around the world. German lenders are dangling mortgage rates at 2 percent. In normal times, record low rates would trigger a borrowing boom like few in history.
"But that was the world we knew before 2008," says Jim Davies, an economist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. "People have a lot of worries and concerns about whether they can make the payments."
And a lot of anger, too.
Anita Williamson of Bristol, England, says she and her husband were wrong to borrow so much during the boom — 1.3 million pounds ($2.1 million), much of it to buy a home. But she says the banks were far too eager to lend. One bank allowed a loan to be "self-certified," a practice mostly banned now that allowed lenders to take the word of borrowers that they could afford the debt.
"It's very easy for people to believe the so-called experts at the bank," says Williamson, 55, who had to declare bankruptcy to get out of most of her debt. When it comes to finances, she adds, she won't touch a bank again with a "barge pole."
Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest U.S. bank, warns not to see a popular revolt behind every dollar in debt that's shed. He notes that populations are aging in many countries: People don't need to borrow as much as they did when they were raising families.
Still, he thinks a new distaste for debt is playing a big role.
"A whole new generation of adults has come of age in a time of diminished expectations," he says. "They're not likely to take on debt like those before them."
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SPENDING
In France, Arnaud Reze has stopped buying coffee at cafes to save money. The Kawabatas in Japan rarely eat out. Glen Oakes in the state of Washington used to take an expensive vacation every year, such as to Disney World in Florida. He stopped five years ago.
Around the globe, in small ways and large, in expanding economies and contracting ones, consumers remain thrifty.
You can see it on some High Streets in the U.K., dotted now by secondhand boutiques and pawn shops. Or in weak car sales in Europe, which have plunged to their lowest level in more than two decades. Or in the remarkable rise of Dollar General, a discount chain with 10,000 stores in the U.S. that has more than doubled its profits the past three years.
After adjusting for inflation, Americans increased their spending in the five years after the crisis at one-quarter the rate before the crisis, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. French spending barely budged. In the U.K., spending didn't just grow slowly, it dropped. The British spent 3 percent less last year than they did five years earlier, in 2007.
High unemployment has played a role. Unemployment in Europe is 11 percent. But economists say scarring from the financial crisis, and the government debt crisis that started a year later has spooked people who can afford to splurge to hold back instead.
Reze, 36, is the last person you'd think would feel pressure to save more. He owns a home in Nantes, has piled up money in savings accounts and stocks, and has a government job that guarantees 75 percent of his pay in retirement. But he fears the pension guarantee won't be kept. So he's not only stopped buying coffee at cafes, he's cut back on lunches with colleagues and saved in numerous other ways. He figures he's squirreling away an additional 300 euros ($400) a month, or about 10 percent of his pay.
"Little stupid things that I would buy left and right ... I don't buy anymore," he says.
Even the rich are spending cautiously and saving more.
Five years ago, Mike Cockrell, chief financial officer at Sanderson Farms, a large U.S. poultry producer, had just paid off the mortgage on his home in Laurel, Miss. He was looking forward to having extra money to spend. Then came the financial crisis, and he decided to put the extra cash into savings. "Earning nothing, just like everyone else, " Cockrell says.
"I watched the news of the stock market going down 100, 200 points a day, and I was glad I had cash," he says, recalling the steep drops in the Dow during the crisis. "That strategy will not change."
The wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. households are saving 30 percent of their take-home pay, triple what they were saving in 2008, according to a July report from American Express Publishing and Harrison Group, a research firm.
Steve Crosby, head of wealth management at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says that when he talks to the rich, he's reminded of his grandparents who held tight to their cash decades after they lost money in the Great Depression. He expects the financial crisis will haunt his clients for a long time, too.
"There was a scar, and it's measured in half-lives, just like radioactivity," Crosby says. "People want control."
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THE FUTURE
The good news is that after years of living with less, paying debts and saving more, many people have repaired their personal finances.
Americans have slashed their credit card debt to 2002 levels, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the U.K., personal bank loans, not including mortgages, are no larger than they were in 1999, according to the British Bankers' Association.
People have recouped some losses from the crisis, too. In France, the value of financial assets held by households is 15 percent above its previous peak, according to the OECD. And the value of homes, the biggest asset for most families, is rising again in some countries.
So more people have the capacity to borrow, spend and invest more. But will they?
Sahoko Tanabe of Tokyo, 63, lost money in Japan's stock market crash more than two decades ago, but she's buying again. "Abenomics," a mix of fiscal and monetary stimulus named for Japan's new prime minister, has ignited Japanese stocks, and she doesn't want to miss out.
"You're bound to fail if you have a pessimistic attitude," she says.
But for every Tanabe, there seem to be more people like Madeleine Bosco, the Californian who sold her stocks and ditched many of her credit cards. "All of a sudden you look at all these things you're buying that you don't need," she says.
Attitudes like Bosco's will make for a better economy eventually — safer and more stable — but won't trigger the jobs and wage gains that are needed to make economies healthy now.
"The further you get away from the carnage in '08-'09, the memories fade," says Stephen Roach, former chief economist at investment bank Morgan Stanley, who now teaches at Yale. "But does it return to the leverage and consumer demand we had in the past and make things hunky dory? The answer is no."
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AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta, AP researcher Judith Ausuebel and AP writers Nirmala George in New Delhi, Joe McDonald in Beijing, Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Carlo Piovano in London, Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris, David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.
Results of the AP/GfK poll can be seen online at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.
You can reach Bernard Condon on Twitter at http://twitter.com/BernardFCondon .
ALBANY, N.Y. — New York is expanding its probe nationwide into the 1980s sale of the rights to the World Trade Center name to a nonprofit for $10, resulting in millions of dollars in fees for use of the name in 28 states, according to an official familiar with the investigation.
The official told The Associated Press that letters seeking information on the deals should arrive Monday at 45 World Trade Center complexes, from Alaska to Florida. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the probe and talked on the condition of anonymity.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating a 1986 deal in which the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey sold the naming rights to one of its outgoing executives for use by a nonprofit organization called The World Trade Centers Association. The Port Authority owns the World Trade Center site but is among hundreds of entities worldwide that pay to use the World Trade Center name.
"The attorney general is looking to find out how the WTCA got such a sweetheart deal on the naming rights, how much revenue the WTCA makes selling the name and how that price is set," the official said.
A spokesman for the WTCA said the organization has "a long history of creating value" and acquired the naming rights legally.
"The WTCA lawfully obtained all rights to the World Trade Center trademark in 1986 in an agreement reached between the WTCA and the Port Authority," spokesman Eric Dahl said. "This agreement has been honored by both parties for nearly three decades with the knowledge and participation of the governing bodies of both organizations and was re-approved by the Port Authority as recently as 2006."
The Record newspaper reported in September that the Port Authority sold the naming rights to Guy Tozzoli in his role as head of the nonprofit WTCA. Tozzoli died in February.
A letter obtained by the AP sets an Oct. 25 deadline for responses to the World Trade Centers in cities including Houston, New Orleans, Detroit and Sacramento, Calif.
The letters seek the date in which each entity entered into an agreement with the World Trade Centers Association, the end date of any agreement, and the amount paid to the association, and names of principals involved and the license agreements.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo referred the case to Schneiderman on Sept. 17.
"Using the millions of dollars in annual revenue from licensing fees paid by companies around the globe for the use of the World Trade Center brand, Mr. Tozzoli received exorbitant annual compensation," Cuomo said.
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Dave Porter reported from Newark, N.J.
NEW YORK — Shares of BlackBerry Ltd. rose more than 4 percent Monday on a report that the company is in sale talks with a handful of companies.
Reuters reported Friday that the struggling smartphone maker was holding discussions with Cisco, Google and SAP about a possible sale of all or part of itself. It cited "several sources close to the matter" that it did not identify.
According to Reuters, BlackBerry has asked for preliminary expressions of interest from buyers including Intel Corp., LG and Samsung, by early next week.
BlackBerry shares rose 32 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $8.01 in morning trading Monday.
The company released a statement Monday morning declining comment on the specific report.
But Blackberry noted that its special committee along with independent financial and legal advisors "is conducting a robust and thorough review of strategic alternatives."
"We do not intend to disclose further developments with respect to the process until we approve a specific transaction or otherwise conclude the review of strategic alternatives," the statement said.
BlackBerry announced last month that Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. signed a letter of intent that "contemplates" buying the company for $9 a share, or $4.7 billion. Fairfax, BlackBerry's largest shareholder, is trying to attract other investors.
Private equity firm Cerberus has also expressed interest in buying the company.
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek backed his "Hold" rating for the stock on Monday. He said that while any of the interested parties could get something out of a BlackBerry acquisition, the company has yet to generate much interest. As a result, Misek still sees Fairfax, with its $9 per share bid, as the likely winner.
NEW YORK — A Fox News Channel anchor has apologized for falsely saying that President Barack Obama had offered to pay for the operation of a museum of Muslim culture "out of his own pocket" during the government shutdown.
Anchor Anna Kooiman made the remark Saturday on "Fox & Friends" during a discussion about closed facilities. She said it didn't seem fair that a World War II monument in Washington was closed, especially in the context of other things funded.
She didn't name her source, but Kooiman appeared to be influenced by a satirical news site that said Obama would use his own money to keep a Muslim culture museum open.
Kooiman tweeted an apology Sunday. It's not clear yet whether the mistake will be addressed on the air.
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge was set to begin hearing three weeks of testimony Monday about how much oil made it into the ocean during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Experts for BP and the federal government will provide U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier with very different estimates when the second phase of a trial resumes for litigation spawned by the spill.
The amount of oil that spewed into the Gulf is a key factor in determining how much more money BP and its contractors owe for their roles in the deadly disaster.
Justice Department attorneys will try to persuade Barbier that the best set of data on oil flow comes from a pressure gauge on the capping stack used to seal the blown-out well.
"The pressure data, collection rates, and geometry of the capping stack are by far the most accurate and reliable sources of information on flow rate, and were recognized as such by all parties at the time," they wrote in a pretrial filing.
BP, however, says the government's experts ignored other important data. Company lawyers say its experts used a "proven methodology" that doesn't require "simplistic and unverified assumptions about flow conditions."
"In contrast, the United States' experts employ unproven methods that require significant assumptions and extrapolations in lieu of, and even directly inconsistent with, the available data and other evidence," company attorneys wrote.
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was working at the site of BP's Macondo well off the Louisiana coast when the well blew out April 20, 2010. The explosion on the rig killed 11 workers and set off a massive fire. The rig sank less than two days later to the bottom, about a mile below the Gulf surface.
The Justice Department's experts estimate 4.2 million barrels, or 176 million gallons, spilled into the Gulf after the blowout. BP has urged Barbier to use an estimate of 2.45 million barrels, or nearly 103 million gallons, in calculating any Clean Water Act fines. Both sides agree that 810,000 barrels, or 34 million gallons, escaped the well but were captured before the crude could pollute the Gulf.
Under the Clean Water Act, a polluter can be forced to pay a maximum of either $1,100 or $4,300 per barrel of spilled oil. The higher maximum applies if the company is found grossly negligent, as the government argues BP should be. But penalties can be assessed at amounts lower than those caps.
Using the government's figures, a maximum penalty if the company is found grossly negligent could total $18 billion. Using the company's figures, that maximum penalty would be around $10.5 billion.
For the trial's first phase, Barbier heard eight weeks of testimony about the causes of the April 2010 well blowout.
Barbier divided the trial's second phase into two parts. For the first segment, he heard four days of testimony last week about BP's efforts to cap the well. He set aside 12 days of testimony for the second segment, which will consist almost exclusively of technical testimony by experts.
Government experts believe the oil was flowing from the well at a higher rate shortly after the blowout than it was when the well was sealed with the capping stack.
"Basic principles of oil production hold that reservoir pressure depletes and flow rates wane over time," Justice Department attorneys wrote.
BP's experts concluded that flow rates increased over time, due in part to the erosion of steel rams on the rig's blowout preventer. Martin Blunt, a BP expert who is a professor of petroleum engineering at Imperial College in London, also took other factors into consideration, including the "compressibility" of the rocks in the reservoir BP was drilling.
"In assessing the data, Dr. Blunt uses a conservative lens," BP attorneys wrote. "Dr. Blunt accounts for fundamental geological facts and principles of physics acknowledged by United States experts but omitted in their flow calculations."
WASHINGTON — Little Amelia Sloan became a pioneer shortly after her birth.
The healthy baby is part of a large research project outside the nation's capital that is decoding the DNA of hundreds of infants. New parents in a few other cities soon can start signing up for smaller studies to explore what's called genome sequencing — fully mapping someone's genes to look for health risks — should become a part of newborn care.
It's full of ethical challenges.
Should parents be told only about childhood threats? Or would they also want to learn if their babies carried a key gene for, say, breast cancer after they're grown? Could knowing about future risks alter how a family treats an otherwise healthy youngster? And how accurate is this technology — could it raise too many false alarms?
This is the newest frontier in the genetic revolution: how early to peek into someone's DNA, and how to make use of this health forecast without causing needless worry.
"This was something that was looming over the horizon," said Dr. Alan Guttmacher, a pediatrician and geneticist who heads the National Institutes of Health's child health division. Last month, NIH announced a $25 million, five-year pilot project in four cities — Boston, San Francisco, Chapel Hill, N.C., and Kansas City, Mo. — to start answering some of the questions before the technology is widely offered for babies.
Today, the 4 million U.S. babies born annually have a heel pricked in the hospital, providing a spot of blood to be tested for signs of at least 30 rare diseases. This newborn screening catches several thousand affected babies each year in time for early treatment to prevent death, brain damage or other disabilities. It's considered one of the nation's most successful public health programs.
A complete genetic blueprint would go well beyond what that newborn blood spot currently tells doctors and parents — allowing a search for potentially hundreds of other conditions, some that arise in childhood and some later, some preventable and some not.
"If I truly believed that knowing one's genome was going to be transformative to medicine over the next decade or more, then wouldn't I want to start generating that information around the time of birth?" asked Dr. John Niederhuber, former director of the National Cancer Institute who now oversees one of the largest baby-sequencing research projects to date.
At Niederhuber's Inova Translational Medicine Institute in Falls Church, Va., researchers are mapping the genomes of newborns, along with their parents and other relatives for comparison. The long-term goal of the privately funded study is to uncover genetic patterns that predict complex health problems, from prematurity to developmental disorders.
But the experimental tests will turn up some gene mutations already well-known to cause serious ailments, and participating parents must choose upfront whether to be told. They don't get a full report card of their baby's genes. Only ones that cause treatable or preventable conditions — so-called medically actionable findings — are revealed, to the family's doctor. That means in addition to pediatric diseases, parents also could learn whether a baby carries a particular breast-cancer-causing gene, information useful once she reaches young adulthood.
Nurse Holly Sloan was eager to enroll daughter Amelia, although she thought hard about how she'd handle any bad news.
"If it was something that we could hopefully prevent through diet or exercise or some kind of lifestyle change, we could start with that as early as possible," said Sloan, of Warrenton, Va. "I guess I'm just the type of person, I would rather know and address it." Five months after Amelia's birth, she hasn't gotten any worrisome results.
Until now, genome sequencing has been used mostly in research involving curious adults or to help diagnose children or families plagued by mysterious illnesses.
But many specialists say it's almost inevitable that DNA mapping eventually will be used for healthy young children, too, maybe as an addition to traditional newborn screening for at least some tots. It takes a few drops of blood or a cheek swab. And while it's still too costly for routine use, the price is dropping rapidly. Whole genome sequencing is expected to soon come down to $1,000, what it now costs for a more targeted "exome" sequencing that maps only certain genes and may be enough.
The NIH decided this was a window of opportunity to explore different ways this technology might be used. One of the four teams — at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City — will test rapid gene-mapping to speed diagnosis of sick babies in intensive care.
Another will look for narrow sets of genes important in childhood, such as those involved with immune disorders not detected by today's newborn screening or that alter how a child processes medication. "It's not going to be some sort of fishing expedition throughout the genome," said Dr. Robert Nussbaum of the University of California, San Francisco.
The two other projects — at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill — will go a step further by enrolling healthy infants as they explore what kind of information parents want about their babies' future.
"We aren't even sure that genome-scale sequencing in newborns is really a good idea," cautioned UNC lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Berg in a recent Facebook chat to alert the community about the study. Rather than a one-time mapping, it's possible that "we will use targeted sequencing at certain times in a person's life, when that specific information will actually be medically useful."
For those pioneering babies whose DNA is being mapped already, researchers are "trying to figure out what is legal, versus ethical, versus good medicine" in revealing results, said geneticist Joe Vockley, Inova Translational Medicine Institute's chief science officer.
Mom and Dad may be told something their child, once grown, wishes hadn't been revealed. Other findings may be withheld now that would be good to know years later, as new treatments are developed.
"This is a living, breathing problem," Vockley said, "not a static decision that's made, and it lasts for all time."
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina lost its first round in a crucial battle over bond payments at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.
Justices refused to hear the country's appeal of a ruling that would force Argentines to pay about $1.4 billion in cash to a group of hedge funds, or go into default on most of the other bonds issued to make good on debts stemming from the country's 2001 crisis.
The decision was expected and almost certainly won't be Argentina's last shot at a Supreme Court hearing. While some analysts have said the chances of a different result diminish with each appeal, Argentina still has ways of delaying the final result for months. The government already asked the full U.S. 2nd Court of Appeals in New York to reconsider the finding by one of its three-judge panels, and could appeal that decision in Washington as well.
The justices did not comment on their order Monday.
Nor was there an immediate reaction from the government in Argentina, where uncertainty and secrecy surrounded President Cristina Fernandez. Her doctors ordered her over the weekend to take a month's rest after discovering blood pressing against her brain, a situation that may require surgery. It wasn't clear whether she would hand over government to her vice president, or try to manage the country from the presidential residence.
The Economy Ministry did not immediately respond to questions left by The Associated Press about its next steps following the Supreme Court rejection.
The case stems from Argentina's financial crisis a dozen years ago, when the government defaulted on a record $100 billion in debts, and some investors scooped up nearly worthless Argentine bonds. More than 90 percent of bondholders have been receiving payments for years since agreeing to swap their un-performing paper for new bonds that initially paid less than 30 cents for each dollar of bad debt. Many of the rest, led by NML Capital Ltd., a hedge fund managed by New York billionaire Paul Singer, sued and won their case before U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa.
Fernandez has repeatedly refused to pay these plaintiffs "a single dollar," calling them vultures who prey on emerging economies, and is prepared to defy the U.S. courts by preparing another debt swap that would be guaranteed instead under Argentine law.
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Mark Sherman reported from Washington, D.C.
DALLAS — Billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban testified Monday that he generally doesn't agree to treat as confidential any information that people tell him about investments.
Cuban made the comment at his insider-trading trial to counter a government claim that he broke a secrecy vow in 2004 when he unloaded his shares in a Canadian Internet company. The government says he avoided $750,000 in losses by selling his stock on insider information.
Also, Cuban detailed his concern over connections between Mamma.com Inc. and a convicted stock swindler, Irving Kott. Cuban's lawyer offered emails indicating that he had raised questions with company officials and had spoken with FBI and SEC officials about Kott.
Cuban's lawyer, Thomas Melsheimer, asked why he raised the issue with company officials.
"They're dealing with crooks," Cuban testified.
Cuban's side is highlighting Kott to buttress its defense that Cuban had various concerns about Mamma.com and didn't sell his shares simply because he learned about a private stock offering that would lower the value of his shares.
Cuban testified all day Thursday and returned to the stand Monday morning. The trial is expected to run through next week. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Cuban, saying that he used his status as the biggest shareholder in Mamma.com to learn about the stock sale before other investors, then sold his shares before the company publicly announced the news.
The sports owner and regular on ABC's "Shark Tank" repeated his contention that he never agreed to keep the information he received confidential or to refrain from trading. The CEO, Guy Faure, testified that Cuban accepted a vow of confidentiality, which the company understood to mean that Cuban wouldn't sell his shares immediately.
Cuban said he couldn't recall details of the conversation, but that he wouldn't have agreed not to act on what the CEO told him.
"I didn't feel I was under any limitations whatsoever," Cuban testified. "So it makes no sense ... that I can't sell my stock."
Cuban added, "I just don't do oral confidentiality agreements," partly because people can later dispute what was agreed upon.
NEW YORK — People don't just watch TV anymore; they talk about it on Twitter. From the comfort of couches, they share reactions to touchdowns and nail-biting season finales — and advertisers and networks are taking note.
Examples of Twitter's influence abound. The recent finale of "Breaking Bad" generated a record 1.24 million tweets. The conversation peaked at 22,373 tweets per minute according to analytics firm SocialGuide. People used the hashtag "GoodbyeBreakingBad" nearly 500,000 times. During this year's Super Bowl, sports fans generated 24 million tweets about the competition and nearly half of the game's nationally televised commercials contained hashtags that encouraged viewers to tweet.
Twitter, says Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at research firm eMarketer, "creates a community, a bond between people that doesn't really exist without Twitter."
As Twitter prepares for its initial public offering, the San Francisco-based company is also working hard to insert itself into the TV advertising economy. In recent months, the social networking company has forged partnerships with television content owners such as CBS, MTV and the NFL through a program it calls Amplify. The platform lets content owners beam real-time video clips to Twitter users who may have seen —or could be interested in — their TV programming. It also allows marketers to communicate with viewers who saw their TV ads, extending commercial pitches to consumers' smartphones and tablets.
TV tie-ins allow Twitter to diversify its revenue stream beyond the relatively small niche of digital advertising campaigns, a move that should appeal to potential investors. On Thursday, Twitter unsealed documents for a Wall Street debut that could take place before Thanksgiving. While the company did not reveal how much money it makes from its TV partnerships, it touted its own "strength as a second screen for television programming."
Twitter wrote in its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that "45% of television ads shown during the Super Bowl used a hashtag to invite viewers to engage in conversation about those television ads on Twitter."
Twitter's public nature makes it an especially attractive platform for tracking live-TV conversations. So much so that Nielsen recently began using Twitter's data to measure online social activity around TV programming, starting with this fall's TV season.
Nielsen will release its first "Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings" report on Monday. The study measures TV-related conversations on the social network. Nielsen found that in the second quarter of this year, 19 million people wrote 263 million tweets about live TV events, up 38 percent from a year earlier.
Some 19 million people tweet about TV shows, a 24 percent increase from last year. The audience measurement firm also found that many people read tweets about TV shows while they watch them — even if they don't post anything themselves. As a result, Nielsen says the Twitter TV audience for an average episode is 50 times larger than the number of people who are Tweeting about a show.
Separately, Nielsen found that the "Breaking Bad" finale was by far the most tweeted-about program last week.
On Sunday, the NFL showed just how Twitter-enabled promotions work. Minutes after Cincinnati cornerback Adam Jones intercepted New England's Tom Brady, ending the quarterback's streak of 52 games with a touchdown pass, the NFL posted a video clip on Twitter. The clip shows Jones bobbling, and then snagging the ball before it hits the ground.
The 32-second clip was prefaced by an 8-second video ad for a Verizon Droid mobile phone. "Adam Jones ends the Pats undefeated season, Brady's TD streak AND a rainstorm. With 1 INT," the league tweeted.
By inserting itself into the online buzz, the NFL was able to remind people the game was going on live at its NFL Network channel. Meanwhile, it earned new revenue from Verizon, a longtime sponsor that wanted to showcase its NFL Mobile app.
The NFL has more than 5.1 million followers on Twitter. But its new partnership with Twitter means the tweet also went out to millions of other users who might be interested.
Hans Schroeder, the NFL's senior vice president of media strategy and development, says he expects promoted tweets will eventually reach tens of millions of fans, multiplying its reach.
"We think it'll drive tune-in to our games and drive more people into the experience through NFL Mobile," Schroeder says.
As part of the deal, Twitter shares some of the revenue from Verizon's advertising spend when the phone company pays for "promoted tweets." Previously, the money might have gone only to the league itself.
Twitter's projected 2013 revenue is about $582 million, according to research firm eMarketer. At the moment, the company generates tens of millions of dollars of revenue from all of its TV deals, including those with ESPN, Turner networks, CBS and others, according to Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research Group.
That's not huge. However, says Wieser: "This year, it's about getting the foot in the door."
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter estimates that Twitter gets just a small fraction of its revenue from the TV deals — around 1 percent. But by next year, the deals could amount to 5 percent, and 15 percent the year after, he says.
Twitter isn't alone in its quest to befriend TV content companies. Facebook, too, is recognizing the value of live TV chatter. Because of its sheer size — nearly 1.2 billion users versus Twitter's 218 million — Facebook has more conversations than any other social network. During the "Breaking Bad" finale, more than 3 million people generated 5.5 million "interactions," that is, status updates, comments or "likes."
For now, Facebook's TV partnerships are not intended to generate revenue, the company says. Rather, they are "focused on helping people discover great content," says Justin Osofsky, Facebook's vice president of media partnerships.
Over the past few months, Facebook has rolled out more Twitter-like features as competition between the world's leading social networks heats up. There are now hashtags on Facebook, and the company is encouraging celebrities to use its site to interact with fans — just as many of them do on Twitter.
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Ryan Nakashima contributed from Los Angeles.
