Asian shares drop on euro zone worry, soft U.S. data

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares slid on Tuesday as investors saw opportunities to cash in from recent strong rallies in the face of weak U.S. data and worries that a potential political shake-up could disrupt the eurozone's efforts to resolve its debt crisis.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> tumbled 0.8 percent, dragged lower by a steep 1.8 percent fall in Hong Kong shares <.hsi>.

The euro took the brunt of renewed focus on the euro zone problems, having risen 2.3 percent so far this year against the U.S. dollar, up about 5.4 percent against sterling and 1.8 percent higher against the Australian dollar.

The euro eased 0.1 percent to $1.3496, retreating further from Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711, ahead of the European Central Bank's policy meeting on Thursday.

The euro's fall helped euro/crosses recover, underpinning such currencies as the Australian dollar against the U.S. unit.

Aussie eased 0.1 percent to $1.0423 after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its cash rate steady at 3.0 percent, as expected, having just cut in December.

Spain's opposition party on Sunday called for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign over a corruption scandal, an allegation Rajoy denies, pushing Spanish 10-year bond yields to six-week highs.

In Italy, 10-year Italian government bond yields hit their highest since late December, as chances of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi regaining power raised worries about Rome's ability to fix its fiscal problems.

"Markets have been increasingly comfortable with European risks over the past few months and are largely not positioned for this increase in political problems. The outcomes in Spain and Italy are far from certain and may represent stumbling blocks for further expansion in risk appetite," Barclays Capital said in a research note.

The yen took a breather, firming from lows against a broad range of currencies.

The dollar was down slightly at 92.31 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 93.185 on Monday, while the euro eased 0.1 percent to 124.61 yen, off its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 hit on Friday.

"Markets are broadly undergoing a correction and the euro is definitely facing profit-taking, given the pace of its climb. Worries about the euro zone debt crisis always remain a downside risk for the euro, and could push it lower to $1.32-$1.33," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan at UBS in Tokyo. "But the trend is still upward for dollar/yen, cross/yen. The dollar could reach 95 yen by the end of the month."

As long as markets hold out expectations for the Bank of Japan to implement aggressive monetary easing to beat decades of deflation in Japan, the yen will stay pressured. Any correction to the dollar's rise against the yen was also be seen as shallow, with many traders and analysts seeing a firm floor around 87-88 yen.

Relatively positive data from China on Tuesday failed to change the bearish mood, weighed down by a fall in overnight U.S. equities, which have rallied 6 percent so far this year, on discouraging U.S. factory orders and euro zone jitters.

The HSBC services purchasing managers' index rose to a four-month high of 54 in January from December's 51.7, underlining confidence in the world's second-biggest economy, which is expected to grow 8.1 percent this year, off a 13-year low of 7.8 percent hit in 2012.

"The data globally is unquestionably better but the recovery still seems gradual. (China) hit the bottom and they had a bit of a bounce but nothing much else happened. We don't really seem to have preconditions for a much stronger bounce than that (8 percent growth)," said Richard Yetsenga, Head of Global Markets at ANZ Research.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> fell 1.3 percent, after scaling a 33-month high on Monday. <.t/>

U.S. stocks slid on Monday, leaving the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> at its worst day since November after the index rose just 60-odd points away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 on Friday.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

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Kerry Pledges to Protect Diplomats on 1st Day at State Dept.

Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency

Secretary of State John Kerry, center, greeted hundreds of State Department employees in Washington on Monday.

WASHINGTON — In his first day at the office as secretary of state on Monday, John Kerry sought to send the message that he had an affinity for the nation’s diplomats and would look after their security.

“Exhilarating to walk into @StateDept today,” Mr. Kerry, who is the son of a diplomat, posted on Twitter. “Dad on mind! JK.”

Speaking to the hundreds of staff members who greeted him in the State Department lobby, Mr. Kerry recalled Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and the three other Americans who died in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

“Everything I do will be focused on the security and safety of our people,” said Mr. Kerry.

To underscore that point, Mr. Kerry later in the day took a short drive across the Potomac River to visit the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security in Rosslyn, Va.

In his confirmation hearing on Jan. 24, Mr. Kerry suggested that he planned to make a diplomatic push on Israeli-Palestinian issues, an area that has not received sustained high-level attention by the Obama administration since a failed effort to broker talks between the two sides in 2010.

That has led to speculation that Mr. Kerry’s first overseas trip may be to the Middle East. Even before arriving for work on Monday, he made a round of calls to Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

On Sunday, Mr. Kerry spoke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he praised for releasing frozen tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, and on Saturday with Israel’s president, Shimon Peres.

He also spoke with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and indicated that he would press Congress to provide almost $500 million in assistance to the authority.

A spokesman for Mr. Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told reporters that Mr. Kerry had promised to visit the Middle East “to preserve the political path,” though no date for the trip was announced.

In other Sunday calls, Mr. Kerry spoke to the foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea. On Monday, he continued the calls, which have included the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, Mexico and Canada. Mr. Kerry, who is an avid user of Twitter, posted a photo of himself on the phone with William Hague, the British foreign secretary.

Much of Mr. Kerry’s day, however, was spent reaching out to the American diplomats he has been eager to lead.

Mr. Kerry has brought his own press adviser to the State Department, Glen Johnson, a former reporter for the Boston Globe who has covered Mr. Kerry and Massachusetts politics for years. But there were also indications that some top-level senior State Department officials who had worked with Hillary Rodham Clinton would stay on.

Mr. Kerry’s effort at outreach extended to members of a youth orchestra from Afghanistan as well. After hearing the orchestra was playing in a State Department auditorium, Mr. Kerry showed up at the event and volunteered that he had played guitar as a teenager in a rock band called the Electras.

During his morning in the State Department lobby, Mr. Kerry reached even further back in his past, brandishing the diplomatic passport that he had been given when he was 11 years old and that he used when his father was assigned to post-World War II Germany. The young Mr. Kerry used to bicycle around Berlin and once used his passport to cross into the Russian sector.

“When my dad learned what I had done he was not enthralled,” Mr. Kerry recalled, prompting a wave of laughter in the audience. “I was told I could’ve been an international incident. He could’ve lost his job. And my passport, this very passport, was promptly yanked, and I was summarily grounded. Anyway, lessons learned.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 4, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the day on which John Kerry called Shimon Peres, Israel’s president. It was on Saturday, not on Sunday.

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Jillian Michaels: My Son Phoenix Is 'Fiery' Like Me

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/04/2013 at 03:00 PM ET

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Jillian Michaels‘ son Phoenix is already taking after his mama — just not the right one!

Although The Biggest Loser trainer expected her baby boy to inherit her partner’s laidback approach to life — Heidi Rhoades delivered their son in May — the 8-month-old’s budding personality is the polar opposite.

“He wants to walk and he gets really pissed about it when he can’t. He gets frustrated,” Michaels, 38, told PEOPLE at the recent TCAs.

“He’s a fiery little sucker, he’s just like me. I’m like, ‘You were supposed to be like Heidi!’ But he’s not. It’s not good, not good.”

Admitting she is “terrified for when he’s a teenager,” Michaels has good reason to be: Recently she spotted her son — who is “crawling aggressively” — putting his electrician skills to the test in the family room.

“He’s into everything, which is kind of a nightmare to be totally honest,” she says. “We have an outlet in the floor in the living room and I caught him eating the outlet on the floor … I was like, ‘Mother of God!’”

Phoenix’s big sister Lukensia, 3, has also been busy keeping her mamas on their toes. “Lu just had her first ski trip and she had a little crush on her teacher, Ollie,” Michaels shares.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re letting our baby go!’ The second day we took her she ran right to him — loves Ollie.”

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

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

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Asian shares advance after U.S. jobs, ISM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares advanced on Monday, drawing momentum from U.S. data showing some promise of a credible recovery, supported by Federal Reserve's easing plans and solid manufacturing data from Europe and China.

The yen took a break from heavy selling against the U.S. dollar and the euro, but fell to its lowest since August 2008 against the Australian and New Zealand dollars early on Monday on confidence of bold monetary support from the Bank of Japan to overcome the country's stubborn deflation.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.6 percent after posting a weekly gain of 0.7 percent.

"Asian shares are likely to take the cues from the rise in U.S. equities and prices of risk assets are generally expected to face upward pressures," said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose to 14,000 for the first time since October 2007 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> hit its highest point since December of that year.

U.S. data showed on Friday payrolls rose by 157,000 last month, with upward revisions for November and December, while the Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity rose to its highest since April.

China followed with positive news over the weekend, saying growth in its official purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector ticked up in January for the fourth straight monthly rise, confirming the world's second-largest economy was showing a modest recovery.

Resources-reliant Australian shares <.axjo> steadied after jumping 0.9 percent to a 21-month high on Friday. Positive economic news from China, Australia's largest export destination, usually boosts Australian investor sentiment.

South Korean shares <.ks11> were up 0.3 percent while Hong Kong shares <.hsi> added 0.7 percent.

NIKKEI MAY BE PEAKING

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> rose 0.5 percent after climbing to a fresh 33-month high earlier as the yen declined. The index logged its 12th straight week of increases last week, the longest run of weekly gains since 1959. <.t/>

Nikkei has been moving in tandem with the yen's two-month-long losing streak with investors eyeing the change in the BOJ's top personnel in April for clues on the degree of the bank's reflationary policy.

"The Nikkei may be nearing its peak for now as we may get a specific name of the most likely candidate for the next BOJ governor soon. That may provide an opportunity to close long dollar/yen positions, while a firming yen will then likely spur investors to book profits on Japanese stocks," said Tetsuro Ii, the chief executive of Commons Asset Management.

The dollar eased 0.1 percent to 92.72 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 92.97 on Friday, while the euro fell 0.3 percent to 126.32 yen, still near its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 touched on Friday.

In early Monday trade, the yen plunged to its lowest since August 2008 against both the Australian dollar, at 96.78 yen, and against the New Zealand dollar at 78.74 yen.

The euro inched down 0.1 percent to $1.3624, off Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711 hit after data showed euro zone factories had their best month in January in nearly a year.

On Friday, the dollar index measured against a basket of key currencies fell to a 4-1/2-month low of 78.918 <.dxy>. The index was up 0.2 percent on Monday.

As economic optimism rose and concerns about the euro zone's debt difficulties eased, investors took on more risk.

Research provider TrimTabs Investment Research said on Saturday investors poured a record $77.4 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, surpassing the previous monthly record of $53.7 billion in February 2000.

In the oil market, tension across the Middle East put Brent crude on track to its biggest weekly gain since mid-November, and U.S. crude rose for an eighth straight week, although it eased 0.2 percent to $97.56 a barrel on Monday.

With the rise in equities on recovering appetite for riskier assets, safe-haven appeal waned, pushing up yields of U.S. Treasury bonds. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield hit a nine-month high of 2.052 percent in Asia on Monday.

A weekly gauge of sentiment in the Japanese government bond market deteriorated sharply, remaining in negative territory for a fifth straight week as rising global appetite for risk sapped demand for bonds, the latest Reuters poll showed on Monday.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

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India Approves Tougher Rape Laws

NEW DELHI — India’s government on Sunday approved tough new laws to deter sexual violence against women, including the death penalty in certain rape cases, as leaders moved to respond to public outrage over a recent gang rape case in the national capital.

The new package of laws, signed on Sunday by President Pranab Mukherjee after earlier approval by the cabinet, amends India’s penal code and, for the first time, will apply the death penalty to rape cases in which the victim dies. The new measures also made crimes such as voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women as punishable under criminal law.

India’s coalition national government has been criticized for its clumsy handling of the protests that erupted after the brutal Dec. 16 gang rape of a young woman, who later died. The new ordinance takes effect immediately, though it must be approved by India’s Parliament within six months.

Reaction has been mixed. Even as some legal advocates praised the changes as overdue, leaders of different women’s groups on Saturday held a news conference appealing to the president not to sign the measure, which they considered incomplete.

“This is a piecemeal and fragmented ordinance, which seems to be more of an exercise to make an impact,” said Kirti Singh, a lawyer who specializes in women’s issues. “After 20 years of not doing anything, they seem to be in a tremendous hurry to do something or the other to appease public sentiment.”

Last month, a special three-member committee led by a former Supreme Court chief justice, J. S. Verma, completed a far-reaching report that urged the government to act on a broad range of measures, including changes to criminal penalties, but also placing an emphasis on education and a holistic solution.

While the new measures followed some of the recommendations by the Verma committee, others were ignored, including the panel’s call for criminal penalties in cases of marital rape, as well as the prosecution of military personnel who commit sexual assaults. In addition, the Verma committee pointedly rejected the death penalty in cases of rape.

India’s cabinet approved the new measures on Friday, as leaders spoke about their desire to send a signal to the public after the New Delhi rape case. Included in the changes were provisions to improve police investigations of sex crimes, such as requiring the presence of female officers to help interview rape victims.

The new provisions include varying degrees of punishment, ranging from a minimum of seven years in prison to the death penalty, in those cases where the victim dies or is left in a vegetative state. Many advocates, while welcoming some of the changes, objected to the introduction of the death penalty.

“Every country is moving toward the elimination of death penalty, and India is strengthening the legislation for the death penalty,” said Kavita Srivastava, the national secretary for the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. “Here we are still looking for an eye for an eye framework.”

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Xbox Hoax Leads Armed Cops to Family

Members of a Florida family were shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night to find their house surrounded by police with guns drawn shouting at them to put their hands up.

Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was “very rare” for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of it happening in our little town,” Beavers told ABCNews.com.

The frightened family did not want to be identified but recounted the ordeal to ABC News’ Orlando affiliate WFTV.

“I heard the doorbell ring,” the father of two told WFTV. “We couldn’t see anybody at the front of the door. All we saw was the rifle barrel.”

The man said he and his wife originally believed they were being robbed.

“They have rifles, they have guns, and I said, ‘Let’s get out of the house,’ so we ran down the hallway and got our two boys up,” the father said.

“We were told to freeze and put our hands over our heads,” he recalled. “They said, ‘We’re the police,’ so that was a big relief.”

What the family didn’t realize was that an Xbox hoax had led the Oviedo police to its house. The police said they were responding to a call from AT&T saying it had received online messages from a person who said he was hiding inside the house, claiming that someone had been killed there and that others were being held hostage.

But when police arrived, all they found was a very surprised and confused family.

Upon investigation, police learned that the confusion all started when an Oviedo teenager living in another house called police saying his Xbox had been hacked.

The teenager said the hackers had threatened to call in bomb threats to his home if he did not meet their demands for gaming information.

When the teenager refused, the hackers sent fake messages reporting the killing and hostage taking at the teenager’s former home. His previous address, where police showed up, was still connected to his Xbox.

The teenager did some of his own investigating, police said, and provided authorities with some possible identifying information on the hackers.

“The caller gave information to officers regarding two possible suspects, including IP addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and a possible name of one of the suspects,” according to the police report. “The information provided to the officers revealed that both suspects were located in different states.”

The information has been turned over to Oviedo detectives for further investigation.

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What Football Game? Beyoncé Rocks the Superdome in Leather & Lace

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/03/2013 at 09:06 PM ET

One thing was certain going into Super Bowl XLVII: Beyoncé was going to put on a killer halftime show, and she was going to look amazing doing it. And if she practiced until her feet bled, there was no sign of it as she danced in her towering heels.

To strut out onstage during ‘Crazy In Love,’ the star wore an uncharacteristically demure belted lamé mini with wide lapels, but she quickly tore it away to reveal a leather bodysuit with a black lace skirt worn over her signature fishnets. She completed the look with thigh-highs and sexy black booties.

Destiny’s Child fans missing the trio’s epic matching outfits were given a treat when Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams proved the rumors true, joining Beyoncé onstage for a medley that included ‘Bootylicious’ and ‘Single Ladies.’ Their costumes echoed Bey’s: Rowland wore a revealing V-neck Emilio Pucci bodysuit, while Williams was glam in a tough-girl ribbed leather mini.

And to ensure that Beyoncé’s hair was supremely whip-able (as demonstrated during ‘Baby Boy’ and ‘Halo’), stylist Kim Kimble gave her a “soft glam” look by curling it, then brushing out the curls and smoothing them with Kimble Hair Care Brazilian Nut and Acai serum. She sprayed it with L’Oréal’s classic Elnett hairspray to ensure it wouldn’t budge no matter what the superstar put it through.

Tell us: What did you think of Beyoncé’s Super Bowl outfit — and the Destiny’s Child reunion looks?

–Alex Apatoff

PHOTOS: VOTE ON MORE STAR STYLE HERE!

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

___

Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.

That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.

Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.

Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.

Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.

"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."

The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.

Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.

Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .

But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.

Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.

During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.

MOM AND POP STILL WARY

Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.

This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.

"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.

Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.

He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.

Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.

On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.

Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.

Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.

Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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