NEW YORK (AP) -- Super Cold?

NFL officials aren't just bracing for potential wintry weather at next year's Northeastern Super Bowl they're embracing it, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Thursday.

The first Super Bowl ever in the New York metropolitan area is almost exactly a year away in a region currently clenched by bitter cold, reviving chatter about whether the weather will chill fans' enthusiasm. But Goodell said the league would be prepared if there's snow, ice or low temperatures for the game on Feb. 2, 2014.

"Football is made to be played in the elements," he said as he and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg previewed a week of city events leading up to the championship at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., home of the Giants and Jets. Pre-game parties and other activities also are set in New Jersey.

"We're going to celebrate the game here, we're going to celebrate the weather and we're going to make it a great experience," Goodell said.

Jets owner Woody Johnson acknowledged that "this is going to be challenging." But, he added, "it's going to be a lot of fun. ... We have to welcome this weather, and we will."

The Super Bowl has never been played outdoors in a cold-weather setting before. Organizers are positioning it as a cool perhaps literally new experience for fans and a lucrative showcase for both New Jersey and New York City, which are sometimes grudging neighbors. Events will range from a pre-game tailgate party at the Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey to a four-day festival that will shut down 10 blocks of Broadway.

An early estimate suggested the 2014 Super Bowl could generate $550 million to $600 million in economic activity on both sides of the Hudson River, host committee president Al Kelly said.

For New York, the event also evokes the sports-centered spectacle Bloomberg aimed to stage when the city proposed to host the 2012 Olympics, a plan that centered on building a stadium for the Jets on Manhattan's far West Side. A state board ultimately nixed the stadium proposal amid traffic and other concerns.

The stadium could have brought the Super Bowl itself to the city, as the NFL at one point agreed the Jets could host the 2010 game if they had the new Manhattan facility. Instead, they and the Giants got a new home in MetLife Stadium, which opened in 2010.

Much of the activity surrounding the 2014 Super Bowl will be in New Jersey. Players will stay and train there, and a media day, tailgate party and some other events will be at various New Jersey venues.

"We're getting a good share of the economic activity," Gov. Chris Christie said, noting "the number and quality of events" planned in his state.

New Jersey also hopes to have legal gambling on the game, at the race track. Christie signed a sports betting bill into law last year, but the NFL and other sports leagues have sued to try to stop it.

New York City, meanwhile, will close Broadway between West 34th and West 44th streets, from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1 of 2014, for a free "Super Bowl Boulevard" celebration featuring player appearances, football clinics and a 36-foot-tall "XLVIII" in Times Square.

The game's media center, expected to host about 5,000 journalists, and the televised NFL Honors awards show also will be in the city, where NFL headquarters are located.

"I think New York City is already the nation's Super Bowl champion of tourism," Bloomberg said.

The city estimates it drew some 52 million visitors last year.

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Associated Press writer David Porter in Newark, N.J., contributed to this report.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Both events created a flurry of viral Internet videos, fueling concerns about a repeat performance by copycats.

On Interstate 10 east of Los Angeles on Sunday, up to 300 bikers stopped traffic so that one of them could propose to his girlfriend, said Officer Vince Ramirez, a Los Angeles-area spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

Video that surfaced online of the stunt showed some bikers creating a wall of smoke by spinning their tires against the concrete. In the middle of the gathering, pink smoke could be seen wafting into the air.

As they exited the freeway, several bikers were later ticketed for reckless riding unrelated to their possible role in the freeway shutdown, Ramirez said.

He said officers were working with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office to prepare additional charges against some of the bikers.

The stunt did not cause any injuries or collisions, he said.

In Oakland on Saturday, traffic ground to a halt on Interstate 880 near the city's sports coliseum, as several sports cars did doughnuts, spinning around and filling the air with tire smoke, officials said. Stunned motorists exited their cars and watched.

Several motorists caught in the sudden traffic jam were frightened or angry, according to recordings of calls to authorities released on Tuesday.

"I can't believe this - I have three kids in the car," one caller told an Oakland-area dispatcher. "It scares the hell out of me."

Authorities have not found or identified any of the drivers, said California Highway Patrol Sergeant Diana McDermott.

California Highway Patrol officers said they feared the weekend events' popularity on social media websites could start a dangerous trend. So far, such stunts have been rare, they said.

"That's why the investigation is expanding," Ramirez said.

"If there are any criminal charges that can be filed as a result of this incident, they will be filed," he said.

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis, Tom Brown and Eric Walsh)

The decision brings an end to a lawsuit that had threatened to hamper stem cell research after a district court judge blocked the taxpayer funding in 2010. But some observers expected the Supreme Court would decline the take the case after an appeals court ruled that the funding could continue.

U.S. law prohibits the NIH from funding the creation of human embryos for research or research in which human embryos are destroyed, but leaves room for debate over whether that includes work with human embryonic stem cells.

Opponents of such research, including many religious conservatives, have argued that it is unacceptable because it destroys human embryos.

Scientists hope to be able to use stem cells to find treatments for spinal cord injuries, cancer, diabetes and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that expanded federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells in hopes it would lead to cures for diseases. The administration limited the funding to research on stem-cell lines derived from embryos that come from fertility clinics and were going to be thrown away otherwise.

Two researchers who work with adult stem cells, James Sherley, a biological engineer at Boston Biomedical Research Institute, and Theresa Deisher, of Washington-based AVM Biotechnology, sued in 2009 to block such research. They argued that they were at risk of being squeezed out of federal grants for their own work with adult stem cells, which does not involve the destruction of embryos.

A federal judge in 2010 blocked the NIH from funding embryonic stem cell research, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned that decision last year.

The appeals court recognized that the law was ambiguous but deferred to NIH's interpretation that it could fund research using stem cells from embryos that were not actually destroyed in the course of that research.

Asking the Supreme Court to review the case, the researchers said that the NIH had a duty to respond to over 30,000 public comments on the proposed guidelines before adopting them.

A lawyer for the researchers, Samuel Casey of the Jubilee Campaign Law of Life Project, expressed disappointment with the court's refusal to take the case. He also called on Congress to clarify the law to ban the spending of taxpayer funds on embryonic stem cell research.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Tony Mazzaschi, a director at the Association of American Medical Colleges, said he was gratified but not surprised that the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. He said the researchers' petition raised narrow, procedural questions rather than the fundamental issue of whether the law allows NIH to fund such research.

"It's great news for the medical schools that really want to invest in this area of research," Mazzaschi said.

The case is Sherley v. Sebelius, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-454.

(Reporting by Terry Baynes in New York; Editing by Jackie Frank and Cynthia Osterman)

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad the Tuareg group's name for northern Mali appears to have taken advantage of a French-led bombing and ground campaign to dislodge al- Qaida-linked Islamist fighters from the towns in northern Mali.

Phone lines were down in Kidal, making it difficult to independently confirm the group's claim.

The Tuareg movement said on its website that it was ready to work with French troops and fight terror organizations.

However, it said it would refuse to allow Malian soldiers in Kidal, and the other towns under its control in northeastern Mali, following allegations that the troops killed civilians suspected of having links to the Islamists.

It said it "decided to retake these localities with all urgency to assure the security of the belongings, and more particularly of people, because of the grave danger their lives faced with the return of the Malian army, marching in the footsteps of the French army."

While the group known as NMLA was an important player in the early days of the Malian conflict last April, it had been ousted from power in northern Mali by the al-Qaida-linked extremists known as Ansar Dine.

Kidal is the last of the three provincial capitals across the north that had been under the grip of the Islamists since last April. French and Malian forces retook Gao over the weekend, and announced Monday that the Malians had entered the fabled city of Timbuktu.

"The Malian military is in control of Timbuktu," Modibo Traore told The Associated Press on Tuesday morning.

The French military operation began more than two weeks ago and has so far met little resistance thoughexperts warn it will be harder to hold on to the towns than it was to recapture them from the Islamists.

Photos released by the French military showed throngs of jubilant residents greeting the arrival of troops in the town, where Islamists whipped women for going outside without veils and amputated the hand of a suspected thief.

There also was celebration among the thousands of Timbuktu residents who fled the city rather than live under strict and pitiless Islamic rule and the dire poverty that worsened after the tourist industry was destroyed.

"In the heart of people from northern Mali, it's a relief freedom finally," said Cheick Sormoye, a Timbuktu resident who fled to Bamako, the capital.

However, the mayor of Timbuktu said Islamists set fire to an institute housing irreplaceable manuscripts before they fled the town.

Timbuktu has been home to some 20,000 irreplaceable manuscripts, some dating to the 12th century. It was not immediately known how many were destroyed in the blaze that was set in recent days in an act of vengeance by the Islamists before they withdrew.

Michael Covitt, chairman of the Malian Manuscript Foundation, called the arson a "desecration to humanity."

"These manuscripts are irreplaceable. They have the wisdom of the ages and it's the most important find since the Dead Sea Scrolls," he said.

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Associated Press writer Michelle Faul in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

[More from BGR: ]

On January 13, The Wall Street Journal publishednoting that orders for certaincomponents have been cut in half. A few days later TrendForce, a Chinese market research firm, published a note commenting on thesales of Apples 9.7-inch tablets.

[More from BGR: ]

Its unusual to get a cluster of news this negative roughly a week prior to a major handset vendors earnings report. The backdrop forearnings was already bleak, thanks to an earlier rash of reports pegging the iPhone 5 portion of the overall iPhone sales at under 70% or even close to 50%. This would be down considerably from the 90% share of total mix the iPhone 4S achieved at the end of 2011.

Possibly as a reaction to some ink black media reports on Apples Christmas quarter, or possibly due to their own proprietary research, many brokerages have reduced their volume estimates for iPhones and iPads. Macquarie Research now anticipates full-sized iPad volume will. Matt Hoffman from Cowen expects total iPad volume to come in at just 18 million units, while Barclays and Nomura estimates have dropped to 21 million. A few months ago, the Christmas quarter iPad debate focused mostly on how far above 25 million units Apple might reach.

Two weeks ago, the sell-side iPhone volume consensus was 52 million units, already millions of units below an earlier consensus level. Several notable housesnow have their Christmas quarter volume estimate at 45 million units. After last weeks cluster of negative news items from respected sources, it is quite possible that market expectations for iPhone volume have now drifted to 49 million or below.

Even the stalwart Apple bull Gene Munster has movedto a notably soft 38 million units. Expectations for both Apples Christmas quarter and March guidance are now far below where they were in November.

Just how weak would Apple have to be with the current sentiment of dread and foreboding to disappoint? iPad shipments below 21 million units and iPhones below 49 million units would probably do the trick. These should be low bars indeed to clear.

Apple will report sometime around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 23rd, and we should expect the after-market trading to be quite the spectacle.

This article was

WEATHERFORD, Texas (AP) -- When a man in a Fort Worth suburb reported his family's drinking water had begun bubbling like champagne, the federal government sounded an alarm: An oil company may have tainted their wells while drilling for natural gas.

At first, the Environmental Protection Agency believed the situation was so serious that it issued a rare emergency order in late 2010 that said at least two homeowners were in immediate danger from a well saturated with flammable methane. More than a year later, the agency rescinded its mandate and refused to explain why.

Now a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press and interviews with company representatives show that the EPA had scientific evidence against the driller, Range Resources, but changed course after the company threatened not to cooperate with a national study into a common form of drilling called hydraulic fracturing. Regulators set aside an analysis that concluded the drilling could have been to blame for the contamination.

For Steve Lipsky, the EPA decision seemed to ignore the dangers to his family. His water supply contains so much methane that the gas in water flowing from a pipe connected to the well can be ignited.

"I just can't believe that an agency that knows the truth about something like that, or has evidence like this, wouldn't use it," said Lipsky, who fears he will have to abandon his dream home in an upscale neighborhood of Weatherford.

The case isn't the first in which the EPA initially linked a hydraulic fracturing operation to water contamination and then softened its position after the industry protested.

A similar dispute unfolded in west-central Wyoming in late 2011, when the EPA released an initial report that showed hydraulic fracturing could have contaminated groundwater. After industry and GOP leaders went on the attack, the agency said it had decided to do more testing. It has yet to announce a final conclusion.

Hydraulic fracturing often called "fracking" allows drillers to tap into oil and gas reserves that were once considered out of reach because they were locked in deep layers of rock.

The method has contributed to a surge in natural gas drilling nationwide, but environmental activists and some scientists believe it can contaminate groundwater. The industry insists the practice is safe.

Range Resources, a leading independent player in the natural gas boom, has hundreds of gas wells throughout Texas, Pennsylvania and other mineral-rich areas of the United States. Among them is a production site now owned by Legend Natural Gas in a wooded area about a mile from Lipsky's home in Weatherford, about a half-hour drive west of Fort Worth.

State agencies usually regulate water and air pollution, so the EPA's involvement in the Texas matter was unusual from the start. The EPA began investigating complaints about the methane in December 2010, because it said the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees oil and gas drilling, had not responded quickly enough to the reports of bubbling water.

Government scientists believed two families, including the Lipskys, were in danger from methane and cancer-causing benzene and ordered Range Resources to take steps to clean their water wells and provide affected homeowners with safe water. The company stopped doing that after state regulators declared in March 2011 that Range Resources was not responsible. The dispute between the EPA and the company then moved into federal court.

Believing the case was headed for a lengthy legal battle, the EPA asked an independent scientist named Geoffrey Thyne to analyze water samples taken from 32 water wells. In the report obtained by the AP, Thyne concluded from chemical testing that the gas in the drinking water could have originated from Range Resources' nearby drilling operation.

Meanwhile, the EPA was seeking industry leaders to participate in a national study into hydraulic fracturing. Range Resources told EPA officials in Washington that so long as the agency continued to pursue a "scientifically baseless" action against the company in Weatherford, it would not take part in the study and would not allow government scientists onto its drilling sites, said company attorney David Poole.

In March 2012, the EPA retracted its emergency order, halted the court battle and set aside Thyne's report showing that the gas in Lipsky's water was nearly identical to the gases the Plano, Texas-based company was producing.

"They said that they would look into it, which I believe is exactly what they did," Poole said. "I'm proud of them. As an American, I think that's exactly what they should have done."

The EPA offered no public explanation for its change in thinking, and Lipsky said he and his family learned about it from a reporter. The agency refused to answer questions about the decision, instead issuing a statement by email that said resolving the Range Resources matter allowed the EPA to shift its "focus in this case away from litigation and toward a joint effort on the science and safety of energy extraction."

Rob Jackson, chairman of global environmental change at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, reviewed Thyne's report and the raw data upon which it was based. He agreed the gas in Lipsky's well could have originated in a rock formation known as the Barnett shale, the same area where Range Resources was extracting gas.

Jackson said it was "premature" to withdraw the order and said the EPA "dropped the ball in dropping their investigation."

Lipsky, who is still tied up in a legal battle with Range Resources, now pays about $1,000 a month to haul water to his home. He, his wife and three children become unnerved when their methane detectors go off. Sometime soon, he said, the family will have to decide whether to stay in the large stone house or move.

"This has been total hell," Lipsky said. "It's been taking a huge toll on my family and on our life."

The confidential report relied on a type of testing known as isotopic analysis, which produces a unique chemical fingerprint that sometimes allows researchers to trace the origin of gas or oil.

Jackson, who studies hydraulic fracturing and specializes in isotopic analysis, acknowledged that more data is needed to determine for certain where the gas came from. But even if the gas came from elsewhere, Range Resources' drilling could have contributed to the problem in Lipsky's water because gas migrates, he added.

The company insists the gas in Lipsky's water is from natural migration and not drilling. Range Resources' testing indicates the gas came from a different rock formation called Strawn shale and not the deeper Barnett shale, Poole said.

In addition, he said, isotopic analysis cannot be used in this case because the chemical makeup of the gases in the two formations is indistinguishable. A Range Resources spokesman also dismissed Thyne and Jackson as anti-industry.

Range Resources has not shared its data with the EPA or the Railroad Commission. Poole said the data is proprietary and could only be seen by Houston-based Weatherford Laboratories, where it originated. It was analyzed for Range Resources by a Weatherford scientist, Mark McCaffrey, who did not respond to requests for an interview.

Gas has always been in the water in that area, Poole said. And years before Range Resources began drilling, at least one water well in the neighborhood contained so much methane, it went up in flames.

At another home with dangerously high methane levels in the water, the company insisted the gas had been there since the well was first dug many years ago. The homeowner was not aware of anything wrong until Range Resources began drilling in 2009.

Jackson said it was "unrealistic" to suggest that people could have tainted water and not notice.

"It bubbles like champagne or mineral waters," he said. "The notion that people would have wells and have this in their water and not see this is wrong."

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Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant in Dallas, Allen Breed in Raleigh, N.C., and Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pa., contributed to this report.

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Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP

The Pentagon's F-35 program office said the grounding affected all 25 F-35B model jets, while flights of the Air Force's A-model and the Navy's C-model were unaffected. Ground operations of the B-model planes continued, it said.

The program office it ordered the temporary suspension of flight operations after a propulsion line associated with the B-model's exhaust system failed prior to takeoff. The pilot aborted the takeoff without incident and cleared the runway, the program office said in a statement. There were no injuries to the pilot or ground crew.

The incident came just days after the Pentagon's director of testing and evaluation released an 18-page report detailing an array of problems which he said underscored the "lack of maturity" of the $396 billion fighter program.

The report and Friday's grounding of the B-model highlighted the continued growing pains of the ambitious Lockheed fighter program, which began in 2001 and has been restructured three times in recent years.

The grounding affected F-35B models, which can take off from short runways and land vertically like a helicopter, at a Maryland naval air station, the Florida air base, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona, and Lockheed's F-35 production facility in Fort Worth, Texas.

"Implementing a precautionary suspension of flight operations is a prudent response until F-35B engineering, technical and system safety teams fully understand the cause of the failure," said Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon's F-35 program office. "Safety of pilots and ground crew is the top priority of the program."

The fuel line in question enables actuator movement for the exhaust system associated with the B-model's engine. Instead of traditional hydraulic fluid, it instead uses fuel as the operating fluid to reduce weight.

Matthew Bates, spokesman for Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp, which builds the engines for the singe-engine, single-seat fighter jet, said an initial inspection discovered a detached propulsion line in the rear part of the engine compartment.

The affected fuel line is not used in the A- or C-models, which are still permitted to fly.

"A team of Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce engineers is investigating the cause of the incident and working closely with Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office to resolve the matter," Bates said in a statement provided to Reuters.

He said there had been no previous issues with the component that triggered the grounding. Rolls-Royce Holdings builds the lift fan used in the B-model engines.

DellaVedova said teams of government and contractor experts were reviewing data from the incident to determine what caused the line to fail and decide on any potential mitigating actions.

Once the issue was understood, the program would determine when to resume flights, he said, adding that the impact on the developmental flight tests and training was being assessed.

The Pentagon report sent to Congress last week said F-35 flight tests were ahead of schedule in 2012, but lagged in some areas due to unresolved problems and newly discovered issues. About 34 percent of the test program has been completed.

The Marine Corps version of the plane flew more than planned but lagged its target for test points by 49 percent. Durability testing of the B-model had to be halted in December after multiple cracks were found on the underside of the plane's fuselage, the report said.

Lockheed is building three different models of the F-35 fighter jet for the U.S. military and eight countries that helped pay for its development: Britain, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia and Norway.

The Pentagon plans to buy 2,443 of the warplanes in coming decades, although many analysts believe U.S. budget constraints and deficits will eventually reduce that overall number.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Researchers, who published their findings in JAMA Surgery on Wednesday, found blacks patients living in segregated counties had a lung cancer mortality rate about 10 percentage points higher than those living in diverse neighborhoods during the mid-2000s.

That compared to white lung cancer patients whose lung cancer mortality rate did not seem to change between segregated and diverse areas.

"We first thought it was a mistake. We ran it five times through the program," said the study's lead author Dr. Awori Hayanga, a lung transplant fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

"If you are one color living in one type of neighborhood versus another, 10 percent is huge," he said.

According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths for both men and women. It kills more people than colon, breast and prostate cancer combined.

In 2013, the Society projects over 228,000 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer, and about 159,500 will die from it.

For the new study, Hayanga and his colleagues used national databases to collect information on lung cancer deaths in U.S. counties between 2003 and 2007. They also classified those counties as low, moderate and high segregated areas based on their concentration of one race versus another.

Nationally, black lung cancer patients had about a 59 percent mortality rate when the researchers accounted for smoking and income, compared to about a 52 percent mortality rate in white patients.

When looking at specific counties, the researchers found white lung cancer patients' mortality rate remained steady between diverse and predominantly white counties - between about 50 percent and 53 percent.

For black lung cancer patients, however, there were larger differences.

Black patients living in diverse counties had a mortality rate of about 52 percent, which was comparable to white patients.

But black patients living in highly segregated counties had a mortality rate of about 63 percent. Black patients living in moderately segregated areas had a mortality rate of 57 percent.

While the study cannot prove living in a segregated community caused the worse mortality rates in black patients, Hayanga said there is probably something different in predominantly black communities.

ENVIRONMENTAL VS. PATIENT FACTORS

"The point I'm trying to make is that neighborhood segregation is not just a proxy for socioeconomic status. We accounted for that," said Hayanga. "That's where we ask ourselves, do we know about the different fabric of different neighborhoods?"

He told Reuters Health that by comparing different counties, a person would find one has resources the other does not, such as hospitals and doctors.

The new study shows there are some health problems that can't be explained by genetics and treated with drugs, said David Chang, who wrote a commentary accompanying the work.

Disparities are "probably one of the issues that it's not the patients that matter but the systems," Chang, from the University of California, San Diego, told Reuters Health.

"Location matters, and one has to be critical about where they live and where they pay taxes," said Hayanga, who worked with Chang on previous research.

Dr. Karen Reckamp, a lung cancer specialist at City of Hope in Duarte, California, said there should be a focus on getting cancer care where it's needed.

"There is more technology in our healthcare and it's becoming more complex. People living in more remote areas wouldn't have the knowledge or access to seek out that care," said Reckamp, who was not involved with the new study.

She added that the new research doesn't answer what needs to change in those communities, but may shine a light on where the disparities are coming from.

"What we're seeing is that we can't uproot half of the American population and move them to other counties. What we have to do is take responsibility for those neighborhoods," said Hayanga.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/YbHRkk JAMA Surgery, online January 16, 2013.

After years of struggling as its business of selling CDs and DVDs was hammered by competition from supermarkets like Tesco, online retailers like Amazon and download sites like Apple's iTunes, Deloitte was appointed administrator on Tuesday to try to salvage some of its 223 British stores.

Hilco, the restructuring specialist that purchased HMV Canada in 2011, was watching the situation closely, given possible synergies, a source close to the matter said.

Media reports also named private equity firms Endless and Better Capital as possible suitors. Both firms could not be immediately reached for comment.

HMV's administration, which puts 4,123 jobs at risk, is the latest blow to an industry which has seen a string of household names like Woolworths, MFI, JJB Sports and Comet fall by the wayside in a prolonged consumer downturn.

Craig Amer, analyst at market researcher Kantar Worldpanel, said if HMV were to close completely Britain's entertainment market would lose 300 million pounds ($483 million).

"Some shoppers will simply move to other retailers but the value generated from browsing and buying on impulse will be lost," he said.

HMV, known for its Nipper the Dog trademark, will continue to trade while a purchaser is sought. Underlying sales had plunged about 10 percent year-on-year at Christmas.

Chief Executive Trevor Moore, who only joined the firm in September, said on Tuesday he was confident it would emerge from the administration process in some form.

"We know that HMV is a well loved brand which has a high level of support amongst the public and we want to ensure that it remains on the high street," he told reporters.

He had "a plan in mind" that would see the firm surviving with a stores presence along with a new digital and online offer, though he would not elaborate or say what the optimum size of the store estate should be.

SHAME

"It's a shame, it's been around so long. It's like a bookstore - it's nice to go and browse and feel them (CDs and DVDs), I'd miss it," said Paul Wood, shopping at an HMV store in Canary Wharf, London.

However other shoppers, typifying HMV's problems, said they were just looking before buying from cheaper outlets online.

Neil Saunders, managing director at retail consultancy Conlumino, said potential buyers could be interested in running the brand online or through some of its larger stores.

"I think it's a good brand with a good emotional connection and I think someone will want it. And someone will be interested in acquiring a rump of stores because there are some that trade profitably within the group," he told Reuters.

"A lot of the grocers have their own download services or mail order services so there could be interest from an existing player who just wants to use that name. Private equity may also see it as an opportunity."

One that will not is U.S. private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC. It holds some of HMV's debt but ruled itself out of a takeover move on Monday.

The backing of suppliers - like music labels which look to HMV as one of the last major outposts for sales on shopping streets - has been crucial to the firm, and support remains.

"We are very supportive of them because they have been great trading partners," said Universal Music, the world's biggest music company.

But lenders and stakeholders were not prepared to strike another refinancing deal with HMV - whose 176 million pounds of debt as of October 27 dwarfs its market value of about 5 million.

"SEVERELY REDUCED"

"I think there is probably still some traction in having a presence on the high street but it would have to be severely reduced to be much more cost effective," said Maureen Hilton at retail researchers Verdict. "There might be some attraction from investors if they can just pick which stores they have. Otherwise I think it will just become an online offer."

Any residual presence online would see HMV following variety stores group Woolworths and rival entertainment group Zavvi.

Other collapsed retailers have managed to sell some stores, particularly to supermarket groups growing their convenience shopping businesses, though few have survived to trade under their own brands beyond a handful of outlets.

HMV, whose first store on London's Oxford Street was opened by English composer Edward Elgar in 1921, grew to become a musical powerhouse, selling vinyl records, tapes and CDs to generations and had a hand in the Beatles' big break, recommending the group's demo record to publishers.

But it struggled to reinvent itself when its core markets went into decline, with expansion into live entertainment and books failing to change its fortunes and a recent push towards tablets and headphones coming too late.

In 2006 HMV's board rejected an 842 million pounds bid from private equity firm Permira, saying it undervalued the group.

(Additional reporting by Kate Holton and Jonathan Cable; Editing by Mark Potter and Louise Heavens)

The researchers say more studies looking at the benefits and harms of blood pressure screening in kids are needed before all doctors are told to do it.

"There is a lot of discussion about screening for cardiovascular risk factors early in life and I wanted to explore this topic more," said Dr. Arnaud Chiolero, the study's lead author, from Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland.

Chiolero and his colleagues, who published their findings in JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, say high blood pressure in adults is linked to serious heart problems, and is responsible for more than 7 million deaths worldwide every year.

Less is known, however, about high blood pressure in children and what impact it might have throughout their lives, they write.

For the new review, the researchers developed five questions they felt needed to be answered to judge the role of high blood pressure tests in children, including whether treatment is effective and safe and whether screening reduces the risk for heart problems and death.

Overall, they found that previous studies have tied high blood pressure to signs of heart problems in children, including damage to their veins. Previous research also showed a link between high blood pressure in childhood and high blood pressure in adulthood.

The study also found several gaps in research the authors said need to be addressed, however, including whether or not checking a child's blood pressure is reliable.

For example, they cited a study of Texas school students that found 10 percent of 10th graders had high blood pressure after one test. After two more tests, though, less than a fifth of that original 10 percent group ended up consistently having high blood pressure.

The team also raised the concern that too little research has been done on the possible harms of testing children for high blood pressure - which can include stress and the possibility of leading to more expensive and invasive tests.

Another question, according to the researchers, is what should be done once a child is diagnosed with high blood pressure?

They write that the first step after diagnosis is typically a lifestyle change that makes the child lose weight and eat healthier. The second step is medication, but they note that the safety of long-term use of blood pressure drugs is still unknown.

"It can be concluded that, for now, there is no compelling evidence in favor of universal blood pressure screening among healthy children," the researchers write.

They add that the new review is based on a method used by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which issues screening recommendations and other guidelines for disease prevention.

In 2003, the USPSTF said there was not enough information to say whether children should or should not get their blood pressure checked, but the organization is now in the process of updating that recommendation.

The U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute currently recommends that all children over three years old routinely get their blood pressure checked. The European Society of Hypertension and the American Academy of Pediatrics signed on to that recommendation.

In September, a study found about a third of U.S. doctors were not checking children's blood pressure during office visits (see Reuters Health article of September 18, 2012: http://reut.rs/NAuaFX

Dr. Stephen Daniels, co-author of an editorial accompanying the new study and member of the group that issued the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) report on childhood blood pressure in 2004, told Reuters Health that it's still important to check a child's blood pressure.

"We know if blood pressure is very high it can cause immediate problems. While high blood pressure is sometimes symptomatic, it's not always. So it's important to always monitor it," said Daniels, chair of the department of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora.

He added that he also worries about some of the questions the review's authors posed, including those that would require tracking children through adulthood.

"Our concern is that some of their questions are essentially unanswerable, and that the studies needed to answer them will essentially never be done," he said.

Another member of the NIH high blood pressure report panel told Reuters Health that she does not think doctors should change what they do based on the review.

"I don't think this article does much to advance healthcare in any way. In fact, I think it's regressive," said Dr. Bonita Falkner, from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Falkner, who was not involved in the new study but chaired the NIH report panel, added that she thinks it is time to review the new evidence since that last NIH report in 2004.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Ms92Cy JAMA Pediatrics, online January 7, 2013.