However, many of those purchases involved properties that were subject to foreclosures or short sales, indicating the housing market is far from recovered.

The survey by San Diego-based DataQuick also showed the median sales price in the region fell nearly 3 percent last month from December to $326,000 less than half the peak price of $665,000 reached in 2007 but up from the low of $290,000 recorded in 2009.

A total of 5,479 new and existing homes were sold in the nine-county area, according to DataQuick. The figure was down nearly 27 percent from December but marked a 10.3-percent improvement over January 2011.

The December-to-January drop was normal for the season, while the January-to-January jump showed real improvement, DataQuick said.

The year-over-year increase in January marked the seventh annual jump in a row,the firm said.

Home sales were buoyed by "lower prices, ultra-low mortgage rates, a modestly improved economy and a record level of investor purchases," DataQuick said in a statement.

The lower median price in January was "a reflection of how skewed the market has become toward distressed, lower-cost properties," DataQuick President John Walsh said in the statement. "The higher-end sales have slowed in recent months as many struggle to qualify for loans and others just sit tight."

Distressed property sales the combination of foreclosure and short sales made up more than half of all sales of existing homes. Absentee buyers, who mostly are investors, bought more than a quarter of all homes sold, DataQuick reported

"Photograph," which will be released as an e-book on Apple's iBookstore on June 12, will coincide with a Grammy Museum exhibit on Starr, entitled "Ringo: Peace & Love," the book's publishers said on Wednesday.

A limited-edition hand-bound book signed by Starr will be available for purchase in December.

The book will include photographs from the musician's childhood in Liverpool, England, to his road to fame as part of the Fab Four, with Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison.

"These are shots that no one else could have," Starr, 72, said in a statement.

Highlights from the collection include behind-the-scenes candids of the Beatles in their daily lives and Starr's travel photography as the band toured the world.

Starr has also recorded videos featuring commentary to accompany the e-book.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Sophie the Giraffe is a teething toy taking over the world one baby mouth at a time. The toy, handmade in France from Malaysian rubber sap, is the rage for parents of toddlers the world over, including China.

But the knobby chew toy is priced around $30 in China, nearly three times the price in France. It's not a shock for Chinese parents, who have long lived with imported baby products that are sharply more expensive than elsewhere in the world.

Last week, Chinese authorities began an investigation into possible price-fixing and anti-competitive practices at five foreign companies manufacturing infant formula milk, including Nestle SA, Abbott Laboratories, Mead Johnson Nutrition Co, Danone's Dumex brand and Wyeth Nutrition.

Several other products aimed at infants and toddlers appear to be exorbitantly priced in China. Import duties are only a part of the reason, experts say - much of the premium for imported infant products can be ascribed to fears that locally made goods may be contaminated.

Chinese parents, who are mostly only allowed to have one child, simply do not want to take the risk of possible contamination in local baby products.

Foreign companies know this and many take advantage.

"Brands have been able to get away with this just because of the fear factor about buying unsafe products," said Benjamin Cavender, principal analyst at China Market Research Group.

"If you look at how consumers spend their money, they are disproportionately willing to spend money on anything that their child will be eating or what will be touching their child's body."

In 2008, six infants were killed in China and thousands fell sick after consuming milk tainted with melamine. There have been several food scandals in recent months, involving rat meat in mutton, excessive hormones in chicken meat and toxins in rice.

But when it comes to children, the fear of domestic goods goes beyond food to items like toys and diapers. Many local toys have been found to have toxic levels of substances like lead, arsenic and mercury.

For many Chinese and expatriates living in China going to Hong Kong or overseas for holidays, the shopping list includes diapers and infant formula, and they buy in bulk.

In March, Hong Kong passed a law that classified milk powder as a restricted export, alongside items like rough diamonds, mandating that anyone without a license caught exporting more 1.8 kg, about two cans of milk powder, will be fined or jailed. Security guards patrol shops at Hong Kong's international airport to make sure the rule is not broken.

In Britain, shops are rationing sales of baby milk after Chinese visitors and bulk buyers cleared their shelves to send the goods to China. Boxes of baby milk costing around 10 pounds ($15) in Britain are on sale on Chinese websites for up to three times as much.

Other imported infant items are similarly marked up in China.

Sophie the Giraffe retails for about 8 euros ($10.33) on Amazon's French website.

Under Chinese law, Sophie would face an import duty of 10 percent if imported as a rubber item and a value-added-tax (VAT) of 17 percent. If it is imported as an animal toy, there is no import duty but the VAT still applies. Transport and distribution costs would also apply.

Shanghai Tongzhen Trading Co. sells the toy for $27 on Chinese e-commerce platform Jingdong Mall.

After China announced the investigation into infant formula, Swiss food company Nestle and French rival Danone said they will cut the price of the milk powder in China.

A can of Karicare Gold 3 infant milk powder from Nutricia, a unit of Danone, retails in New Zealand and Australia for around $19. In China, the official Nutricia store on the online Taobao Mall sells one can for 190 yuan ($31).

The VAT is still 17 percent but import duty for milk powder stands at only five percent.

Cai Junfang, a Shanghai woman who has a two-month old baby girl, says she manages the high prices by breastfeeding and using local diaper brands.

"The prices of imported baby goods are indeed very high," said Cai, adding that the quality of imported goods was however generally better than domestic products. But when it comes to her baby's milk formula, she's not taking chances.

"There has been too much media exposure on the domestic formula safety. The most important thing is my baby's health," she said.

(Additional reporting by the Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

There was no official update Monday morning on the health of the 94-year-old former president and anti-apartheid leader, who was admitted June 8 to the hospital for a recurring lung infection.

People in South Africa and around the world have expressed concern for Mandela, sending messages of support for a man seen as a global symbol of reconciliation.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison during white rule and was released in 1990. He led the shift from apartheid to democracy and became president in all-race elections in 1994.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Swift responses from Swiss food company Nestleand French rival Danoneto Beijing's announcement that it was investigating possible price-fixing of instant milk formulas are textbook examples of how firms should deal with such crises in China, executives and consultants say.

Just a day after official Chinese media reported the top economic planning agency had launched the probe into six firms, including Nestle and Danone, the two companies said on Wednesday they would cut prices of some instant milk products.

It was not clear how long the companies had known they may become the subject of investigation. But once it became public, they had to respond quickly before negative reports were circulated on Chinese social media, which could harm reputations and sales.

The strategy seems to have worked - there has been limited comment on the subject so far, both in state media and online.

"The media environment here has absolutely changed. Social media has revolutionized what companies do in a crisis situation," said Kent Kedl, in charge of Greater China and North Asia for risk consultancy firm Control Risks.

"It needs to be taken into account because the chatter out there really creates a voice of its own."

KFC-parent Yum Brandscame under heavy fire from both mainstream and social media after the official China Central Television (CCTV) reported in late December that some of the chicken supplied to KFC and McDonald's Corpcontained excess amounts of antiviral drugs and hormones used to accelerate growth.

McDonald's responded by saying its chicken and raw materials pass through independent, third party tests. Analysts said KFC was dealt a heavier blow because it sold mainly chicken products and its bigger presence in China made it a bigger target.

The company made its first public apology nearly a month after the report but it failed to quell the widespread backlash, which left many KFC outlets in China empty and prompted the company to warn of a drop in profit this year. Yum was not fined by food safety authorities.

In another example, Apple Inccame under fire from another CCTV report in mid-March that said Chinese customers were not given the same post-sales service as users in other markets.

Until Apple apologized to Chinese consumers for poor communication over its warranty policy and changed some of the terms nearly a month later, it came under near-daily assault from mainstream media.

CHINA RULES

In contrast, Volkswagen AG , which in the same CCTV program was criticized for a long-standing gearbox issue, announced just three days later that it would recall vehicles to fix the problem, sparing it from the heavy barrage of negative publicity that hit Apple.

Jack Perkowski, an American who founded one of the first foreign auto parts makers based in the country in 1994, said there was little that companies, both foreign and domestic, could gain by fighting back against the government, including state media.

"Foreign firms have to realize that they don't set the rules in China. In China, everyone has to play by Chinese rules," Perkowski, who now heads U.S.-based bank JFP Holdings, told Reuters during a recent visit to Shanghai.

Apple, in its initial response to the CCTV report, said it respected Chinese consumers and that its warranty policies were roughly the same worldwide with specific adjustments to adhere to Chinese law.

However, criticism from state media only intensified following the comment, with even China's market regulator telling state radio that Apple needed to strengthen supervision of its policies.

Executives and consultants say publicly refuting allegations can be tricky in China and should be only done when proper evidence can be provided.

A China-based executive at a major Japanese carmaker said his company takes even a more cautious approach when the accusation is made directly by the government.

"We would never publicly deny what the government says even if it's 100 percent wrong," said the executive who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

"In one case, we simply said 'no comment' for the record while we directly spoke with the government on the issue to sort out the misunderstanding."

Kedl, from Control Risks, said an essential part of crisis management in China was building relationships with various wings of the state before any crisis took place.

"The worst time to have to get to know people in the government is when you are in middle of a crisis," he said.

"It's like building an airplane while you're flying it. It just doesn't work. If you have relationships, it creates a road for you."

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Federal environmental regulators are investigating a January chemical emergency at an Ohio oil well and asking why an inventory of the facility's chemicals wasn't available to local authorities, according to a letter released Wednesday by a coalition of activists.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency confirmed its investigation of the Jan. 16 incident near St. Marys in Auglaize County in an April 26 letter to the coalition. The alliance comprising the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, the Sierra Club, ProgressOhio and others said it received the letter May 31.

The groups had asked the federal EPA to review the St. Marys oil leak as well as alleged Clean Water Act violations in a separate Youngstown case to see if the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' oil and gas regulatory program is working effectively. The coalition proposes that the federal government take back its oversight responsibilities in the state.

Its complaint alleged that Ohio has been out of compliance with the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, or EPCRA, under which chemical inventories are to be publicly available, since 2001. In that year, state lawmakers passed a law "that essentially exempts the oil and gas industry operating in this state from requirements (of the federal law)," the activists said.

They pointed to the emergency near St. Marys to make their case. They said that when concentrated chemical odors were detected at the facility, local emergency responders were unable to access required chemical data that was supposed to be on file. The local newspaper was told the information was filed with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the groups said.

In his letter, U.S. EPA Superfund Division Director Richard Karl said that while an "alternate compliance method appears to be considered compliance" with state law, the Ohio law "does not designate (or attempt to designate) alternate compliance methods for the federal EPCRA law."

"Simply stated, the (state law) does not supersede (the federal one)," Karl wrote.

An official speaking for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio EPA said the impact of the federal government's finding is still being measured.

"The state is reviewing U.S. EPA's determination and we will soon be discussing this with the companies affected to ensure they are in compliance with their reporting obligations under state and federal law," spokesman Chris Abbruzzesse said in an email.

Teresa Mills, the nonprofit executive who authored the federal complaint, said she was surprised it took so long for the discrepancy to come to light and activists will keep a close eye on what happens.

"There are two options: The state of Ohio can correct the situation, or we can sue them," she said.

The coalition had earlier raised issues over oil and gas oversight in Ohio in light of recent federal indictments of Youngstown-area businessman Ben Lupo and an employee of his Hardrock Excavating LLC alleging that Lupo instructed the worker to illegally dump oil and gas wastes into a storm drain. The two have pleaded not guilty.

D&L Energy, where Lupo was a former president and shareholder, has been stripped of its operating permits as a result of that incident and recently failed in its attempt to challenge that action. The company is likely to appeal. The state also shut down the St. Marys well while the cause and extent of the January leak is investigated.

Activists question whether a state agency funded by the industry can impartially conduct the investigation ordered by Gov. John Kasich into whether potentially lax regulations led to the dumping incident alleged by federal prosecutors.

The prospect of continued monetary stimulus helped offset worries earlier in the week of a Chinese slowdown, European debt woes re-emerging and disruption of energy markets due to the military ouster of Egypt's president.

Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan markets posted the biggest gains and most other major indexes were in positive territory after the European Central Bank kept its policy interest rate at a record low to combat a persistent recession and its President Mario Draghi said the rate will remain there "for an extended period of time."

The European statement plus indications that the U.S. economy is growing but probably not fast enough for the U.S. Federal Reserve to rush into tapering off its purchases of $85 billion in bonds each month to keep interest rates low boosted markets that had been spooked in recent weeks at the prospect of such stimulus ending.

"It's been a wild ride over recent weeks, but market volatility is set to ease as markets undergo an eventually successful transition to Fed tapering," Credit Agricole CIB analysts said in a market commentary. It said that while overall Asian growth appeared to have slowed in early 2013, regional powerhouse China should "gradually re-accelerate" in the second half of the year.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 was up 1.8 percent to 14,272.45. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.5 percent to 20,766.55 and Taipei's TAIEX was up 1.4 percent to 8,001.28.

Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 edged up 1 percent to 4,841.10. India's Sensex rose 0.8 percent to 19,569.79, while China's Shanghai Composite posted a small gain of 0.2 percent to 2,010.84.

Seoul's KOSPI was in negative territory, edging down 0.5 percent to 1,830.17 after shares of Samsung Electronic fell nearly 4 percent on disappointment that its quarterly operating profit failed to meet expectations. The company estimated April-June earnings at a record high 9.5 trillion won ($8.3 billion) but that was below analysts' forecasts and investors are worried profit growth could slow as smartphone sales in rich nations reach a saturation point.

"There is some market shock from the Samsung results," said strategist Kang Hyun-cheol of Woori Investment & Securities.

The overall Asian gains followed a strong rally in Europe that was sparked by the ECB's statement and the Bank of England's announcement that speculation it would raise rates was unwarranted.

Britain's FTSE 100 index jumped 3.1 percent to close at 6,421.67 while Germany's DAX rose 2.1 percent to 7,994.31. France's CAC 40 gained 2.9 percent to 3,809.31. Wall Street was closed Thursday for the Independence Day holiday.

Investors were also waiting for a U.S. government jobs report due Friday. Earlier in the week, Wall Street rallied after ADP, a payrolls processor, said that businesses added more jobs last month than analysts had expected. If the U.S. government confirms that Friday, it offers hope that the American recovery is continuing.

The strength of the jobs report may also offer clues to what the Federal Reserve will do next.

Mike McCudden, head of derivatives at Interactive Investor, noted that while physical exchanges were closed in the U.S. on Thursday, futures were still trading, and they indicate Wednesday's rally could continue, with Dow Jones Industrial Index futures now trading above 15,000. The index closed at 14,988.50 Wednesday.

"Whether this can be sustained will clearly be reflected by what's happening on a global basis," he said in a market commentary. "The situation in Egypt remains hugely sensitive, whilst resurgent eurozone woes could knock sentiment."

The price of oil this week passed $100 per barrel due to events in the Middle East: Egypt's military overthrew Mohammed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, after he defied calls to resign despite the demands of millions of protesters.

Egypt is not an oil producer but its control of the Suez canal one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, which links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea gives it a crucial role in maintaining global energy supplies.

High energy costs act as a drag on economic growth, but oil has eased somewhat from its Wednesday highs and on Friday was down 26 cents to $100.98 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In currencies, the euro was down slightly at $1.2899. The dollar rose to 100.28 yen from 100.23 yen late Thursday.

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Toby Sterling in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

The rand was at 10.0551 against the dollar at 0651 GMT, 0.4 percent stronger than its New York close of 10.0975 overnight.

The local unit, which is slightly stronger so far this month, has been resilient in the past few days after slumping to a four-year low in early June but traders have said the recovery lacked solid fundamentals.

The main highlight of the day for traders will be a speech by Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus to a business seminar in Johannesburg at 1000 GMT.

With the end of the financial quarter looming, South African companies with operations overseas are continuing to support the rand as they switch their dollar-denominated earnings to the local currency.

"If one were looking for fundamental justification for the rand's vulnerability one need look no further than the massive imbalances that South Africa continues to generate and the over-reliance on foreign investors and inflows to keep these imbalances financed," Tradition Analytics said in a note.

Government bonds were little changed but remain vulnerable in the wake of the U.S. Federal Reserve's plan gradually to withdraw its stimulus programme as the world's biggest economy show signs of recovery.

The yield, which moves inversely to the price, on the benchmark bond due in 2026 was at 8.215 percent, while the paper due in 2015 was at 6.400 percent.

Emerging markets have been heavily sold after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week the U.S. central bank could soon start scaling down its monthly $85 billion in asset purchases, which have boosted appetite for risky assets such the rand and local bonds.

An unmannedshortly after blasting off on Monday (July 1), destroying three navigation satellites worth a total of nearly $200 million. The incident marked the fifth major Proton launch failure since December 2010.

The Proton has been grounded while a Russian governmental commission investigates the causes of the crash and attempts to determine which officials bear responsibility for it, the Russian news agencytoday (July 2). []

The Proton-M crashed about 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers) from its launch site, Baikonur Cosmodrome in the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan, gouging out a crater reported to be 660 feet (200 meters) wide.

The rocket was carrying 600 tons of toxic heptyl, amyl and kerosene fuel. Rain has helped keep the burning fuel's poisonous smoke in check, but officials say this smoke could continue to drift, Ria Novosti reported.

The town closest to the crash site is Baikonur, which lies about 38 miles (60 km) away. No injuries have been reported there or anywhere else as a result of the mishap.

Denounce the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi outright, and the U.S. could be accused of propping up a ruler who's lost the public's support a prospect with eerie echoes of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, whom the U.S. supported for decades before the 2011 revolution that cleared the path to power for Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. But look the other way, and the U.S. could be accused of fomenting dissent or lose credibility on its commitment to the democratic process.

So President Barack Obama, in his first, cautiously crafted comments after Morsi was forcibly removed from office, said the U.S. would "not support particular individuals or political parties," acknowledging the "legitimate grievances of the Egyptian people" while also observing that Morsi, an Islamist, won his office in a legitimate election.

"We believe that ultimately the future of Egypt can only be determined by the Egyptian people," Obama said in a statement late Wednesday. "Nevertheless, we are deeply concerned by the decision of the Egyptian armed forces to remove President Morsi and suspend the Egyptian constitution."

He notably stopped short of labeling Morsi's ouster a coup, leaving himself some wiggle room to navigate a U.S. law that says the government must suspend foreign aid to any nation whose elected leader is ousted in a coup d'etat. But Obama did say he was ordering the government to assess what the developments portended for aid to Cairo. The U.S. considers the $1.5 billion a year it sends Egypt to be a critical U.S. national security priority.

"I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process, and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsi and his supporters," Obama said after huddling in the White House Situation Room with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other top aides.

Egyptian military leaders have assured the Obama administration that they were not interested in long-term rule following their toppling of Morsi. On Thursday, the supreme justice of Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, was sworn in as interim president.

On his other request, Obama appeared to have less success. Shortly after Obama issued his statement, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman said Morsi and 12 presidential aides had been placed under house arrest. Morsi, meanwhile, denounced his ouster as a "full coup."

As American cities were making final preparations for Fourth of July celebrations, fireworks erupted Wednesday night over Cairo's Tahrir square upon news the military had suspended the Islamist-drafted constitution and called for new elections.

The mood was less jubilant at the State Department, where officials concerned about the threat of further unrest ordered all nonessential U.S. diplomats and the families of all American embassy personnel to leave Egypt.

Although initially encouraged by Morsi's promise to abide by Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel and his role in a truce brokered between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers in November, the U.S. grew more skeptical about Morsi as opponents complained in louder and louder voices that his promises to enact democratic reforms were going unmet. Secretary of State John Kerry warned in April that Egypt might be backsliding in its transition to democracy, citing arrests, street violence and the government's inability to embrace its opposition.

Despite the odd optics that supporting an expulsion-by-force of a democratically elected leader would entail, the State Department appeared Wednesday to be laying the groundwork for a tacit acceptance of the military's move. The State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki refused to criticize Egypt's military over the ultimatum it gave Morsi. But she did say the U.S. was disappointed with a speech Morsi gave the previous night after Obama urged him to present plans to address the opposition's concerns.

"Last night was an opportunity for him to propose new steps, which he ... did not," Psaki said.

There were early signs that if Obama accepts the military's actions, he won't be without support on Capitol Hill. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Republican, said Egyptians had made clear they believe Morsi threatens the type of democracy they aspired to in their 2011 revolution.

"As President Obama has said, democracy is about more than elections," Cantor said. "The Egyptian military has long been a key partner of the United States and a stabilizing force in the region, and is perhaps the only trusted national institution in Egypt today."

But other lawmakers were already asserting that Egypt's military had triggered a provision in U.S. law that requires aid to be suspended if a military deposes a democratically elected government. Sen. Patrick Leahy, who heads the Appropriations panel that oversees foreign aid, said he hoped Egypt's military would make good on its vow to return power to the people, but that in the meantime, U.S. law was clear about what should happen.

"My committee also will review future aid to the Egyptian government as we wait for a clearer picture," said Leahy, D-Vt.

In an apparent bid to forestall potential U.S. sanctions, senior Egyptian army officers have told Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that they would put a civilian government in place quickly if not immediately after removing Morsi from power, U.S. officials said. In the interim, they appointed a government of civilian technocrats to temporarily run the country.

The Egyptian military also pledged to take steps to ensure the safety of Americans in Egypt, including the embassy in Cairo and the consulate in Alexandria, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak by name about private conversations that occurred over the past week.

Stephen McInerney, who runs the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy, said that while American leverage in Egypt's political conflict has diminished as a result of mistakes since the 2011 revolution, having the military back in charge could actually give the U.S. more influence over the outcome of the current turmoil.

"The actor we have the most leverage with the military is now the most important actor in Egypt," McInerney said.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

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Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP