SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd missed already modest expectations for its quarterly earnings guidance on Friday, deepening worries that its smartphone business may have peaked, as growth in sales of its blockbuster Galaxy phones begins to wane and new rivals emerge to eat away at its market share.

The Galaxy S, powered by Google's free Android platform, propelled the South Korean firm into the top rank of smartphone makers in 2012, overtaking Apple Inc whose iPhone had set an industry standard five years earlier.

Now investors fear Samsung may also follow in the footsteps of Apple and other once-mighty players that are struggling with shrinking margins, in an industry where companies live and die by their ability to stay ahead of the innovation curve.

"Is Samsung's smartphone story now over? Not quite yet. It's growth is indeed slowing due largely to disappointing sales of the S4," said Jung Sang-jin, a fund manager at Dongbu Asset Management, which owns Samsung shares.

"Yet I think Samsung has some exciting stuff up its sleeves. The problem is no one is sure whether these products can really wow investors and consumers."

The disappointing earnings estimate by Samsung, which has had a track record of beating even the most bullish forecasts, sent its shares down more than 3 percent on Friday.

They have dropped 17 percent since early June, hit by a series of brokerage downgrades. The share price reflects concerns about Samsung's handset margins, with its mobile business generating 70 percent of the tech giant's total profit.

The fall in the share price equates to a drop in market value of 39 trillion won ($34.2 billion), or worth the combined market capitalisation of Sony Corp and LG Electronics Inc.

"One of the biggest risks for Samsung Electronics going forward is that 70 percent of total operating profit comes from mobile business. Diversification is key. Samsung needs to engage in active business transition until end-2014," said Jeff Kim, an analyst at Hyundai Securities.

ALL TIME HIGH AGAIN IN H2?

To be sure, Samsung's 9.5 trillion won ($8.3 billion) operating profit forecast, up 47 percent from a year ago, is a record and it is expected to report higher earnings in the current and fourth quarters as sales of its latest Galaxy S4 phone pick up and new products hit the stores. Prices of memory chips, another industry which Samsung holds the lead, are also expected to remain strong.

"Samsung's got diversified businesses. When one business lags, it's got others outperforming and propping up the overall profit," Jung at Dongbu said.

"The component business is widely expected to pick up the slack in the second half when smartphones slow, but now worries are also mounting that the component business' recovery could be short-lived."

The guidance, released ahead of full quarterly results due on July 26, was worse than an average forecast of 10.16 trillion won in a poll of 43 analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"I think Samsung spent more on marketing expenses than expected because of the launch of Galaxy S4 smartphone, which led the company's results to miss the market consensus," HMC Investment Securities analyst Nho Geun-Chang said.

Samsung spent more on marketing than R&D in 2012 for the first time in at least three years, and the S4 was launched in March with a Broadway-style show in New York.

The company also invested heavily in distribution channels including opening brand shops in 1,400 Best Buy stores in the United States.

But the glitz and glamour has failed to arrest a slide in handset sales growth, and shipments are seen rising only 4 percent to 8 percent in the second quarter from the previous quarter.

Handset margins are also being squeezed, as consumers in countries like China - the world's biggest smartphone market - opt for stripped-down cheaper devices.

NEXT BIG THING

Competition is getting intense with Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp making ground in the popular mid- to low-end market.

Nokia Oyj, once the handset king, unveiled two back-to-basics 3G phones this week. They allow access to popular applications such as Facebook and Twitter, and sell for just $68.

"There's still a big uncertainty about how Samsung will respond to the low-end market," said Brian Park, an analyst at Tong Yang Securities, referring to its plans to launch a device based on the open-source Tizen operating system.

Wearable gadgets will also be crucial to the company's hopes of riding a new wave of extraordinary profit growth.

Apple has applied for a trademark for "iWatch" in Japan, signaling the iPhone-maker may be moving ahead with plans for a watch-like device as the industry turn its attention to wearable computers.

Samsung has also filed a trademark for "Samsung Gear" in the Untied States for its range of wearable devices.

"The (expected launch of) wearable devices won't be able to replace Samsung's smartphone business, but it's more likely to complement its earnings at best," said Byun Han-joon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities. ($1 = 1139.2000 Korean won)

(Additional reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Batting helmet? Sure thing.

Batting gloves? Here 'ya go.

But not his bat, Davidson said. No, sir. He needs to hang onto that.

Down in the minor leagues, supplies are limited.

"The Hall of Fame wanted to take one of my bats, and I told them I'm on an unbelievable pace for breaking bats. I broke about 40 this year. It's unreal," the budding Arizona Diamondbacks slugger said. "So I don't know what it is. But I was like, I've got to have this. I mean, I've got to make the season still. And I hit a homer with it, so I better keep it. It's lucky."

Davidson hit a two-run shot Sunday that sent the United States past the World Team 4-2 in the All-Star Futures Game, baseball's annual showcase for top minor league prospects.

The opening event for three days of All-Star festivities at Citi Field, the Futures Game certainly had a New York Mets flavor in their home ballpark. Two of the team's touted pitching prospects, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero, started on the mound, and each worked a scoreless inning.

"It was a glimpse into the future, not just for us, but for our fans. It's real positive," general manager Sandy Alderson said.

Both managers were former Mets favorites, too. Edgardo Alfonzo guided the World Team, and his counterpart was Mookie Wilson who certainly took the job seriously. He brought in Philadelphia Phillies left-hander Jesse Biddle in the middle of an inning to get out of a jam.

New York outfielder Brandon Nimmo also got in the game and moved into captain David Wright's locker for the day.

"I'm honored that I get to stand where he stands. I'm not taking his place or anything," Nimmo said. "I hope this is my field in the future."

The only other time the Mets hosted the All-Star game was in Shea Stadium's debut season of 1964. And while a scattered crowd announced at 39,188 was eager to see the promise of a better future, it turned into a big day for the Diamondbacks.

In addition to Davidson's drive, Chris Owings looked silky smooth at shortstop. On the mound, right-hander Archie Bradley worked a perfect inning, showing off his 98 mph fastball and sharp curve.

Baseball America recently rated Bradley the game's top pitching prospect. He passed up a chance to play quarterback for Oklahoma back home.

"It kind of felt like we stole the show a little bit," Bradley said.

After winning MVP honors with his family and girlfriend in the stands, Davidson found himself in the Mets clubhouse handing over his helmet and batting gloves to Brad Horn from the Hall of Fame.

It was a little surreal for a 22-year-old third baseman still eager to set foot in the majors.

"Pretty crazy," Davidson said. "I mean, I don't have any words for that yet. Those are like little kid dreams."

Next up, Davidson planned to catch an early flight Monday back to Nevada, where he's scheduled to compete that night in the Triple-A Home Run Derby.

"So I've got to get some rest and then fly over to Reno and then get warmed up for that. I'm excited about it, though. When you're in the offseason working out, you want to have a busy All-Star break. So I guess I got my wish. A little busier than I thought," he said.

Miami's Christian Yelich and Boston's Garin Cecchini each had an RBI double. Biddle, who grew up a Phillies fan in Philadelphia, earned the win with 1 1-3 shutout innings. Washington right-hander A.J. Cole came in with two runners on in the ninth and retired both batters he faced for a save.

Davidson connected off losing pitcher Michael Ynoa of the Oakland Athletics.

"I couldn't help but smile coming around third," Davidson said. "That's far beyond how I drew it up."

Chicago Cubs second baseman Arismendy Alcantara homered for the World off Red Sox right-hander Anthony Ranaudo.

Boston shortstop Xander Bogaerts, batting third in the World lineup, singled twice and scored on a sacrifice fly by 27-year-old Detroit first baseman Jordan Lennerton, the oldest player in the game.

It was the fourth consecutive victory for the United States, including last season's 17-5 rout in Kansas City behind Manny Machado, Gerrit Cole and Wil Myers.

One year later, Machado is a major league All-Star, while Cole and Myers are off to impressive starts at the big league level.

Indeed, history shows that many of the talented kids in this game aren't far off from major league success. Nineteen players from last year's Futures Game have reached the big leagues this season.

"Words can't describe how much fun it was," Syndergaard said. "It was awesome."

NOTES: The youngest player on either roster was 18-year-old World SS Carlos Correa, voted into the game by fans after he was drafted No. 1 overall last year by the Houston Astros. "The baby," he said with a smile. ... Nimmo also was voted in by fans. ... Seattle RHP Taijuan Walker wore old-school stirrups on the mound and worked a hitless second inning for the United States. He and Davidson were high school teammates in California. ... Yankees RHP Rafael DePaula struck out 19-year-old Twins OF Byron Buxton, tabbed the best prospect in the minors by Baseball America. Buxton also fanned against Royals RHP Miguel Almonte.

Former President George H.W. Bush is coming to the White House on Monday for a ceremony President Barack Obama is holding to recognize the 5,000th Daily Point of Light Award. Created by Bush more than two decades ago to honor volunteer service, the award's name comes from the description in his 1989 inaugural address of Americans serving each other as "a thousand points of light."

Bush's wife, Barbara, the former first lady; their son Neil, and other relatives are expected to attend; son and former President George W. Bush is not. Also scheduled to attend is Michelle Nunn, CEO of the Points of Light organization and a possible Democratic Senate candidate from Georgia. She's the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama and the Bushes will have lunch in the Red Room before the ceremony.

During the event, Obama will announce creation of a federal task force to come up with new ways for the public and private sectors to collaborate to support national service as a means of tackling national priorities, the White House said.

In the past year, the Corporation for National and Community Service, sponsor of the AmeriCorps national service program, launched partnerships with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Education Department. The 1,600-member FEMA Corps has the sole mission of responding to disasters. School Turnaround AmeriCorps will send 650 volunteers into low-performing schools this fall to help improve academic achievement, attendance, high school graduation rates, and college and career readiness.

Both presidents share a commitment to volunteerism and service.

Bush, now 89, established the Daily Point of Light Award in 1990 while in office. More than 1,000 of the awards were distributed between 1989 and 1993, Bush's single term as the nation's 41st president. Through its offices around the country and relationships with nonprofit groups and corporations, the Points of Light organization encourages millions of people to volunteer and recognizes those it says are making a difference.

The White House said the recipients of the 5,000th Point of Light Award are Floyd Hammer and Kathy Hamilton, a retired couple and farm owners from Union, Iowa, who created Outreach, a nonprofit that delivers free meals to children suffering from hunger in more than 15 countries, including the United States.

They launched the program after a trip to Tanzania, where they visited a volunteer mission to help renovate an HIV/AIDS clinic at a village hospital and saw children dying from malnutrition. The couple's program has relied on thousands of volunteers to help assemble and distribute more than 232 million free meals to children worldwide, the White House said.

Both presidents will present Hammer and Hamilton with the Point of Light Award. Obama visited Tanzania this month.

Obama also has made volunteerism a theme of his presidency. In 2009, he signed legislation to more than triple the size of the AmeriCorps program from 75,000 volunteers to 250,000 by 2017. And several times a year, including on the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday and before Thanksgiving, Obama and his family help out at area food kitchens and community service projects.

Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill, also lead a national drive to encourage the public to devote time to helping military families.

The first president Bush has made several visits to the Obama White House. He stopped in twice last year, in January when he and son Jeb, the former Florida governor, were in town for the annual Alfalfa Club dinner, and in May for the unveiling of George W. Bush's official portrait. During a White House ceremony in 2011, Obama recognized Bush's lifetime of public service with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

The two last saw each other in April at the dedication of George W. Bush's presidential library in Dallas.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama holds the Bush family in "very high regard" and is looking forward to the ceremony.

Another reason to look forward to the event? To see Bush's socks.

The 41st president has become known for brightening his otherwise staid attire by wearing colorful socks. He pulled on a pair of Superman socks to celebrate his 89th birthday last month. At the dedication of his son's presidential library, Bush set off his gray suit with pink socks.

___

Online:

Points of Light: http://www.pointsoflight.org

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

___

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsuperville

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In the first 10 minutes of the second season of HBO drama "The Newsroom," creator Aaron Sorkin hits viewers with half a dozen news themes, an intense legal discussion, a flashback and SOPA.

Yes, SOPA, the acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act being debated in Congress. It's the kind of complex topics that will keep news junkies and fans of Sorkin's chaotic television newsroom on their toes for season two, which premieres Sunday.

Although the first season of "The Newsroom" has a good chance of picking up Emmy nominations next week, including for best drama, Sorkin's creation was picked apart by the critics.

Now the writer who made his name with the Emmy-winning drama "The West Wing" and won a writing Oscar for "The Social Network" begins this season with something to prove.

In a sign of what's at stake, Sorkin told The Hollywood Reporter that for season two he re-wrote the first three episodes and had to re-shoot chunks of the first and second at a cost of several million dollars to HBO, owned by Time Warner.

"The Newsroom" stars Jeff Daniels as gruff news anchor Will McAvoy, bent on delivering a nightly newscast that tackles the tough news issues, regardless of ratings pressures. He is supported in his quest by his former love and producer MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer), his boss (Sam Waterston) and smart staffers whose fragile personal lives enrich each episode.

In the first season, Sorkin was criticized for presenting a sanctimonious view of the news, with "New York Times" critic Alessandra Stanley saying: "'The Newsroom' would be a lot better if the main characters preached less and went back to reporting."

For this season, Sorkin hired a dozen consultants, mostly journalists, to help him navigate the news. But he insists he is not out to tell the world how to produce news.

"This show isn't meant to be a 'here's how you do it' kind of thing," Sorkin told Reuters this week. "It's a workplace show."

NO STATEMENT ON MEDIA

The Sorkin-created workplace is a bewildering environment, rife with his trademark, detail-filled dialogue and breaking news events, most of which happened in the real world. Add to that a complex legal case that will thread its way through entire season.

In the first few minutes of season two, Will McAvoy is in deep trouble with his corporate masters for calling the conservative Tea Party movement "the American Taliban."

A corporate lawyer played by show newcomer Marcia Gay Harden says to Will: "Fourteen months ago, you went on the air and called the Tea Party the American Taliban. What happened then?" Will responds "A lot."

The viewer is then pulled into the vortex of news from the year before in flashback, from the campaigning of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to the rebel victory in Libya to Occupy Wall Street to SOPA. And then there is a fictional story about U.S. use of chemical weapons code-named "Genoa," based on a real 1998 story that got CNN in trouble. It will be the bete noire for "News Night" this season.

Daniels, who may also be an Emmy contender, believes Will McAvoy's objectives are not just the stuff of fiction.

"I think there are shows out there that are trying to do, and successfully do, what Will is trying to do ... And that is to tell the truth," he said.

Sorkin, for his part, says he is not selling "The Newsroom" as a critique of today's news media landscape.

"I think it's impossible to make any statement about the media," Sorkin said. "There's just so much of it. It's so big."

(Additional reporting by John Russell; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

About 500 policemen and 300 soldiers were deployed around Tanjung Gusta prison in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, where the riot broke out Thursday night while fire brigades were battling the fires.

"The situation is fully under control after soldiers managed to enter the prison without resistance," said Akbar Hadi, spokesman for the prison directorate.

Hundreds of other policemen have blocked roads linking Medan to the provinces of Aceh, Jambi and West Sumatra while searching for about 240 prisoners who escaped following the riot at the facility in the nation's third-largest city.

Two prison employees were trapped and killed in an office building that was burned by prisoners during the riot, which appeared to have been triggered by a power blackout that knocked out water pumps, leaving inmates without water since Thursday morning.

Another employee was injured, Hadi said.

The facility holds nearly 2,600 prisoners while its normal capacity is 1,054, Hadi said.

Provincial police spokesman Col. Heru Prakoso said there were 14 convicted terrorists among the prisoners and nine escaped, but that five had been caught.

He said that it was initially thought there were 22 convicted terrorists, but that eight of them were moved recently to Aceh.

In Jakarta, Senior Security Minister Djoko Suyanto said 64 of the escaped inmates had been caught so far.

Medan, home to more than 2 million people, is Indonesia's third-largest city after Jakarta and Surabaya.

Witnesses said gunshots were heard from inside the prison Thursday night, and television footage showed security forces carrying a white body bag into an ambulance from the burning prison. The fire sent raging orange flames jumping several meters (yards) into the air and a huge column of black smoke billowed over the jail.

Vice Minister of Justice Denny Indrayana appealed to those who escaped to give themselves up to the police.

"Legal action will be taken to chase them, and tougher action will be applied to those who refuse to surrender," Indrayana said.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, which hears a long list of high-tech patent complaints, said in May 2012 that Google's Motorola Mobility infringed a Microsoft patent for generating and synchronizing calendar items. It barred any infringing Motorola Mobility device from being imported into the United States.

All phones with Google's Android software are affected by the ban, Microsoft said. But Google said that it should have applied to only some Motorola Mobility Android phones.

That order was to have gone into effect 60 days after it was issued but, according to Microsoft's court filing, it still has not been enforced.

"CBP (Customs and Bureau Protection) has repeatedly allowed Motorola to evade that order based on secret presentations that CBP has refused to share with Microsoft," the complaint said.

Google argued that Microsoft tried to broaden the order beyond what the ITC had intended.

"U.S. Customs appropriately rejected Microsoft's effort to broaden its patent claims to block Americans from using a wide range of legitimate calendar functions, like scheduling meetings, on their mobile phones," said Matt Kallman, a Google spokesman.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs declined comment.

The filing is the latest salvo in an international smartphone patent war that has embroiled a half dozen companies in lawsuits filed in about a dozen countries.

The dispute is a sign that deciding which product infringes a patent is harder now that the world has gone high tech, and that Customs may not have the needed expertise to make that determination and perhaps should rely on the ITC, said Deanna Tanner Okun, a former ITC chairman who is a partner at Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg, LLP.

"Problems have increased. The system is outdated," she said. "They're using practices and procedures that are 20 years old."

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Richard Chang and Lisa Shumker)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with Alzheimer's disease have a lower risk of cancer than other elderly adults, a new Italian study suggests.

Additionally, researchers found that seniors who were diagnosed with cancer were less likely to develop Alzheimer's.

Researchers said there are a number of genes that affect both neurology and cancer growth - and pathways by which the two are connected - that could explain the "unexpected" inverse link between the diseases.

"Cancer and Alzheimer's have been viewed by researchers as completely separate," said Dr. Massimo Musicco, who led the study at the National Research Council of Italy's Institute of Biomedical Technologies in Milan.

"Some of the knowledge that we have on cancer can be used for a better understanding of what happens when a person has Alzheimer's disease, and vice versa," he said.

There are convincing data that Parkinson's disease is tied to a lower risk of cancer, said Dr. Jane Driver, who studies aging at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

More recently, the same pattern has been showing up for other neurological disorders, including schizophrenia and Alzheimer's, she noted.

But earlier studies haven't been able to rule out whether Alzheimer's disease might be keeping cancer symptoms from being noticed - or vice versa - or if people who die from one disease just have less time to be diagnosed with the other.

In their study, Musicco and his colleagues found people who ultimately were diagnosed with Alzheimer's had a lower risk of cancer both leading up to and after their diagnosis.

Likewise those with cancer were less likely to get Alzheimer's both before and after the cancer was caught.

"I'm hoping this will then convince all the doubters that there is a true inverse association between Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and probably some other neurologic diseases and cancer," Driver told Reuters Health.

Musicco and his team tracked new cancer and Alzheimer's diagnoses among 204,000 people age 60 and older living in Northern Italy.

Between 2004 and 2009, just over 21,000 of them were diagnosed with cancer and close to 3,000 with Alzheimer's disease. There were 161 people diagnosed with both diseases.

The researchers calculated that 246 cases of Alzheimer's disease would be expected in members of the cancer group, based on their age and gender balance, and 281 cancers would be predicted among those with Alzheimer's.

The lower rates meant that people with cancer were 35 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than other adults, the researchers wrote in the journal Neurology. And those with Alzheimer's had a 43 percent lower risk of cancer.

The link held up when they looked at most cancers individually.

"These two diseases seem intrinsically related to human aging," Musicco told Reuters Health.

"Cancer may be conceptualized as a high tendency of cells to reproduce, which is so high that it is no (longer) controlled," he said. "Alzheimer's disease is exactly the reverse. It's a sort of incapacity of neuron cells to reproduce."

The study doesn't prove one disease is protective against the other. It also doesn't mean people with Alzheimer's or cancer never have to worry about getting the other condition, Driver said.

The researchers noted that they couldn't take into account people's lifestyle and whether some habits might affect the risk of cancer and Alzheimer's differently.

Driver said the inverse link has "prompted thinking outside the box" regarding ways to treat Alzheimer's disease - for which good treatment options are scarce.

"By further investigating this decreased risk, there's a good chance we'll be able to find completely new therapies," Driver said.

"Any new lead or any new avenue to go down, we really need to take it."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/153xezv Neurology, online July 10, 2013.

………………………………………………………………………………

2. OIL HITS A 14-MONTH HIGHWest Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices for August delivery rose $1.83 to $105.36 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday, after the Oil Energy Information Administration reported that inventories dropped 9.87 million barrels, three times more than Bloomberg analysts predicted. The news supported speculation that an oil glut in the central U.S. is thinning faster than expected. The price is the highest it's been since May 2012. []

………………………………………………………………………………

3. JUDGE FINDS APPLE GUILTY OF PRICE-FIXING E-BOOKSA judge found Apple guilty ofto illegally lift the prices of e-books, boosting titles that Amazon set at a bargain-basement price of $9.99. "The plaintiffs have shown that the publisher defendants conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices, and that Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy," Judge Denise Cote wrote in her 159-page decision. []

………………………………………………………………………………

4. CHINA OPENS THE LARGEST BUILDING IN THE WORLDChina's second largest city, Chengdu, opened the doors of the largest building in the world, the , which houses a beach, a seaside resort, a 14-screen Imax cinema, an Olympic-sized ice rink, two five-star hotels ,and a Mediterranean shopping village. The building is 5.5 million square feet, and 620 miles from the nearest ocean. []

………………………………………………………………………………

5. SEC LIFTS BAN ON HEDGE FUND ADSThe Security and Exchange Commission voted, 4 to 1, in favor of allowing hedge funds to advertise in public, ending a decades-old prohibition. The change is part of the Jumpstart Our Business Startup Act (JOBS), and in theory could make it easier for new companies to raise money, thereby creating new jobs. []

View this article onGetIssues of The Week

More from The Week:

 -  - 

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced Tuesday that it has rejected listing ribbon seals as a threatened or endangered species despite evidence that its habitat is impacted by climate change.

Ribbon seals are found in the Bering and Chukchi (Chuk-CHEE') seas off Alaska and in the Sea of Okhotsk (oh-KOTSK') off Russia. They are not in danger of disappearing under the time limits required for listing in the Endangered Species Act, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

"NOAA's status review concluded that the anticipated threats to ribbon seals, primarily from reductions in sea ice and disrupted prey communities, will result in a gradual decline in ribbon seal population abundance," said Julie Speegle in the announcement. "However, this decline is not expected to render the species in danger of extinction within the foreseeable future."

The agency also rejected a listing for ribbon seals in December 2008. Attorney Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which with Greenpeace sued for reconsideration, said the agency acknowledges that the seals could be in serious trouble in the Sea of Okhotsk. Continued sea ice loss also threatens them in the Bering Sea, she said.

"We disagreed that loss of sea ice in the Bering Sea is not going to be a problem in the foreseeable future," she said. "We think the sea ice models show that ribbon seals are losing sea ice at critical times in the spring."

Federal biologists estimate the ribbon seal population at 200,000 to 300,000.

During summer and fall, ribbon seals live entirely in the water, foraging on fish, squid and crustaceans. From March through June, the seals use loose pack ice for pupping and molting and as a platform for foraging.

Ribbon seals give birth and nurse pups, which cannot swim, exclusively on sea ice. Newborn ribbon seals have a coat of soft, white hair called lanugo that provides insulation until they grow a thick layer of blubber. Pups can survive submersion in icy water only after growing a blubber layer.

During molting, new hair can only grow when ribbon seals are out of the water where skin can reach higher temperatures.

NOAA Fisheries in December added two other ice-dependent seals to the threatened species list ringed seals, the main prey of polar bears, and bearded seals, which give birth and rear pups on pack ice drifting over shallow water where crab and other prey is abundant.

Jon Kurland, NOAA Fisheries' assistant regional administrator for protected resources, said each species of ice-associated seal has different habitat requirements.

"Ribbon seals are fairly adaptable," he said in the announcement. "Their diet is diverse, they feed over a wide range of depths, and there is evidence that they may compensate for changes in sea ice by moving to other habitats in which they are still able to feed and reproduce, in contrast to ringed and bearded seals which are more specialized and are not expected to do as well with changes in sea ice."

A spokesman for the state of Alaska, Doug Vincent-Lang, said the state applauds the decision.

"This decision begins to bring some rationality to the recent misapplication of the ESA that has resulted in the precautionary listing of currently abundant and robust species based on speculated and unproven climate related impacts over century timeframes," he said by email. "We stand ready to assist the NMFS in defense of this decision if it is challenged."

What would have been my 10-year high school reunion was two weeks ago. Needless to say, I didn't go. Since the reunion, however, I have received more than 30 messages via Facebook from former classmates. It seems I was the main topic of conversation at the reunion, mainly because everyone apparently wanted to apologize to me.

Abby, I don't know how to respond to these people. While I don't doubt the sincerity of their apologies, I truly don't want to have any contact with them (even on Facebook). At the same time, I don't want to be rude and just ignore them.

So far, I haven't replied to any of their messages. I want to know if I must, and if so, what I should say? To be honest, I'd like to tell them all to go to hell, but I'm trying to be nice. -- LOST FOR WORDS

DEAR LOST FOR WORDS: You do not have to say anything to any of these people, and you do not have to be "nice." Silence sends a strong message, and it is the one I'm recommending.

Understand that by apologizing they are trying to make themselves feel better. It's also possible that maturity has caused them to realize what they did was wrong. However, you are not obligated to accept their apologies if doing so will make you feel worse.

DEAR ABBY: I am a single mother struggling with my 12-year-old daughter. For the last three months she has been withdrawn, uncommunicative, rude, mean and treats me with contempt. We have been in counseling and are going back again, but I can't ask people to stay with her while I go and recharge my spirit because she's so rude to them as well.

I need to know, Abby, what do other parents do to make it through this incredibly painful period in the lives of their teenager and themselves? -- SINGLE MOM IN CANADA

DEAR SINGLE MOM: Any abrupt change in behavior should be regarded as a red flag. Your daughter should be evaluated by her pediatrician to be sure there isn't an underlying cause. Could she have been molested, be using drugs, pills, alcohol, etc.? Do her friends act this way? Does she have friends?

Changes like this don't usually happen overnight. Was this behavior tolerated when she was smaller? If a child of mine behaved that way, she would be grounded and her cellphone and Internet privileges canceled until she was 30.

As to whom you can leave her with while you "recharge," does this girl have a father, an aunt, a grandparent who can give you respite? That's how some single parents get a break. But if those resources are not available, you will have to deal with this (with the help of a more effective therapist than the one you were using) until your "problem child" becomes an adult.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby ator P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

To order "How to Write Letters for All Occasions," send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby -- Letter Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. Shipping and handling are included in the price.