CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- New Hampshire's Senate voted unanimously Thursday to prohibit bosses from requiring employees or job applicants to disclose user names or passwords to personal Facebook, Twitter or other social media or email accounts.

But the Republican-controlled chamber voted 13-11 along party lines to add an amendment on union contracts that could spell trouble when the bill goes back to the House to consider changes to the bill.

The bill would apply the ban to the workers' personal accounts unrelated to the employer's business. The bill does not prevent employers from enforcing workplace policies about company equipment.

The measure would not prohibit an employer from obtaining information in the public domain or prevent the employer from investigating whether the employee is complying with securities or financial laws based on the person's personal website used for business purposes.

The House passed the bill in March, but the Senate amended it Thursday so the House must review the changes.

Democrats were upset the Republican majority added what they view is a "poison pill" to the bill the contents of a bill the Democratic House killed that gave a 10-member joint legislative committee power to approve cost items in collective bargaining contracts with state employee unions.

Senate Democratic Leader Sylvia Larsen of Concord objected the added provision could doom the social media provisions. The Senate passed the social media part of the bill unanimously, but added the contract provisions 13-11 along party lines.

Last year, six states California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey passed similar laws barring employers from requiring the disclosure of Facebook, Twitter or other account information, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

NCSL reports that legislation is pending in at least 35 states this year including New Hampshire. Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Washington passed laws this year and bills have been sent to the governor in Oregon and Vermont.

Some states have similar laws to protect college students from having to grant access to social networking accounts, according to NCSL.

In their effort to vet job applicants, some companies and government agencies have started asking for passwords to log into a prospective employee's accounts on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Critics call it an invasion of privacy akin to handing over the keys to the person's house.

Sen. Donna Soucy, a co-sponsor of the New Hampshire bill, said employers can gain access to information about an employee or job applicant through social media accounts like Facebook that they otherwise could not legally obtain. She said people post personal information about themselves on Facebook, or others post on the person's page. That information, she said, should be protected.

She said she had not heard of any New Hampshire employers demanding the information.

Soucy, D-Manchester, said employers can use information on social media accounts to discriminate, such as not interviewing someone whose Facebook picture shows the applicant to be obese when weight would not be required on the application.

Soucy said other people can post information on the person's page that the person might not delete before a prospective employer saw it.

Allowing employers access to social media accounts also gives them access to others linked to the account, which could infringe on their privacy.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - French electronic dance music duo Daft Punk scored their first No. 1 album on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, as their risk to use retro technology paid off with fans.

"Random Access Memories," the highly anticipated fourth studio album from Daft Punk, sold 339,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. That was the group's best sales week to date.

Digital downloads of the album were approximately 65 percent of overall sales, with 221,000 copies downloaded.

Daft Punk, formed by childhood friends Thomas Bangalter, 38, and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, 39, were at the forefront of electronic dance music in the 1990s, fusing synthesizers and computers to create music on hits such as "Around the World." Daft Punk became popular figures in the dance music field, known for wearing shiny helmets on stage and being elusive and unpredictable.

For the release of their latest album, they stayed away from big stages and instead launched it at a small music festival in the small Australian town of Wee Waa on May 17, which they themselves did not attend.

After the 2005 album "Human After All," Bangalter and de Homem-Christo said they took time out to explore "uncharted territories" in their field, waiting eight years before releasing "Random Access Memories."

"It's always been a quest (with the) making of each record, somehow reinventing ourselves a little bit, and this time we feel like it's the same musical influence somehow that we maybe had 15 years ago on our first record," Bangalter told Reuters ahead of the album's release.

"Random Access Memories" is not just an homage to the dance floor music of the late 1970s but an attempt to capture the actual time period itself, the duo said.

"If you listen to Pink Floyd records or the majority of the albums in the late 1970s, they were really experimenting with art, elegance, radicality and integrity," Bangalter said. "That was inspiring for this record, to try to do something that has certain elegance and certain experimentation to it."

The new album features numerous collaborators, including singer Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, veteran Italian music producer Giorgio Moroder and R&B singer Pharrell Williams, who lent his vocals to the raunchy dance floor track "Get Lucky."

ANALOG IN A DIGITAL WORLD

After inspiring a new wave of electronic dance music DJs in the past decade that has included David Guetta, "Random Access Memories" sees Daft Punk strip away all digital components, recording solely with live instruments onto analog tape in a studio setting.

"Digital technologies are more efficient at working on other aspects of music, like dynamic and energetic qualities," Bangalter said.

"In the same way that sometimes a film camera seems to grab a moment in raw emotion than with a digital camera, that's what analog tape usually is ... it tends to - and we don't know why - grab a magic moment that is emotional."

The risk of going analog appears to have paid off, as the duo topped the Billboard chart with the second-highest debut album of the year, behind only Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience," which opened in March with 968,000 copies.

"Get Lucky," which first premiered as a music video broadcast at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Southern California in April, has been streamed more than 33 million times globally on Spotify since its April 18 release.

Daft Punk led four new albums debuting in the top 10 of the Billboard chart this week. Darius Rucker, frontman of rock group Hootie & the Blowfish, entered the chart at No. 2 this week with his country solo effort, "True Believers," selling 83,000 copies.

Rock band The National landed at No. 3 with "Trouble Will Find Me," while rapper French Montana rounded out the debuts in the top 10 this week with his first album, "Excuse My French," at No. 4.

Rockers 30 Seconds to Mars landed at No. 6 the album "Love Lust Faith + Dreams," while last week's chart-toppers, Vampire Weekend, fell to No. 7 this week as sales of "Modern Vampires of the City" dropped by 64 percent.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey and Bill Trott)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. May jobs report came in just right for investors - neither too weak nor too strong to rock the boat - but market participants are now questioning what's next for stocks.

The equity market is on nebulous middle ground. The S&P 500 is just 1.5 percent away from its all-time closing high, but other than Friday's rally on the jobs data, it has been stuck in a period of uncertainty.

The Labor Department added 175,000 jobs in May, slightly higher than expected, but at a level that indicates the status quo should hold for the Federal Reserve's stimulus program.

Some had worried that if job growth far exceeded expectations, the Fed would reduce bond-buying sooner than expected, while others were concerned that an exceptionally weak number would reveal a fundamentally soft labor market. The data's ability to relieve both fears may benefit stocks.

"The number had a little something in it for everybody, in terms of those who suspect tapering might begin sooner and those who think it might start later," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist of Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, adding that the May payrolls figure could "prime market participants to be more positive toward equities leading into next week's trading."

The program is widely cited as a major contributor to the S&P 500'ssurge of 15.2 percent in 2013, when it has hit a repeated series of record highs.

Wall Street's performance has been closely tethered to the Fed's stimulus program, benefiting from the belief that the economy is just weak enough to keep the Fed buying bonds.

When Fed Chief Ben Bernanke said on May 22 that the central bank may decide to reduce purchases if the economy shows signs of significant improvement, stocks fell and bond yields surged.

The uncertainty has also increased volatility, with the S&P 500 frequently making daily moves of 1 percent or staging dramatic midday reversals. The CBOE Volatility Index , or VIX, has risen more than 20 percent over the past three weeks, although at a level of 15.14, it is still at a level associated with a relatively calm environment.

"Equity markets are in a period of adjustment," said Anastasia Amoroso, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds in New York, which has about $400 billion in assets. "If there's an unannounced change in policy, that could be a shock to the downside."

That adjustment is likely to keep trading in a narrow range. On Thursday, the S&P 500 briefly fell under its 50-day moving average of 1,604, as well as below the psychologically important level of 1,600, before rebounding. However, the benchmark index remains below its 14-day moving average of 1,645.08.

This year's gains have been broad, with all 10 S&P 500 sectors sharply higher, so it is difficult to determine which sectors may be the most vulnerable to a market pullback. The best-performing sector of the year - health care , up 20 percent - is a defensive group, as is telecom , one of the year's weaker performers, with a gain of 8.6 percent for the year to date.

Cyclical sectors, which are tied to the pace of economic growth and have been especially sensitive to any indication that Fed policy may be changing, have also outperformed the broad market this year. However, despite those gains and the Fed uncertainty, they may not be vulnerable going forward. The shakier sectors have been the big dividend payers, because higher yields on safe government debt would make those shares less attractive.

"Investors haven't simply been 'selling the winners,'" Bespoke Investment Group wrote in a note to clients this week. "What investors have been selling are the high dividend payers, which is not usually what happens on pullbacks. In fact, the opposite usually occurs, as investors flock to 'safer' plays."

For the week, the Dow Jones industrial averagerose 0.9 percent, the S&P 500 added 0.8 percent and the Nasdaqadvanced 0.4 percent.

Next week, there appear to be few obvious catalysts to change the equation. Only two S&P 500 companies - H&R Blockand PVH Corp- are scheduled to report results.

The economic data calendar is light, though May retail sales on Thursday and the preliminary reading on June consumer sentiment on Friday will be closely watched.

Inflation data will also be on the agenda. The U.S. Producer Price Index, set for release on Friday, is forecast to rise just 0.1 percent in May, according to economists polled by Reuters, after a drop of 0.7 percent in April. On a year-over-year basis, overall PPI is expected to rise 1.4 percent in May, the Reuters Poll showed.

"It looks like we're shaping up for a traditional summer where we'll build a base and perhaps enter into the doldrums of summer trading," said Frank Davis, director of trading at LEK Securities in New York.

With the exception of consumer stocks, which could be affected by the retail data, Davis added, "I'm not anticipating any meaningful follow-through to next week, but I'm not anticipating any measurable pulldown either."

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: ryan.vlastelica(at)thomsonreuters.com )

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The makers of actor Sanjay Dutt's last completed screen role before going to prison are preparing for the release of "Policegiri" in July, hoping fans of the beefy Bollywood hero will boost ticket sales.

Dutt, 53, went back to jail on May 16 to serve the remainder of a five-year sentence for firearms offences during the Mumbai bombings 20 years ago. The actor wrapped up work on pending Bollywood projects in the weeks before he reported to prison.

"Policegiri", an action thriller that stars Dutt as an intrepid police officer, is the first featuring him in a lead role to open in Indian cinemas since his incarceration. Dutt had a brief guest appearance in "Hum Hain Raahi Car Ke", a romantic comedy that sank at the box office last week.

The producer of "Policegiri" said Dutt would be missed at promotional events for the film.

"I am hoping that fans will go out and watch this film," said Rahul Aggarwal, who is co-producing the film with his father. "There should be no sympathy, only affection for Sanjay Dutt."

The Bollywood industry had reacted with shock to news of Dutt's sentencing in March with the actor seen by fans as a victim of his fame. His hit film "Khal Nayak" in 1993 coincided with his initial arrest on conspiracy charges in the Mumbai blasts that year.

The actor is best known for his role as a do-gooding gangster in the "Munnabhai" films of the last decade. A third film in the series was put on the back burner because of Dutt's imprisonment.

But trade analysts are skeptical about the ageing Dutt's ability to best competition at the box office. The actor's last commercial hit was 2012's "Agneepath", in which he played a menacing villain with a shaved head.

"He isn't the young Sanjay Dutt of 'Khal Nayak' fame any more," Bollywood trade analyst Amod Mehra said. "He was a superstar then but look at his age now."

(Writing by Tony Tharakan, editing by Paul Casciato)

(Reuters) - Nike Inc is dropping its partnership with the Livestrong Foundation, the cancer charity founded by disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, the latest repercussion from the doping scandal that last year stripped him of his titles.

Nike said on Tuesday it would end production of its Livestrong gear and apparel after the 2013 holiday line, concluding a long-standing licensing agreement for footwear and apparel between the two that helped Livestrong raise a total of $100 million over the course of the partnership.

"We expected changes like this," Katherine McLane, a Livestrong spokeswoman, said in a conference call with reporters. "Could there be fallout? Of course," she said. "We remain enormously confident...We are in strong fiscal shape."

When Armstrong left Livestrong's board, Nike said it would still back the charity, but no longer sponsor the man behind it.

However, Nike spokeswoman Mary Remuzzi told Reuters late on Tuesday that the decision to drop the partnership was taken as sales of the products had not met company's expectations.

Nike also distributed Livestrong's ubiquitous yellow wrist-bands, of which 87 million were sold.

Armstrong founded Livestrong in 1997 after being diagnosed with testicular cancer. The group flourished during his cycling career in which he won the Tour de France seven times.

The cyclist, who stepped down from Livestrong's board last October, admitted in January to systematic use of banned, performance-enhancing drugs after years of denials.

"This does show there are pros and cons of (a philanthropic foundation) being so closely associated with one person," said Patrick Rooney, associate dean of academic affairs and research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Still, Rooney predicted a large enough number of people would be able to separate Armstrong's misdeeds and the foundation's good works that it could survive.

Livestrong said its 2013 budget is $38.4 million, a 10.9 percent reduction from 2012, but that revenue projections were ahead by 2.5 percent.

Livestrong has similar licensing deals with sports eyewear maker Oakley, owned by Italy's Luxottica and others.

Nike will benefit from distancing itself from the charity and from the scandal-tainted athlete, said Robert Boland, a professor of sport management at New York University's Tisch Center.

"Their relationship with Livestrong was so based on Lance Armstrong and his story that it's almost impossible to separate them from a branding standpoint," Boland said. "The chief thing that is motivating Nike is they're looking to move on and put their years with Lance Armstrong behind them."

(Reporting by Phil Wahba, Ellen Wulfhorst and Scott Malone; additional reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Leslie Adler, Marguerita Choy and Dan Grebler)

The victims claimed abuse at schools and child-care facilities belonging to the Christian Brothers and the Christian Brothers of Ireland, Inc, in 17 U.S. states and Canada from the late 1940s or early 1950s until the 1980s, said James Stang, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

The settlement agreement reached in U.S. bankruptcy court also enables the victims to pursue more assets from the Christian Brothers such as real estate or insurance claims, Stang said.

A committee representing the accusers, who claimed abuse by mostly brothers of the order, agreed to the settlement terms.

In 2011, the Christian Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in response to the sexual abuse claims.

"Intense negotiations during the past three months have led to painful concessions in bringing about this mutually agreed upon settlement. This settlement will allow an opportunity to recommit ourselves to bringing the gospel of Jesus," Brother Kevin Griffith of the Christian Brothers said in a statement.

Both sides noted the agreement establishes safeguards to protect children from future abuse.

In April, the Vatican said Pope Francis wanted the Catholic Church to "act decisively" to root out sexual abuse of children by priests and ensure the perpetrators are punished.

The Catholic Church's crisis began in Boston in 2002 when media began reporting how cases of abuse were systematically covered up and abusive priests were shuttled from parish to parish instead of being defrocked and handed over to civil authorities.

Since then, the Catholic Church in many countries has set up new guidelines to deal with cases of past abuse, prevent new cases, report abuse to police, and stop potential abusers from entering the priesthood in the first place.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Irvin will be eligible to participate in all offseason activities and preseason practices and games, but will be suspended without pay for the opening four games at Carolina, home for San Francisco and Jacksonville and at Houston. Irvin will be eligible to return to Seattle's active roster on Sept. 30 following the Seahawks' Week 4 game against the Texans, but only after losing a quarter of his salary for the season.

Irvin, the Seahawks' first-round pick in the 2012 draft, was scheduled to make $814,645 in base salary for the 2013 season.

"I want to apologize to my teammates, coaches and Seahawks fans for making a mistake when I took a substance that is prohibited in the NFL without a medical exemption," Irvin said in a statement released by the team. "I am extremely disappointed in the poor judgment I showed and take full responsibility for my actions. I will not appeal the discipline and instead will focus my energy on preparing for the season so I can begin earning your trust and respect again. I look forward to contributing to the team the moment I return."

Irvin's loss could be a significant blow for a team that has become a popular pick to contend for a spot in the Super Bowl. Irvin was expected to start at defensive end with Chris Clemons likely to miss the start of the season while recovering from knee surgery after being injured in Seattle's playoff win at Washington last January.

Suddenly, Seattle's focus on addressing the depth on the defensive line in free agency won't be viewed as a luxury. Seattle signed Cliff Avril, Tony McDaniel and Michael Bennett in free agency to bolster a pass rush that was inconsistent for most of the 2012 season. Avril was the only true outside pass rusher the Seahawks signed, but all three, along with Irvin, were expected to upgrade one of the few weak spots on a rising young team.

Irvin finished his rookie season with eight sacks but had just one in the final six weeks of the regular season. With Clemons out, Irvin got the start against Atlanta in the NFC playoffs and appeared overwhelmed by the Falcons' offensive line while trying to be the main pass rusher on the Seahawks line. But his speed off the edge flashed at different points during his rookie season and was the big reason Seattle used the 15th overall pick on a rush end whom many pundits didn't expect to be drafted that high.

Later Friday, Irvin posted a lengthy message to his Twitter account, expressing remorse for his actions. Irvin, who had a troubled upbringing in Atlanta that included a brief jail stint as a teenager, noted his efforts to rebuild his image and said the suspension is another strike against him.

"I messed up and I feel so bad and have been depressed for weeks now," Irvin wrote. "I've had sleepless nights because I knew when this came out, I would let so many people down, including myself."

Irvin's suspension also continues a troubling trend of Seattle players running afoul of the league's policies on banned substances. Since 2011, five Seahawks players John Moffitt, Allen Barbre, Winston Guy, Brandon Browner and Irvin have received four-game suspensions. Barbre was later released by the team.

All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman was also suspended last season for using a banned substance but won his much-publicized appeal last December. Sherman won by claiming there were errors in the chain of custody for his urine sample and that the tester made mistakes.

The Prudential Regulation Authority said it would release more information when it had concluded discussions with all banks, including, where necessary, if banks need to take steps to meet any shortfalls.

Lloyds and RBS each said on Wednesday they did not need to issue more equity, and would meet extra capital needs by selling assets and through retained earnings and restructuring plans that are underway.

(Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Back pain, migraine and other types of chronic pain without a known physical cause - and therefore little prospect for relief - were associated with an increased risk of suicide in a new study of U.S. veterans.

But the researchers, who analyzed data on about five million patients in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, found no link between suicide and arthritis, neuropathies or non-migraine headaches.

Dr. Mark Ilgen, the study's lead author, said the findings jibe with what he and his colleagues expected to see based on their own experiences and past research.

"I think we had the expectation that certain conditions - such as migraine and back pain - would be especially problematic when it came to suicide risk," Ilgen, from the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System in Michigan, told Reuters Health.

That's because of differences in the origins, intensity and treatability of various chronic pain conditions, he said.

For example, there are treatments available for chronic pain brought on by arthritis, which is caused by joint inflammation. But fewer options are available for psychogenic pain - a diagnosis that literally means "originating in the mind" with no known physical cause.

"My sense is that the level of pain that they're seeing in arthritis is not as severe and debilitating as what people are seeing in the back pain group and psychogenic pain," said Dr. David Marks, a psychiatrist and pain medicine physician at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Past research has focused mainly on links between chronic pain and so-called suicidal behaviors, such as suicidal thoughts and attempts, according to the researchers.

For their study, Ilgen and his colleagues write in JAMA Psychiatry that they wanted to look at possible links between specific pain conditions and completed suicides.

They used data on 4,863,036 patients receiving care in the VA health system between October 2004 and September 2005 and then looked to see how many with a chronic pain condition killed themselves between October 2005 and September 2008.

Over two million people were diagnosed with arthritis and about 1.1 million people were diagnosed with back pain, which made those conditions the most common. Only about 18,000 people had psychogenic pain, which made it the least common condition.

About 5,000 people committed suicide over the next three years.

After taking into account the patients' ages, sex and other physical and psychiatric conditions, the researchers found that back pain, migraine and psychogenic pain were the only chronic pain conditions linked to suicide.

Back pain was linked to a 13 percent increased risk of committing suicide, compared to people without chronic pain. Migraines were linked to a 34 percent higher suicide risk and psychogenic pain was linked to a 58 percent increase in risk.

As far as how important these conditions are as risk factors for suicide, Ilgen said they "wouldn't be at the top of the list, but they still matter."

The findings also cannot prove these conditions are what caused the patients to commit suicide.

And Ilgen noted that the findings may not apply outside this specific population.

"I think the results probably generalize reasonably well to middle-aged males in the general population. If you want to apply the results to women, that's a little bit more challenging," he said.

Marks, who was not involved in the new research, said that despite the fact that only a minority of the people with chronic pain actually killed themselves, the study benefits doctors.

"It points out to pain providers that pain is a significant risk factor for suicide that needs to be screened for and taken into account," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/11fDWOF JAMA Psychiatry, online May 22, 2013.

But thedon't always win: For the first time, scientists have found evidence of a leopard eating a chimpanzee.

In Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park, researchers spent 41 days collecting African leopard scat from June to August 2012 (summer internship, anyone?). In one of the cat's "offerings," scientists found several chimpanzee patella and phalanges, corresponding to kneecaps and toe bones, respectively. DNA analysis showed that the bones came from an adult female chimp.

The researchers can't be entirely certain that thehunted down the chimp, because the cats occasionally eat dead animals; in other words, it's possible the chimp keeled over and then became leopard chow. However, the finding has led scientists to re-examine three mysterious wounds incurred by three different chimps in Mahale over the last few years. The wounds were deeper than thought to be possible from fights with other chimps, which is what scientists previously thought had happened.

A 2009 study suggested that chimpanzees face only negligible pressure from predators. If it's indeed true that the leopard ate a live chimp, scientists may need to rethink this view and further examine how predation from leopards, or other animals, might have driven the , the researchers said. One study from 1993 found evidence of lions eating four chimpanzees, also in Mahale Mountains National Park. The park is one of the few places with ongoing research where the range of leopards and chimpanzees overlap, which helps explain why this was witnessed there.

The new research was published online May 21 in the Journal of Human Evolution.

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