Phillies trade young pitchers to Twins for OF Revere

(Reuters) - The Philadelphia Phillies have filled a big need by landing speedy center fielder Ben Revere in a trade with the Minnesota Twins, the Major League Baseball teams said on Thursday.
The Phillies sent right-handed pitcher Vance Worley and right-handed pitching prospect Trevor May to Minnesota.
"Ben is an outstanding, young, controllable center fielder who fits nicely with our club," Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said in a statement.
Revere, who had a .294 batting average with 32 RBIs, 40 stolen bases and 70 runs scored last season, will replace Shane Victorino, who signed as a free agent with the Boston Red Sox.
The Twins come out of the deal with two promising young pitchers.
Worley, 25, was 6-9 with a 4.20 earned run average after going 11-3 with a 3.01 ERA in 2011, while 23-year-old May was rated as Philadelphia's number two overall prospect.
Because Revere, 24, is not yet eligible for salary arbitration, he comes relatively cheap to the Phillies, who are still in the market for a power-hitting corner outfielder.

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Low prices boost SF home sales to 5-year Jan. high

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Home sales in the San Francisco Bay area reached a five-year high for January, as prices and mortgage rates plunged, a real estate tracking firm reported Thursday.
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

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Why the Slowest Investors Win the Race

Anyone who attended kindergarten remembers Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare. The story's moral has implications for investors: Slow but steady wins the race.
Hare investors try to sprint to the finish line of a comfortable retirement without girding their portfolios against the perils of volatility — frequent ups and downs in asset value. So they tend to lag far behind tortoise investors, who take these precautions, which I'll explain in a moment.
Volatility reflects uncertainty, and markets tend to punish uncertainty with lower prices. Yet just because an investment is volatile doesn't mean it has no place in your portfolio. Because they may be less likely to go down with other assets in the portfolio, volatile investments may add highly beneficial variety, known as diversification.
Let's say you own tech stocks like Apple and IBM. Adding more tech stocks to your portfolio doesn't decrease overall risk, so you add a gold-mining stock instead. Though highly volatile in itself, the gold-mining stock is less likely to go up or down with tech stocks, so it increases the portfolio's diversification.
Because there's little correlation between gold-mining stocks' price movements with those of tech stocks, these categories are said to have a low correlation. That sounds complicated, but you can easily look up the differences in price movements between different types of investments to see whether they're correlated, and if so, how closely.
Aware of the downsides of volatility, tortoises avoid it by assembling highly diversified portfolios. That means traditional investments such as U.S. stocks and bonds, mixed with a dash of non-traditional (alternative) assets. These may include emerging market stocks, Treasury bonds and real estate securities. The price movements of these investments have a history of not being highly correlated with U.S. stocks or bonds.
Tortoises are like a savvy retailer on a tropical resort island who wisely sells umbrellas as well as sunscreen to help cover losses during rainy periods. Every once in while, the rain falls on everything -- which is what happened in late 2008, much to the dismay of investors. In the financial meltdown, stocks, bonds and real estate both in the US and abroad swooned, leaving little quarter for investors.
Tortoise-style investors add a touch of alternative investments, knowing this may cut their overall returns some years, but they'll sleep more peacefully with the knowledge that it can counter-balance heavy losses in traditional investments.
Hares aren't focused on this balanced approach. Instead, they assemble highly aggressive portfolios of assets that tend to rise or fall in lockstep. They're not concerned with cutting their losses because, compelled by greed, they're not planning to have any losses ior they believe they can defy gravity. This was not unlike the employees who loaded up on their company's shares before the recession, only to see their investment go south along with their job.
Like the Aesop's hare, hare investors are overconfident and turn a blind eye to the ravages of volatility, which take a long time to recover from. Tortoises, having sustained less damage, continue their slow but steady progress.
The math of recovering from hits may astonish you. Let's say your portfolio loses 33 percent of its value, leaving you with two thirds of what you had. Many believe they'd be back where they started if they gain 33 percent. But this gain wouldn't restore their losses. They would actually need to make a 50 percent gain to get back to where they started. The reason is that the gain is based on a lower value than what you started with.
Heavy gains followed by just a large losses from volatile investments is comparable to the hare in Aesop's fable sprinting for periods and then, winded, lying down to take a nap. Like the tortoise, investors with adequately diversified portfolios don't tend to need as much recovery time.
Such losses are even more damaging than they appear at first blush. Not only do hare portfolios lose time that could be used to make progress toward the goal, but they also miss out on the benefits of compounding from reinvested gains . Though tortoises' gains may be far lower than those made by hares during their sprints, they're more likely to enjoy the benefits of compounding.
These awkward reptiles plod steadily toward the finish line while the halting progress of hares leaves them far behind.

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US rate on 30-year mortgage hits record 3.83 pct.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. rates for 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages fell to fresh record lows this week. Cheap mortgage rates have made home-buying and refinancing more affordable than ever for those who can qualify.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan ticked down to 3.83 percent. That's the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s. And it's below the previous record rate of 3.84 percent reached last week.
The 15-year mortgage, a popular option for refinancing, dropped to 3.05 percent, also a record. That's down from last week's previous record of 3.07 percent.
Low mortgage rates haven't done much to boost home sales. Rates have been below 4 percent for all but one week since early December. Yet sales of both previously occupied homes and new homes fell in March.
There have been some positive signs in recent months. January and February made up the best winter for sales of previously occupied homes in five years. And builders are laying plans to construct more homes in 2012 than at any other point in past 3 1/2 years. That suggests some see the housing market slowly starting to turn around.
Still, many would-be buyers can't qualify for loans or afford higher down payments required by banks. Home prices in many cities continue to fall. That has made those who can afford to buy uneasy about entering the market. And for those who are willing to brave the troubled market, many have already taken advantage of lower rates — mortgage rates have been below 5 percent for more than a year now.
Mortgage rates are lower because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Slower U.S. job growth and uncertainty about how Europe will resolve its debt crisis have led investors to buy more Treasurys, which are considered safe investments. As demand for Treasurys increases, the yield falls.
To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.
The average rage does not include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.7 last week, down from 0.8 the previous week. The fee on 15-year loans also was 0.7, unchanged from the previous week.
The average on one-year adjustable rate was 2.73 percent last week, down from 2.7 percent the previous week. The fee on one-year adjustable rate mortgages was 0.5, down from 0.6.

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Venezuela VP: Chavez suffers 'new complications'

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hugo Chavez has suffered "new complications" following his cancer surgery in Cuba, his vice president said Sunday, describing the Venezuelan leader's condition as delicate.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro spoke with a solemn expression in a televised address from Havana, saying he had spoken with Chavez and that the president sent greetings to his homeland. Maduro did not give details about the complications, which he said came amid a respiratory infection.
"Several minutes ago we were with President Chavez. We greeted each other and he himself referred to these complications," Maduro said, reading from a prepared statement. The vice president was seated alongside Chavez's eldest daughter, Rosa, and son-in-law Jorge Arreaza, as well as Attorney General Cilia Flores.
Maduro's comments suggest an increasingly difficult fight for the ailing president. The Venezuelan leader has not been seen or heard from since undergoing his fourth cancer-related surgery Dec. 11, and government officials have said he might not return in time for his scheduled Jan. 10 inauguration for a new six-year term.
"The president gave us precise instructions so that, after finishing the visit, we would tell the (Venezuelan) people about his current health condition," Maduro said. "President Chavez's state of health continues to be delicate, with complications that are being attended to, in a process not without risks."
Maduro held up a copy of a newspaper confirming that his message was recorded on Sunday.
"Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is facing this difficult situation," Maduro said.
Maduro said he had met various times with Chavez's medical team and relatives. He said he would remain in Havana "for the coming hours" but didn't specify how long.
Maduro, who arrived in Havana on Saturday for a sudden and unexpected trip, is the highest-ranking Venezuelan official to see Chavez since the surgery in Cuba, where the president's mentor Fidel Castro has reportedly made regular visits to check on him.
Before flying to Cuba, Maduro said that Energy Minister Hector Navarro would be in charge of government affairs in the meantime.
"The situation does not look good. The fact that Maduro himself would go to Cuba, leaving Hector Navarro in charge only seems understandable if Chavez's health is precarious," said David Smilde, a University of Georgia sociologist and analyst for the Washington Office on Latin America think tank.
Smilde said that Maduro probably made the trip "to be able to talk to Chavez himself and perhaps to talk to the Castros and other Cuban advisers about how to navigate the possibility of Chavez not being able to be sworn in on Jan. 10."
"Mentioning twice in his nationally televised speech that Chavez has suffered new complications only reinforces the appearance that the situation is serious," Smilde said.
Before his operation, Chavez acknowledged he faced risks and designated Maduro as his successor, telling supporters they should vote for the vice president if a new presidential election were necessary.
Chavez said at the time that his cancer had come back despite previous surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He has been fighting an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer since June 2011.
Medical experts say that it's common for patients who have undergone major surgeries to suffer respiratory infections and that how a patient fares can vary widely from a quick recovery in a couple of days to a fight for life on a respirator.
Maduro's latest update differed markedly from last Monday, when he had said he received a phone call from the president and that Chavez was up and walking.
The vice president spoke on Sunday below a picture of 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, the inspiration of Chavez's leftist Bolivarian Revolution movement.
Maduro expressed faith that Chavez's "immense will to live and the care of the best medical specialists will help our president successfully fight this new battle." He concluded his message saying: "Long live Chavez."
Chavez has been in office since 1999 and was re-elected in October, three months after he had announced that his latest tests showed he was cancer-free.
Opposition politicians have criticized a lack of detailed information about Chavez's condition, and last week repeated their demands for a full medical report.
Information Minister Ernesto Villegas defended the government's handling of the situation, saying during a televised panel discussion on Sunday night that Chavez "has told the truth in his worst moments" throughout his presidency.
Villegas said a government-organized New Year's Eve concert in a downtown Caracas plaza had been canceled, and he urged Venezuelans to pray for Chavez.
Chavez's daughter Maria, who has been with the president since his surgery, said in a message on her Twitter account: "Thank you people of Venezuela. Thank you people of the world. You and your love have always been our greatest strength! God is with us! We love you!"
Allies of the president also responded on Twitter, repeating the phrase: "Chavez lives and will triumph.

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Venezuela's official statement on Chavez's health

English translation of statement read by Vice President Nicolas Maduro in Havana on Sunday about the health of President Hugo Chavez:
"The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela fulfills its duty by informing the Venezuelan people about the course of President Hugo Chavez's medical treatment after the surgery performed in Havana, Cuba on Dec. 11.
"As is known, on December 28 we traveled to Havana on the instructions of the President Commander, and I proceed to make the following report:
"Arriving in Havana, we went immediately to the hospital to update ourselves firsthand on the situation of the Commander President's health.
"We were informed of new complications arising from the already known respiratory infection.
"Yesterday, we kept abreast of the evolution of the situation and the response to treatment. We met several times with his medical team and his closest relatives.
"A few minutes ago we were with President Chavez, we greeted each other and he himself referred to these complications.
"We had the opportunity to share with the current national situation, the successful inaugurations of Bolivarian governors in 20 departments, and the satisfactory reception of his New Year message to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces.
"In particular, Commander Chavez wanted his New Year greeting transmitted to all Venezuelan families, who are gathering together in these days along the length and breadth of the country; he especially sent a warm hug to all the boys and girls of Venezuela, reminding them that he always holds them close to his heart. The embrace was extended to all our people, so that they receive love in 2013, a year which should be of the greatest happiness for our homeland, of definitive consolidation of our independence and national unity.
"The President gave us precise instructions so that, after finishing the visit, we would tell the (Venezuelan) people about his current health condition.
"Nineteen days after his complex surgery, President Chavez's state of health continues to be delicate, with complications that are being attended to, in a process not without risks. Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Commander Chavez is facing this difficult situation.
"At the same time, we have decided to announce that we will stay in Havana for the next few hours, accompanying the Commander and his family, very attentive to how the current situation is evolving.
"Confident that the global outpouring of love and solidarity for Commander Chavez, along with his immense will to live and the care of the best medical specialists will help our president successfully fight this new battle.

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President's brother speaks out on Colombia talks

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A brother of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has revealed that the country's largest guerrilla group had initially proposed to hold peace talks within Colombia or in neighboring Venezuela, rather than in Cuba.
Enrique Santos said in an article published in the newspaper El Espectador on Sunday that the government's team had insisted that the talks not be held in Colombia.
"We decided on Cuba for security and above all because it guaranteed confidentiality," Santos wrote in the article.
Representatives of the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, began discussions in Havana on Nov. 19 seeking a deal to end the country's decades-old conflict. They currently are taking a holiday break and are to resume talks on Jan. 14.
Santos, a journalist and former director of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, is not a member of the team involved in the current talks, though he has acted as an adviser to the government negotiators.
He revealed details of earlier discussions with the rebels starting in February 2011. He said he has been involved "in an irreversible way in this process."
Santos said that one especially complicated matter was getting one of the rebel leaders, Jaime Alberto Parra Rodriguez, to make the trip to Cuba for those initial discussions. Santos said the rebels were distrustful of the plans to shuttle away Parra, who is better known by the nom-de-guerre Mauricio Jaramillo or the nickname "El Medico."
"It was very hard to convince the FARC to ... accept putting (Parra) on a helicopter supplied by the state," Santos wrote. "At the time of picking him up, he appeared guarded by more than 50 men armed to the teeth. In the end there was crying by women guerrillas and a farewell ceremony. That was the first big achievement: getting Jaramillo to Havana. That process lasted nearly a year."
Santos said he and others arrived in Havana on Feb. 23, 2011, ahead of their first contacts with the guerrillas, and that after sitting together about 70 times, they finally signed a preliminary accord in August 2012 to launch the peace talks. Until they reached that point, Santos said, "various times we were on the verge of breaking off" the discussions.

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HIV cases decline for black women, increase for gay men: CDC

Fewer black women in the United States are being infected with HIV, but the number of young gay and bisexual men infected is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.
Between 2008 and 2010, the number of newly infected black women dropped 21 percent, according to the CDC report. Yet despite the decline, they still accounted for 70 percent of all new HIV cases among women, the federal health agency said.
The rate of new infections for black women was 20 times higher than the rate for white women, the CDC said.
The number of new infections among young gay and bisexual men increased by 22 percent during that same two-year period, the CDC said.
The number of new HIV infections diagnosed annually in the overall U.S. population remained unchanged between 2008 and 2010 at about 47,500, according to health officials.
Public information campaigns on HIV prevention and testing seem to be working in lowering the number of new infections among African-American women, said Joseph Prejean, chief of the Behavioral and Clinical Surveillance Branch in the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS Prevention in Atlanta.
"We are encouraged to see some declines among African-American women," Prejean told Reuters. "They've been one of the most severely affected populations. We're cautiously optimistic that this could be part of a longer-term trend."
Among young gay and bisexual men, efforts to fight HIV have not been as effective, possibly because of advances in treatment for AIDS, the immune disorder caused by HIV, Prejean said.
"We do realize that many men who have sex with men do probably underestimate their personal risk and believe that treatment advances minimize the health threat," Prejean said.
Even though treatment can prolong the life of an AIDS patient, Prejean cautioned that "their life really does change. They then begin to take medication and will take medication for the rest of their lives," he said.
HIV is an incurable infection that costs $400,000 to treat over a lifetime, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said last month after another government report showed more than half of young Americans infected with HIV were not aware they had it.
Young people ages 13 to 24 account for 26 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States, the earlier CDC report said.
The report released on Wednesday said nearly two-thirds of new HIV infections in 2010 resulted from men having sex with other men. Young black men who have sex with men account for more new infections than any other subgroup, government health officials said.
"Because gay men account for 66 percent of all new infections, we must increase the focus of our prevention programs for gay men, particularly young and black gay men," said Michael Ruppal, executive director of The AIDS Institute.

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Ky. court upholds decision in penis removal case

A Kentucky man lost his bid Friday to force a doctor to pay damages for removing a cancer-riddled section of his penis during what was scheduled to be a simple circumcision.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals found that a jury correctly concluded that 66-year-old Phillip Seaton of Waddy consented to allow Dr. John Patterson to perform any procedure deemed necessary during the Oct. 19, 2007, surgery.
Patterson, a Kentucky-based urologist, maintains he found cancer in the man's penis during surgery and that it had to be removed. The patient claims the surgery was supposed to be a circumcision and he never authorized the amputation, nor was he given a chance to seek a second opinion.
"Additionally, there is uncontroverted testimony in the record that if Mr. Seaton were not treated for the penile cancer, it would prove fatal in the future," Judge Janet Stumbo wrote for the court.
Judge Michael Caperton dissented, but did not issue a written opinion.
Clay Robinson, a Lexington-based attorney for Patterson, said the opinion was "very well-reasoned" and fact-based.
"You always appreciate when you see judges at any level go into that amount of detail," Robinson said.
Seaton and his wife, Deborah, sued Patterson, a Kentucky-based urologist, in Shelby County Circuit Court in 2008. Seaton, now in his 60s, was having the procedure to better treat inflammation. The Seatons also sued Jewish Hospital, where the surgery took place. The hospital settled with the couple for an undisclosed amount.
Both sides agree that Seaton had squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer, in his penis. Patterson concluded that a tumor had overtaken much of the top of the organ, which made it impossible to insert a catheter.
"He also opined that serious complications and additional surgery could result if he did not insert the catheter," Stumbo wrote.
The main point of contention is whether Patterson acted reasonably in removing the organ immediately or if amputation could have been delayed to let Seaton seek other medical options.
Stumbo and Judge Donna Dixon concluded that, even though Seaton had limited ability to read and write, he never informed the doctor of that fact and signed the consent form in the presence of a witness. The Seatons claimed that the waiver didn't give Patterson authority to conduct an amputation without further consent.
"They maintain that no harm would have resulted if Dr. Patterson has consulted with either of them before proceeding, or if he had allowed them to consult with another physician to get a second opinion or other treatment options," Stumbo wrote.
Stumbo wrote that Patterson acted properly because the tumor had consumed such a large section of the organ.
"For this reason alone, the resection of the tumor was 'necessary and proper' in the context of inserting a catheter," Stumbo wrote.
Kevin George of Louisville, the attorney for Seaton, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

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Judge orders end to HIV prison segregation in Alabama

Judge orders end to HIV prison segregation in Alabama
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge ruled on Friday to end the segregation of prisoners with HIV in Alabama, agreeing that it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
"It is evident that, while the ... segregation policy has been an unnecessary tool for preventing the transmission of HIV, it has been an effective one for humiliating and isolating prisoners living with the disease," U. S. District Judge Myron Thompson wrote in his ruling.
South Carolina now remains the only state segregating HIV inmates from the general population. Mississippi ceased a similar practice in March 2010.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over what the group contended was a discriminatory practice that prevented most HIV-positive inmates from participating in rehabilitation and retraining programs, including mental health and substance abuse programs, important for their success after prison.
"We won on all counts. It is a total victory and a glorious day for everyone with HIV," said Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project and lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
Proponents of ending the policy sited an out-dated view of HIV/AIDS, which has become increasingly controllable. In the case of a virus transmitted by behavior, and not environment, preventing its spread is easier through proper medical treatment, rather than radical segregation of HIV positive inmates, according to Nancy Mahon, who chairs the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA).
"We now have ability to suppress the virus and reduce the possibility of transmission to four percent. Alabama and South Carolina have been in the dark ages about this public health sorrow," said Mahon, who also directs the MAC AIDS Fund, which is financing the ACLU challenges in both states.
"The last thing we want to do is send them back into the community without treatment," she added.
Two of Alabama's 29 prisons have dormitories specifically housing prisoners with HIV. A handful of prisoners had been allowed to live and work in non-segregated settings in work-release programs, Winter said.
Currently, the inmates with HIV live, eat and exercise apart from the general population, according to court documents filed by the ACLU. Male inmates in the HIV dormitories were given white armbands that signal their medical status.
"First, we are isolated ... like we are contagious animals," Dana Harley, another prisoner who was a plaintiff in the case, said in a letter included in the court file. "It is like punishment three times over."
Approximately 270 inmates out of the 26,400 in the state prison system have tested positive for the virus and none have developed AIDS, according to Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett, who did not respond to inquiries about the ruling.
The judge plans to rule separately on the medical criteria for work release for HIV prisoners, according to his ruling.

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