Wall Street flat near highs as investors seek catalysts

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Monday as investors scrambled to find catalysts to move the market higher after a six-weeks-long advance that has taken the S&P 500 index near record highs.


The benchmark index is up more than 6 percent so far this year after a steep rally in January that has stalled as the S&P and Dow industrials near multiyear highs.


Trading volume was relatively low, which could make the market volatile and exaggerate moves.


Google Inc shares fell 0.9 percent at $777.94 after the company said in a filing former chief executive Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his Google stake, a move that could potentially net him $2.51 billion.


But the decline was offset by gains in Apple , up 1.8 percent at $483.68 after a New York Times report that the iPhone maker is experimenting with the design of a device similar to a wristwatch.


"It's really the valuation and indications that the economy is improving that have pushed the market higher. We would have to see a probable correction before heading higher and that could come from weak economic data in the future," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management.


No economic data or major earnings reports are scheduled for Monday, but Federal Reserve Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen is due to speak about the economic recovery at 1 p.m. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama will describe his plan for spurring the economy in his State of the Union address. He is expected to offer proposals for investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 18.09 points, or 0.13 percent, at 13,974.88. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.71 point, or 0.05 percent, at 1,517.22. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 2.32 points, or 0.07 percent, at 3,191.55.


Upbeat U.S. and Chinese data last week helped the S&P 500 extend its weekly winning streak to six.


Opposition has grown to the $24.4 billion buyout of Dell Inc , the No. 3 personal computer maker, as three of the largest investors joined Southeastern Asset Management on Friday in raising objections. Dell said in a regulatory filing it had considered many strategic options before opting to go private in a buyout led by Chief Executive Michael Dell.


Dell shares hovered near $13.65, the buyout offer price.


Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc shares jumped 3.9 percent at $172.39 after it said longtime drug development partner Sanofi plans to boost its stake in Regeneron by open market purchases of its stock.


(Reporting By Angela Moon)



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Eagles, QB Vick agree to restructured deal


PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Quarterback Michael Vick, who was slated to earn $16 million next season, has agreed to a restructured deal with the Philadelphia Eagles.


Vick, who was injured and inconsistent last season, eventually giving way to rookie Nick Foles, now has a three-year contract, and will compete with Foles to see who runs new coach Chip Kelly's offense this season.


Vick, who returned to start the season finale vs. the New York Giants in December because Foles was injured, finished the season with 2,362 yards passing, 12 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. The Eagles finished 4-12 and in last place in the NFC East.


Andy Reid was fired as coach the day after the season ended, and Kelly was hired last month. Vick, who will be 33 when next season begins, is still elusive when healthy, and seems equipped to run Kelly's aggressive, up-tempo offense that he is bringing to the Eagles from Oregon.


Either way, Kelly was noncommittal at his opening press conference on Jan. 17 on the quarterback situation.


"I'm going to look at everybody," he said. "If you can throw the ball and run, I'm going to take you out there. We're going to look at everything we can do to put the best product on the field and that's what it's all about. I've followed Michael's career and I understand what a talent he is. But there is nothing that's on the board right now, there's nothing that's off the board right now.


Vick was signed by Philadelphia in 2009, and became the starter in 2010. He led the Eagles that season to an NFC East title, and a memorable 38-31 December win over the Giants in which he rallied the team from a 21-point deficit.


"Our sole focus and goal is that we're going to put an offense on the field that's going to score points," Kelly said. "That's basically what we're going to do and whoever that is, I don't know that. There's nobody ruled in, there's nobody ruled out."


All told, Vick has started 35 games for Philadelphia over the last three seasons. Foles has started six. The Eagles scored just 280 points last season as they endured an eight- and a three-game losing streak. Only Arizona (250) scored fewer in the NFC.


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What beats Grammy? Immortality













Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time








STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Bob Greene: Grammy nominated acts should remember the real prize comes later in life

  • He says at a hotel he ran into a group of singing stars from an earlier era, in town for a show

  • He says the world of post-fame touring less glamorous for acts, but meaningful

  • Greene: Acts grow old, but their hits never will and to fans, the songs are time-machine




Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams"; "Late Edition: A Love Story"; and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen."


(CNN) -- Memo to Carly Rae Jepsen, Frank Ocean, Hunter Hayes, Mumford & Sons, Miguel, the Alabama Shakes and all the other young singers and bands who are nominated for Sunday night's Grammy Awards:


Your real prize -- the most valuable and sustaining award of all -- may not become evident to you until 30 or so years have passed.


You will be much older.


But -- if you are lucky -- you will still get to be out on the road making music.



Bob Greene

Bob Greene



Many of Sunday's Grammy nominees are enjoying the first wave of big success. It is understandable if they take for granted the packed concert venues and eye-popping paychecks.


Those may go away -- the newness of fame, the sold-out houses, the big money.


But the joy of being allowed to do what they do will go on.


I've been doing some work while staying at a small hotel off a highway in southwestern Florida. One winter day I was reading out on the pool deck, and there were some other people sitting around talking.


They weren't young, by anyone's definition. They did not seem like conventional businessmen or businesswomen on the road, or like retirees. There was a sense of nascent energy and contented anticipation in their bearing, of something good waiting for them straight ahead. A look completely devoid of grimness or fretfulness, an afternoon look that said the best part of the day was still to come.


I would almost have bet what line of work they were in. I'd seen that look before, many times.


I could hear them talking.


Yep.


The Tokens ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a No. 1 hit in 1961).




Little Peggy March ("I Will Follow Him," a No. 1 hit in 1963).


Little Anthony and the Imperials ("Tears on My Pillow," a top 10 hit in 1958).


Major singing stars from an earlier era of popular music, in town for a multi-act show that evening.


It is the one sales job worth yearning for -- carrying that battered sample case of memorable music around the country, to unpack in front of a different appreciative audience every night.


It's quite a world. I was fortunate enough to learn its ins and outs during the 15 deliriously unlikely years I spent touring the United States singing backup with Jan and Dean ("Surf City," a No. 1 hit in 1963) and all the other great performers with whom we shared stages and dressing rooms and backstage buffets:


Chuck Berry, Martha and the Vandellas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, James Brown, Lesley Gore, Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, the Kingsmen, the Drifters, Fabian, the Coasters, Little Eva, the Ventures, Sam the Sham. ...


Jukebox names whose fame was once as fresh and electric as that now being savored by Sunday's young Grammy nominees.


Decades after that fame is new, the road may not be quite as glamorous, the crowds may not be quite as large. The hours of killing time before riding over to the hall, the putrid vending-machine meals on the run, the way-too-early-in-the-morning vans to the airport -- the dreary parts all become more than worth it when, for an hour or so, the singers can once again personally deliver a bit of happiness to the audiences who still adore their music.


Greene: Super Bowl ad revives iconic voice


As the years go by, the whole thing may grow complicated -- band members come and go, they fight and feud, some quit, some die. There are times when it seems you can't tell the players without a scorecard -- the Tokens at the highway hotel were, technically and contractually, Jay Siegel's Tokens (you don't want to know the details). One of their singers (not Jay Siegel -- Jay Traynor) was once Jay of Jay and the Americans, a group that itself is still out on the road in a different configuration with a different Jay (you don't want to know).


But overriding all of this is a splendid truism:


Sometimes, if you have one big hit, it can take care of you for the rest of your life. It can be your life.


Sunday's young Grammy nominees may not imagine, 30 years down the line, still being on tour. But they -- the fortunate ones -- will come to learn something:


They will grow old, but their hits never will -- once people first fall in love with those songs, the songs will mean something powerful and evocative to them for the rest of their lives.


And as long as there are fairground grandstands on summer nights, as long as there are small-town ballparks with stages where the pitcher's mound should be, the singers will get to keep delivering the goods.


That is the hopeful news waiting, off in the distance, for those who will win Grammys Sunday, and for those who won't be chosen.


On the morning after that pool-deck encounter in Florida I headed out for a walk, and in the parking lot of the hotel I saw one of the Tokens loading his stage clothes into his car.


His license plate read:


SHE CRYD


I said to him:


"You sing lead on 'She Cried,' right?"


"Every night," he said, and drove off toward the next show.


The next show.


That's the prize.


That's the trophy, right there.


Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.


Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.






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Famous film couple back 9 years on in “Before Midnight”






BERLIN (Reuters) – Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise the roles of Jesse and Celine in “Before Midnight”, the third but not necessarily the last movie in their long-running series based on the same characters as they age over time.


In this film, set 18 years after “Before Sunrise”, the couple is on holiday in Greece and we learn that they live with their twin daughters in Paris while Jesse’s son has stayed with his mother in Chicago.






Screening at the Berlin film festival on Monday, “Before Midnight” examines how life’s twists have taken their toll on the American tourist and French student who met on a train bound for Vienna in 1995 and again in Paris nine years later in “Before Sunset”.


They still love each other but this time they are older, heavier, and bicker more, and the forces pulling Jesse back towards his teenage son and Celine’s determination to pursue her career in France test that bond to its limits.


Director Richard Linklater, on board throughout the series, underlined the organic nature of the “Before…” films when he was asked whether there might be a fourth installment, presumably sometime around 2022.


“The fact that we’ve made two sequels, I guess it begs the question, but I think I speak for the group here, I’m sure we have absolutely no idea what that (sequel) could possibly be,” he told reporters at the 11-day film festival.


“We probably won’t for another six years. Who knows the future?”


French actress Delpy joked that the final film in the series would be a remake of Michael Haneke’s Oscar-nominated drama “Amour”, about an elderly couple aged in their 80s facing the inevitability of imminent death.


“STIFLING” EXPECTATIONS


Critical reaction to “Before Midnight” has been mixed.


In its review, the Guardian newspaper said the movie felt forced, but The Hollywood Reporter wrote: “Though this stage is harder to watch, audiences who have aged along with Celine and Jesse will treasure this new episode.”


Hawke said he, Delpy and Linklater, who jointly developed the script over two years, felt the weight of expectation as they embarked on the third part of a story which many viewers identified with so closely.


“I haven’t met a director in the last nine years that didn’t tell me what he or she thought the third film should be. So we knew we were up against a lot of people having an agenda about where Jesse and Celine should be. That agenda is stifling.”


“Before Midnight” consists of a handful of long, single-shot scenes focusing on the couple as they navigate a life complicated by broken families, work pressures and the familiarity of living together.


In the first scene Jesse sees his son off at the airport in an awkward exchange that underlines how the two have grown apart. In the next Jesse and Celine discuss children, work and their relationship in frank and often funny exchanges.


At one point Celine says men measure themselves against leading figures from history. When Jesse counters that women do too, he mentions Joan of Arc.


“She was burned at the stake and was a virgin,” jokes Celine. “Who wants to be Joan of Arc?”


As the film goes on, banter becomes bickering, then descends into a blazing row. Linklater stressed that the dialogue may seem off-the-cuff but it required a lot of hard work.


“It feels improvised. It’s not,” he said. “It’s meticulously rehearsed and structured.”


(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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‘Fully-funded’ policy on social care









Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says people must feel confident their homes are not at risk



The government says it will announce a “fully-funded solution” on Monday to the problem of elderly people in England who cannot afford social care.


It is expected to include a £75,000 cap on the costs people pay for care and a rise in the threshold for means-tested support from £23,250 to £123,000.


Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said the “scandal” of many people selling homes to pay care bills must be tackled.


Labour said the country needed “a far bigger and bolder response”.


At present, up to 40.000 people every year are forced into selling their homes because they face unlimited care bills, says Mr Hunt – who will set out the plan in a statement to the Commons.


He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show the aim was “to be one of the first countries in the world which creates a system where people don’t have to sell their own house”.


Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, said: “We will make sure no-one is forced to sell their home to pay for care in their lifetime, and no-one sees their life savings disappear just because they developed the wrong kind of illness.”


The cost of accommodation in residential care homes averages about £7,000-£10,000 a year.


Continue reading the main story

Ministers may be giving themselves a big pat on the back for their changes to the social care system.


But for many involved in the sector this is just the start of the process.


Firstly, the £75,000 cap is more than double the figure recommended by Andrew Dilnot, the independent expert asked to look at the issue by government two years ago.


While publicly it is being welcomed – campaigners have been promised reform ever since Tony Blair came to power – there is a nagging fear that it is too high to really get people engaged with planning for their old age.


And, secondly, this reform does nothing to improve the quality of services currently on offer. It is purely aimed at preventing people having to sell their own homes to pay for care.


Local government has long argued the system is dramatically under-funded and services are suffering as a result. For many, this is just the start of the solution.



While the cap is a sizeable sum the hope is that, by establishing the principle that the state will cover the really high costs, people will start planning for their future care needs.


There are a variety of ways in which the elderly with the means to do so can free up £75,000, but one hope is that the insurance industry will start engaging with the issue and developing products that would cover old-age care.


Mr Hunt, who said 10% of people ended up paying more than £100,000 in care costs, said that “just as people make provisions for their pensions in their 20s and 30s, so we also need to be a country that prepares for social care as well”.


He added: “By setting an upper limit to how much people have to pay, then it makes it possible for insurance companies to offer policies, for people to have options on their pensions, so that anything you have to pay under the cap is covered.”


As well as introducing a cap, the government is expected to increase the means-tested threshold – there to ensure the less well-off get state help towards their care costs.


Currently anyone with assets of more than £23,250 has to pay for their care. Under the plans, it is likely the threshold will rise to £123,000 for people who need to go into a care home.


That reflects the fact that rising property prices over the years have effectively meant any home-owner falls outside the state system.


Continue reading the main story

Start Quote



These proposals won’t do anything for the hundreds of thousands of elderly and disabled people who are facing a desperate daily struggle to get the care and support they need right now”



End Quote Shadow care minister Liz Kendall


Mr Hunt is also expected to reveal that the plans will be part-funded by freezing the inheritance tax threshold – at £325,000 for individuals and £650,000 for couples – for three years from 2015.


That is despite Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement pledge, in December, to raise the threshold by 1% – to £329,000 for individuals and £658,000 for couples – in 2015/2016.


Other funding will come from previously-announced changes to National Insurance and pensions and cuts in government departments.


Labour said that, while the government’s plan would help “some people who need residential care in five or more years’ time”, it would not be fair “for people with modest homes”.


“And these proposals won’t do anything for the hundreds of thousands of elderly and disabled people who are facing a desperate daily struggle to get the care and support they need right now,” shadow minister for care and older people Liz Kendall said.


“We need a far bigger and bolder response to meet the needs of our ageing population: a genuinely integrated NHS and social care system which helps older people stay healthy and living independently in their own homes for as long as possible.”


Continue reading the main story

Start Quote



“The reforms will start to open up the possibility of the financial services sector being able to help people prepare for care”



End Quote Economist Ros Altmann


The National Pensioners Convention said the proposals “simply tinker at the edges” and that a £75,000 cap “will help just 10% of those needing care, whilst the majority will be left to struggle on with a third-rate service”.


“The current system is dogged by means-testing, a postcode lottery of charges, a rationing of services and poor standards and nothing in the plan looks like it will address any of these concerns,” general secretary Dot Gibson said.


Older people’s charity Age UK said it was disappointed at the “high cap” of £75,000 but added “a high cap is better than no cap at all”.


The Association of British Insurers (ABI) welcomed the plans but said it was “vital that people clearly understand the cap and what costs are covered, and a national awareness campaign will be needed to make this happen”.


And Economist Ros Altmann said the proposals would create a fairer system that would allow people to “plan and prepare for care”.


BBC News – Business





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Battling College Costs, a Paycheck at a Time






If Steve Boedefeld graduates from Appalachian State University without any student loan debt, it will be because of the money he earned fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and the money he now saves by eating what he grows or kills.


Zack Tolmie managed to escape New York University with no debt — and a degree — by landing a job at Bubby’s, the brunch institution in TriBeCa, where he made $ 1,000 a week. And he had entered N.Y.U. with sophomore standing, thanks to Advanced Placement credits. All that hard work also yielded a $ 25,000 annual merit scholarship.






The two are part of a rare species on college campuses these days, as the nation’s collective student loan balance hits $ 1 trillion and continues to rise. While many students are trying to defray some of the costs, few can actually work their way through college in a normal amount of time without debt and little or no need-based financial aid unless they have an unusual combination of bravery, luck and discipline.


“I literally never went out,” Mr. Tolmie says. “There just was not time to do that.”


Plenty of influential people assume that teenagers can ask parents for loans if all else fails, as Mitt Romney suggested during the 2012 presidential campaign. Others recall working their way through college themselves, including Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina who heads a House subcommittee on higher education and work force training. “I spent seven years getting my undergraduate degree and didn’t borrow a dime of money,” she once said at a subcommittee meeting, adding that she was bewildered, given her own experience, by tales of woe she had heard from people with $ 80,000 in debt.


But students nowadays who try to work their way through college without parental support or loans face a financial challenge of a different order than the one that Ms. Foxx, 69, confronted as a University of North Carolina undergraduate more than 40 years ago. Today, a bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State, the largest university in her district, can easily cost $ 80,000 for a state resident, including tuition, room, board and other costs. Back in her day, the total was about $ 550 a year. Even with inflation, that would translate to just over $ 4,000 for each year it takes to earn a degree.


And the paychecks that Mr. Tolmie managed in the big city are only a dream in towns like Boone, where employers have their pick of thousands of Appalachian State undergraduates. Even the most industrious, like Kelsey Manuel, a junior who drives 10 miles each way to a job in a resort where she earns $ 10 to $ 11 an hour, often cannot work enough to finish college debt-free.


No one tracks how many students are trying to work their way through without parental assistance or debt, but plenty work long hours while also attending classes full time. As of 2010, some 17 percent of full-time undergraduates of traditional age worked 20 to 34 hours a week, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. About 6 percent worked 35 hours or more.


Students who work fewer than 30 hours a week (excluding federal work-study jobs) while in college were 1.4 times more likely to graduate within six years than students who spent more than 30 hours a week in a job, according to an article by Pilar Mendoza, an assistant professor of higher education administration at the University of Florida, in The Journal of Student Financial Aid last year. Their grades are likely to be better, too, since they have more time to study.


But working less has financial consequences. “You have two choices,” Ms. Mendoza says of students whose families could not or would not contribute to their college costs. “You either work, or you acquire debt.”


Banking on Brunch


Zack Tolmie chose to work. He first caught sight of New York University on television when he was a freshman in high school in Altamont, N.Y., outside Albany. While his parents wanted him to attend college, their savings suffered in the 2001 recession.


So Mr. Tolmie got a job at a Johnny Rockets restaurant. By the time he started college in 2007, he had saved $ 8,000, four times as much as his parents had accumulated for him.


Impressed by the pluck he had demonstrated in passing so many Advanced Placement tests, N.Y.U. guaranteed Mr. Tolmie $ 25,000 in merit scholarships each year, which left him with about $ 75,000 that he needed to earn over three years. “I had a chart on my desk so that every time I sat down I would need to look at it,” he says. “Every two weeks I needed X amount. That first year, it would have been around $ 600 after taxes.”


He got his lucky break when a server from Bubby’s spotted him working elsewhere and said he would probably be happier working with her. He let her boss know how eager he was. “I made it clear I wanted to work as much as possible,” he says. Waiters could earn $ 300 each on the weekend brunch shift, with its rapid turnover of tables and parade of mimosas.


As the new guy, he lacked the seniority to get those shifts. But he would show up for them anyway because colleagues would often bail out if a willing replacement was standing by. Then, he would work a double shift and stay until midnight. “It was kind of funny,” he says. “I was waiting tables so I could go to school, and so many times I thought, ‘If only I didn’t have to go to school, I could just work day shifts.’ ”


Mr. Tolmie picked a double major in math and economics, in part because he knew he could finish in three years. Inevitably, there were trade-offs, including his B-plus average. “I could have probably done better if I had devoted an extra 10 hours each week,” he says. “But that wasn’t really an option.”


He also didn’t have much of a social life. “The absolute worst was hearing about friends back at home and the colleges they went to, especially the ones that have proper campuses,” he says. “I didn’t have a friend that I’d bring home for Christmas break.”


Mr. Tolmie received his degree in 2010 and works as a mortgage broker. He looks at people around him and is glad he didn’t take another approach to paying for college.


“There is someone I worked with at the restaurant who went to school for music,” he says. “But music doesn’t pay well. And with the hours as a waiter, he can’t do what he wants to do as a musician. He’s working, enslaved to the student loan debt, all for a career he’s not able to pursue.”


Homegrown Groceries


Appalachian State costs less than half what N.Y.U. does, but there are not many jobs in Boone, N.C., where a teenager can make $ 300 in a couple of hours.


Steve Boedefeld’s solution was to earn much of the money he needed before he got there. A native of Ridgedale, Mo., he was a straight-A student in high school and an avid reader of military history, particularly Vietnam chronicles. “I remember reading all of those books,” he says. “And I didn’t want my grandson to look back and ask me why I didn’t go when my country was at war.” The financial benefits to enlisting with the elite Army Rangers were attractive, too.


“My folks tried everything to keep me from joining the Army,” he says. “They told me that I could go to school wherever I wanted and that they would pay for it. But I was pretty much dead-set that I could do it on my own. Their parents didn’t float their bill, so why should I be different?”


Mr. Boedefeld enlisted in 2006 and finished his service in 2010, after three tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, each lasting three to six months. The discipline that allowed him to endure Ranger training and survive combat has carried over to his financial life. As a soldier in a war zone away from his wife, Jennifer, he earned as much as $ 5,000 a month, much of it tax-free thanks to longstanding rules governing combat pay. They put away $ 10,000 to $ 15,000 annually. “One of my friends calls me an economy killer,” he said.


The Boedefelds arrived in Boone with enough money for a down payment on a fixer-upper. They moved there because Appalachian State offered a degree in renewable energy that interested Mr. Boedefeld, now 25. He joined the North Carolina National Guard to get in-state tuition rates, and his service enables him to buy reasonably priced health insurance for his wife and two sons.


With his National Guard service, his $ 2,000 a month or so in G.I. Bill benefits and the $ 10 an hour he makes working 15 to 20 hours a week for an electrician, the family is debt-free, save for their mortgage. They have found a number of low-cost ways to stretch the budget they keep posted on the refrigerator.


“We definitely live on what we can grow in the garden and what I can hunt for,” he says, over a dinner of homemade venison enchiladas topped with salsa made of vegetables from the garden outside. “I try to plan so that we make at least two deer meals a week.”


He is also known in the neighborhood as the guy to call when a tree is down. He cuts and splits it to fuel the wood stove that heats the family’s house.


Even after all of the chopping, hunting and parenting, Mr. Boedefeld is on schedule to graduate in the spring and hopes to teach technology, engineering and design to high school students. He has maintained a 3.8 grade-point average, in part by having little contact outside of class with other students.


He worries about those who arrive on campus without any direction. “I think some students are naïve,” he says. “It’s half their fault and half because they just don’t know what college is meant for. People are going to school because they think they should, when you should go to school for an investment.”


Investing in Oneself


When Kelsey Manuel, 21, transferred from a community college near her home in Lexington, N.C., to Appalachian State, she worried about enrolling without a clear career goal. But she soon settled on a hospitality major, having worked as a waitress near her home. She made $ 16,000 in 2011.


Those earnings, however, kept her from being eligible for much federal financial aid, and she was only able to earn just over $ 12,000 in 2012 at a similar job at a hotel about 10 miles from campus. Her parents have not been able to help her pay for college, and she is now on pace to end up with at least $ 30,000 in student loan debt.


Esther Manogin, director of the office of student financial aid at Appalachian State, worries that students fail to place debt in context. “You could not buy a new S.U.V.,” she says, for the average debt level of the university’s graduates, which is likely to be around $ 25,000 for this year’s freshmen who borrow and finish their degrees. “I don’t encourage them to take out loans if they don’t need them. But if that’s the only way they can get an education and realize their dream, then I think it’s an excellent investment in themselves.”


According to the College Board, the average debt among all bachelor’s degree recipients from public universities was $ 13,600 for the 2010-11 school year. The average among all those who borrowed was $ 23,800, and many of them were probably getting at least some financial assistance from their parents. The average full-time undergraduate at a four-year public university during the 2012-13 school year is paying a net price of $ 12,110 for tuition, room, board and other fees after taking grant aid and tax credits into consideration, though not everyone who wants or needs to work to pay for college will qualify.


As it is for many students who work long hours and have little spending money to show for it, Ms. Manuel’s financial situation sets her apart and exposes her to any number of slights. Joining a sorority is out of the question, given the dues and the fact that many social functions occur during prime working hours.


Then there are the comments about her banged-up Toyota with nearly 134,000 miles on it. “I heard someone say recently: ‘Don’t let her drive her car. You should see it!’ ” she says. “I don’t have money to get it fixed.”


Friends from Lexington wonder why she doesn’t often return to visit, without realizing that if she didn’t work she would literally be losing money. And peers at school ask why she cannot spend the money she’s earned. “Before it’s even made, it has a home,” she says.


She worries that her long hours on the job may put her academic performance and future employment prospects in jeopardy.


Indeed, this is Ms. Manogin’s biggest fear about students like this. “I just don’t see how they cannot let their grades suffer,” she says. “Research says that for every hour of class, you need to allocate three hours of study.”


She declined to comment on Representative Foxx’s nose-to-the-grindstone, debt-free exhortation. “Probably anything I say about Virginia Foxx will get me fired,” she says.


Ms. Manuel, though, didn’t hesitate to note the long odds of earning enough while enrolled in college full-time to avoid student loans. “If I could make that kind of money, believe me, I’d do it.” A spokeswoman for Representative Foxx declined an interview request.


Ms. Manuel says she does wish that she had saved more money from previous jobs. But so far, she doesn’t regret having enrolled at Appalachian State.


“I know that in the end, I’m probably going to be in a better situation,” she says. “I’m going to know the value of a dollar. These are the things that you just need to learn to grow up.”


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Analysis: Accounting risk clouds big U.S. business bets in China


NEW YORK/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tales of shady business practices abound in China - fake revenues, phony invoices, sham factories - but until recently, the problem seemed confined mostly to Chinese companies.


No longer.


Concern is growing about risks to U.S.-based multinationals in a country where American audit regulators are locked out by the Chinese government and bribery and fraud are routine.


Questions about transparency and integrity weigh heavily on China, the world's second-largest economy, as it assumes greater economic leadership and responsibility. These doubts test its ability to adhere to international standards.


Stories of business deception - confirmed by corporate sleuths, former business executives, court filings and experts on accounting in China - are commonplace.


There was the Chinese company that billed itself as a high-tech television screen manufacturer, but had a factory that turned out to be a man selling fireworks from a shack.


Or there was the Chinese biodiesel plant that sat idle for months, then sprang to life one day - when investors showed up for a tour - only to fall silent again.


Last month, there was the scandal at a Chinese unit of Caterpillar Inc , the world's largest construction equipment manufacturer, based in Peoria, Illinois.


On January 18, Caterpillar disclosed "deliberate, multi-year, coordinated accounting misconduct" at the Siwei unit of ERA Mining Machinery. Caterpillar said it would write off most of the $654 million it had paid to acquire ERA only months earlier.


Caterpillar's Siwei stumble was not the first for a U.S. multinational in China, but the scope of the problem stood out.


Caterpillar has provided few details, but it has disclosed inventory discrepancies, inflated profits and improperly recorded costs and revenue at Siwei.


Caterpillar declined further comment.


Part of Caterpillar's problem may have been inadequate due diligence work prior to the ERA acquisition. Companies often try to keep fees down for this type of work, but in China that may be asking for trouble, says Paul Gillis, an accounting professor at Peking University in Beijing.


Acquiring firms typically do some of their own due diligence while also relying on deal advisers, legal experts and auditors. Due to the risks in China, efforts should be beefed up to uncover fraud, Gillis said. "When you start cutting corners on audits ... you're enabling those who commit fraud."


GOING FOR GROWTH


Of course, it is not as if the United States has not had its own share of egregious accounting frauds over the years. In 2001-2002, a series of major scandals involving the likes of Enron, WorldCom and Tyco shook the U.S. economy.


Legislation followed that strengthened oversight of auditing and accountability of companies' top officers. That has not stopped U.S. accounting fraud, but it has made it easier to identify and deter some of the most egregious behavior.


In China, where large U.S. corporations are making some very big bets, a new frontier of accounting risk is opening up.


Lured by an economy growing much more quickly than the United States, U.S. companies have directly invested $54 billion in Chinese businesses, factories and property, most of it in the past decade, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data.


Despite a cooling off of China's growth last year, demand from its massive consumer class is still lifting revenues at companies that range from coffee seller Starbucks Corp to casino operator Wynn Resorts .


The Caterpillar experience and the growing catalog of smaller instances of deception and abuse have some experts wondering if U.S. companies' Chinese results can be trusted.


Though China is shifting to a market economy, much business is still done on a handshake, China experts say. State secret laws hinder investigations by outsiders. Audits done in China of U.S. corporate units there cannot be inspected by U.S. regulators because the Chinese government refuses to allow them.


A former executive at a large, U.S.-based multinational active in China recalled the firm's auditor being fired for trying to correct improper accounting at a joint venture in China. Managers there were trying to book sales early, sometimes for unassembled products, to avoid a coming tax increase, said the executive, who asked not to be named. He said he had the auditor reinstated and the accounting changed.


Dealings with a Chinese joint venture did not end well for California-based RAE Systems Inc, which makes chemical detection monitors. It had to pay nearly $3 million to the U.S. government to settle complaints in 2010 that it did too little to stop bribery at a Chinese joint venture.


'RED FERRARI' TEST


Despite well-known risks in China, auditors there often are not inquisitive enough or alert to possible fraud, some experts say.


Auditors in China may pore tirelessly over documents and yet "fail to spot the red Ferrari parked on the doorstep and fail to ask who it belongs to, how it was paid for," said Peter Humphrey, founder of ChinaWhys, a Shanghai-based anti-fraud consultancy that has investigated white-collar crime and fraud at scores of multinational firms in China.


China experts said it is difficult to do business there without encountering demands for gifts or kickbacks.


Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, surveyed business executives who said Chinese firms in 2011 were second only to Russian companies in being most likely to pay bribes abroad.


But six U.S. companies, including technology group IBM and drugmaker Pfizer Inc , were charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the past two years for improper payments or gifts in China.


Retailer Wal-Mart Stores has said it is investigating allegations of bribery in China, among other countries, and cosmetics group Avon Products Inc is dealing with probes of possible bribery in China.


There have been plenty of other red flags. For example, U.S. regulators have deregistered dozens of Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges after fraud probes, and some major U.S. investors have been caught flat-footed.


Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson suffered big losses after a disastrous bet on Chinese forestry company Sino Forest. Sino Forest was rocked by allegations in 2011 that it falsified its timber assets and later filed for bankruptcy.


Chinese software company Longtop Financial Technologies was accused of seizing audit documents when its auditor, Shanghai-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, tried to double-check cash amounts at the company's bank. Longtop admitted cash had been faked. It was deregistered by the SEC.


The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which is responsible for regulating auditors of U.S.-listed companies, has been trying to get access to China to inspect audits there. But China has resisted because of sovereignty concerns.


Being unable to inspect in China "continues to create a gaping hole in investor protection," James Doty, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based PCAOB, said in a statement.


The PCAOB recently reached deals with France and Finland to inspect in those countries, adding to its growing list of cooperation agreements with 16 nations.


The SEC has hit a wall trying to get documents out of China to investigate fraud. In December the commission began legal proceedings against the Chinese affiliates of five of the world's biggest audit firms - Deloitte , Ernst & Young , KPMG BDO and PricewaterhouseCoopers - over their refusal to turn over audit papers for fear of violating state secrets laws.


Meanwhile, investment in China continues. Over the past five years, U.S. companies and investment groups have announced or completed about $25 billion of whole or partial acquisitions in China, according to Thomson Reuters data.


(Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Ernest Scheyder in New York, Clare Baldwin in Hong Kong; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Dan Grebler)



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Paternos issue report, challenge Freeh's findings


STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — A report commissioned by Joe Paterno's family says the late coach did nothing wrong in his handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and portrays the late Hall of Fame coach as the victim of a "rush to injustice" created by former FBI director Louis Freeh's investigation of the case for Penn State.


The family's critique, released Sunday, argues that the findings of the Freeh report published last July were unsupported by the facts.


Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, one of the experts assembled by the family's lawyer to review Freeh's report last year to Penn State, called the document was fundamentally flawed and incomplete.


Freeh's report reached "inaccurate and unfounded findings related to Mr. Paterno and its numerous process-oriented deficiencies was a rush to injustice and calls into question" the investigation's credibility, Thornburgh was quoted as saying.


In a statement released Sunday through a spokesman, Freeh defended his work.


"I stand by our conclusion that four of the most powerful people at Penn State failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade," he said.


Paterno's family released what it billed as an exhaustive response to Freeh's work, based on independent analyses, on the website paterno.com.


"We conclude that the observations as to Joe Paterno in the Freeh report are unfounded, and have done a disservice not only to Joe Paterno and the university community," the family's report said, "but also to the victims of Jerry Sandusky and the critical mission of educating the public on the dangers of child sexual victimization."


Freeh's findings also implicated former administrators in university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and retired vice president Gary Schultz. Less than two weeks after the Freeh report was released in July, the NCAA acted with uncharacteristic speed in levying massive sanctions against the football program for the scandal.


"Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University — Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley — repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse" from authorities, trustees and the university community, Freeh wrote in releasing the report.


The former administrators have vehemently denied the allegations. So, too, has Paterno's family, though it reserved more extensive comment until its own report was complete.


The counter-offensive began in earnest this weekend. The family's findings said that Paterno:


— Never asked or told anyone not to investigate an allegation made against Sandusky 12 years ago, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2001.


— Never asked or told former administrators not to report the 2001 allegation.


— And never asked or told anyone not to discuss or hide information reported by graduate assistant Mike McQueary about the 2001 allegation.


"Paterno reported the information to his superior(s) pursuant to his understanding of university protocol and relied upon them to investigate and report as appropriate," the family's analysis said.


Paterno's widow, Sue, broke her silence Friday in a letter to hundreds of former players informing them of the report's impending release. "The Freeh report failed and if it is not challenged and corrected, nothing worthwhile will have come from these tragic events," she wrote.


"I had expected to find Louis Freeh had done his usual thorough and professional job," Thornburgh said in a video posted on paterno.com. "I found the report to be inaccurate in some respects, speculative and unsupported to the record compiled ... in short, fundamentally flawed as to the determinations made to the role — if any — Mr. Paterno played in any of this."


Freeh was brought in to conduct an independent investigation of the school's response to allegations and find any shortcomings in governance and compliance to make sure failures don't happen again, Penn State said in a statement Sunday. Freeh made 119 recommendations to strengthen policies, and the majority have been implemented, according to the school.


University trustees and leaders have been criticized by some dissatisfied alumni, ex-players and community residents for their handling of Paterno's dismissal, the Freeh report and the sanctions.


"It is understandable and appreciated that people will draw their own conclusions and opinions from the facts uncovered in the Freeh report," the school said.


Freeh, in his report, said his team conducted 430 interviews and analyzed over 3.5 million emails and documents. The former federal judge said evidence showed Paterno was involved in an "active agreement to conceal" and his report cited email exchanges, which referenced Paterno, between administrators about allegations against Sandusky in 1998 and 2001.


According to Thornburgh's findings, Freeh's report relied on about 30 documents, including three notes authored by Paterno, and 17 emails. Four emails referenced Paterno — none sent by the octogenarian coach who notoriously shunned modern electronic technology.


Sandusky, 69, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison in October after being convicted last summer of 45 criminal counts. Prosecutors said assaults occurred off and on campus, including the football building.


His arrest in November 2011 triggered the turmoil that led to Paterno's firing days later. Under pressure, Spanier left as president the same day. Curley was placed on administrative leave, while Schultz retired.


Spanier, Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial on obstruction and conspiracy, among other charges. They have maintained their innocence.


Critics have said that Freeh's team didn't speak with key figures including Curley, Schultz and Paterno, who died in January 2012 at age 85. The authors of the emails referenced in Freeh's report, which included Curley and Schultz, were not interviewed by Freeh, the family's analysis said.


Spanier spoke to Freeh six days before the report was released July 12.


"They missed so many key people. They didn't interview most of the key players, with the exception of President Spanier, who at the last minute we brought in and interviewed at a time when frankly the report ... was pretty well all prepared," Thornburgh said on the video.


Freeh said he respected the family's right to conduct a campaign to "shape the legacy of Joe Paterno," but called the critique self-serving. Paterno's attorney was contacted for an interview with the coach, he said, and Paterno spoke with a reporter and biographer before his death but not Freeh's team.


Curley and Schultz also declined numerous requests for interviews, Freeh said. They have been facing criminal charges since November 2011.


Freeh on Sunday cited grand jury testimony by Paterno in 2011 in which Paterno said a graduate assistant relayed to him the 2001 allegation against Sandusky of a "sexual nature" with a child.


He referred to a key point in the July report in which he said Spanier, Schultz and Curley drew up a plan that called for reporting Sandusky to the state Department of Public Welfare in 2001. But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind "after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe," according to Freeh's findings.


Said Freeh on Sunday: "These men exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky's victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being, especially by not even attempting to determine the identity of the child" in the 2001 allegation.


The Paterno family report said Freeh chose not to "present alternative, more plausible, conclusions" about Paterno's actions. Their attorney, Wick Sollers, responded Sunday that Freeh didn't take the time to read the family's critique, or address accusations of procedural shortcomings.


"A failure to consider the facts carefully is exactly the problem our expert analysis highlights," Sollers said. "Everyone, including Mr. Freeh, should take the time to study this report."


Sue Paterno had directed Sollers, to review Freeh's report and her husband's actions. Sollers brought in Thornburgh, as well as former FBI profiler and special agent Jim Clemente, described as a child molestation and behavioral expert.


Also brought in was Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychologist from Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine whose profile lists him as the founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic.


The analysis included interviews, including of Paterno before his death, as well as a review of documents and testimony and "information from our access to the lawyers for other Penn State administrators."


The Paterno family's analysis said Freeh's report turned into a platform for scapegoating Paterno rather than seizing on an opportunity to educate about identifying child sex abuse victims, and ignored "decades of expert research and behavioral analysis regarding the appropriate way to understand and investigate a child victimization case."


It said expert analysis showed Sandusky "fooled qualified child welfare professionals and law enforcement, as well as laymen inexperienced and untrained in child sexual victimization like Joe Paterno." The coach respected Sandusky as an assistant, but knew little about Sandusky's personal life, the analysis said, though Freeh's report "missed that they disliked each other personally, had very little in common outside work, and did not interact much if at all socially."


Actions by entities outside of Penn State were not a focus for Freeh's review. "This was an internal investigation into Penn State's response ... and that is how the University has utilized the report," the school said.


Penn State removed a bronze statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium on July 22. The next day, the NCAA in levying sanctions said Freeh's report revealed "an unprecedented failure of institutional integrity leading to a culture in which a football program was held in higher esteem."


The NCAA improperly relied on that report and never identified a rules infraction "based on Sandusky's crimes, much less an infraction by Penn State that implicated the NCAA's jurisdiction and core mission of ensuring competitive balance," the Paterno family report said.


An NCAA spokeswoman said the organization stood by its previous statements and declined comment Sunday.


A four-year bowl ban and steep scholarship cuts were included among the sanctions, while 111 wins between 1998 and 2011 under Paterno were vacated. It meant Paterno no longer holds the record for most wins by a major college coach.


___


Online:


Family report: http://paterno.com/


Freeh comment: http://www.freehgroup.com/news/29


Penn State statement: http://progress.psu.edu/resource-library/story/freeh-investigation-findings-used-to-improve-penn-state-operations


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Why real prizes come after a Grammy













Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time


Legends beyond their own time








STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Bob Greene: Grammy nominated acts should remember the real prize comes later in life

  • He says at a hotel he ran into a group of singing stars from an earlier era, in town for a show

  • He says the world of post-fame touring less glamorous for acts, but meaningful

  • Greene: Acts grow old, but their hits never will and to fans, the songs are time-machine




Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams"; "Late Edition: A Love Story"; and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen."


(CNN) -- Memo to Carly Rae Jepsen, Frank Ocean, Hunter Hayes, Mumford & Sons, Miguel, the Alabama Shakes and all the other young singers and bands who are nominated for Sunday night's Grammy Awards:


Your real prize -- the most valuable and sustaining award of all -- may not become evident to you until 30 or so years have passed.


You will be much older.


But -- if you are lucky -- you will still get to be out on the road making music.



Bob Greene

Bob Greene



Many of Sunday's Grammy nominees are enjoying the first wave of big success. It is understandable if they take for granted the packed concert venues and eye-popping paychecks.


Those may go away -- the newness of fame, the sold-out houses, the big money.


But the joy of being allowed to do what they do will go on.


I've been doing some work while staying at a small hotel off a highway in southwestern Florida. One winter day I was reading out on the pool deck, and there were some other people sitting around talking.


They weren't young, by anyone's definition. They did not seem like conventional businessmen or businesswomen on the road, or like retirees. There was a sense of nascent energy and contented anticipation in their bearing, of something good waiting for them straight ahead. A look completely devoid of grimness or fretfulness, an afternoon look that said the best part of the day was still to come.


I would almost have bet what line of work they were in. I'd seen that look before, many times.


I could hear them talking.


Yep.


The Tokens ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a No. 1 hit in 1961).




Little Peggy March ("I Will Follow Him," a No. 1 hit in 1963).


Little Anthony and the Imperials ("Tears on My Pillow," a top 10 hit in 1958).


Major singing stars from an earlier era of popular music, in town for a multi-act show that evening.


It is the one sales job worth yearning for -- carrying that battered sample case of memorable music around the country, to unpack in front of a different appreciative audience every night.


It's quite a world. I was fortunate enough to learn its ins and outs during the 15 deliriously unlikely years I spent touring the United States singing backup with Jan and Dean ("Surf City," a No. 1 hit in 1963) and all the other great performers with whom we shared stages and dressing rooms and backstage buffets:


Chuck Berry, Martha and the Vandellas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, James Brown, Lesley Gore, Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, the Kingsmen, the Drifters, Fabian, the Coasters, Little Eva, the Ventures, Sam the Sham. ...


Jukebox names whose fame was once as fresh and electric as that now being savored by Sunday's young Grammy nominees.


Decades after that fame is new, the road may not be quite as glamorous, the crowds may not be quite as large. The hours of killing time before riding over to the hall, the putrid vending-machine meals on the run, the way-too-early-in-the-morning vans to the airport -- the dreary parts all become more than worth it when, for an hour or so, the singers can once again personally deliver a bit of happiness to the audiences who still adore their music.


Greene: Super Bowl ad revives iconic voice


As the years go by, the whole thing may grow complicated -- band members come and go, they fight and feud, some quit, some die. There are times when it seems you can't tell the players without a scorecard -- the Tokens at the highway hotel were, technically and contractually, Jay Siegel's Tokens (you don't want to know the details). One of their singers (not Jay Siegel -- Jay Traynor) was once Jay of Jay and the Americans, a group that itself is still out on the road in a different configuration with a different Jay (you don't want to know).


But overriding all of this is a splendid truism:


Sometimes, if you have one big hit, it can take care of you for the rest of your life. It can be your life.


Sunday's young Grammy nominees may not imagine, 30 years down the line, still being on tour. But they -- the fortunate ones -- will come to learn something:


They will grow old, but their hits never will -- once people first fall in love with those songs, the songs will mean something powerful and evocative to them for the rest of their lives.


And as long as there are fairground grandstands on summer nights, as long as there are small-town ballparks with stages where the pitcher's mound should be, the singers will get to keep delivering the goods.


That is the hopeful news waiting, off in the distance, for those who will win Grammys Sunday, and for those who won't be chosen.


On the morning after that pool-deck encounter in Florida I headed out for a walk, and in the parking lot of the hotel I saw one of the Tokens loading his stage clothes into his car.


His license plate read:


SHE CRYD


I said to him:


"You sing lead on 'She Cried,' right?"


"Every night," he said, and drove off toward the next show.


The next show.


That's the prize.


That's the trophy, right there.


Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.


Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.






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Newcomers and veterans celebrated in pre-Grammy festivities






LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Music’s biggest names gathered to celebrate the trailblazers and veterans of their industry at music producer Clive Davis‘s annual pre-Grammy party, remembering Whitney Houston and honoring the work of Epic Records‘ L.A. Reid.


Last year’s pre-Grammy festivities was marred by the sudden death of Houston in a bathtub at the same hotel a few hours before Davis’ party.






Dubbed the hottest ticket in town on the eve of Sunday’s Grammy awards, Davis’ party attracted celebrities such as Johnny Depp, Sting, Katy Perry, John Mayer, Miley Cyrus, Joni Mitchell, P. Diddy, The Foo Fighters and Frank Ocean.


Davis kicked off the party by “introducing” his audience to electronic dance music, with a performance by Dutch DJ Afrojack, who played his remix of chart-topping hits including Beyonce’s “Run the World (Girls)” and Gotye’s Grammy-nominated hit “Somebody That I Used to Know.”


The night featured a range of musical guests taking the stage, including veteran rocker Patti Smith, who performed “Gloria” and “People Have The Power,” while R&B singer Miguel sang his Grammy-nominated hit “Adorn.”


The annual Grammy Awards ceremony, to be aired later on Sunday on CBS, honors the best musicians of the year, but is also a promotional showcase for rising stars and new albums.


Best New Artist Grammy nominees The Lumineers, a indie-folk band from Denver, Colorado, got the party crowd dancing to their chart hits “Ho Hey” and “Stubborn Love.”


Throughout the evening, Davis often referred to Houston, and showed a montage of the late singer’s career highlights, including footage of her singing “All The Man That I Need.”


“I felt her energy, I felt her love … and I want to remind you why she was so special … she was the greatest contemporary singer of our lifetime,” Davis said.


Houston‘s brother Gary and sister-in-law Pat were at the party.


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENTS


Each year, Davis picks an artist or band as the “one to watch,” and this year he chose British singer Emeli Sande, saying “her performance you will not soon forget. She is about to break out in a big way.”


Sande, 25, who gained worldwide attention after performing at both the opening and closing ceremonies at the London Olympics last summer, sang her hits “Heaven” and “Next to Me.”


The night’s honoree was Epic Records chairman and CEO L.A. Reid, who has been responsible for launching the careers of many chart-topping artists in the past decade, including Mariah Carey, OutKast, Babyface, Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Pink, Avril Lavigne, Kanye West, Rihanna and Justin Bieber.


Reid, who appeared as a judge on television reality singing competition “The X Factor” for two seasons, said his “existence” was about music.


“I live for opening doors for young, creative people … all of us that have success, we have a responsibility to pass it on, to pave it forward for the next generation of superstars,” he said.


Reid was introduced by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, who regaled the audience with stories from their youth, while Usher took the stage to sing his hit song “U Got it Bad,” interjecting his performance to tell stories about Reid.


Davis ended his party with a performance by Jennifer Hudson and soul singer Gladys Knight, in a tribute to Knight’s career.


Hudson sang Knight’s “Take My Hand” solo, before the veteran singer joined her on stage for a duet of “I Heard it Through The Grapevine.” Knight wrapped up the festivities with renditions of “Neither One of Us” and “Midnight Train to Georgia.”


Earlier in the night, the Recording Academy hosted their Special Merits awards at a non-televised ceremony in Los Angeles, handing out the technical Grammys and lifetime achievement accolades.


Jazz musician Charlie Haden, 75, was on hand to collect his lifetime achievement award, saying he was “honored and privileged” to receive a Grammy. Singer-songwriter Carole King and Motown group The Temptations also received awards for their illustrious musical careers and contributions.


Among those honored posthumously with lifetime achievements were pianist Glenn Gould, acoustic blues rocker Lightnin’ Hopkins, country-pop singer Patti Page, and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, who died aged 92 in December 2012.


Shankar’s daughters, sitar player Anoushka and Grammy-winning singer Norah Jones, accepted the award.


“When I watched him play, he could take people to this incredible meditative state where they’d close their eyes and just cry and get in touch with something more important,” Anoushka said.


(Editing by Alison Williams)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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