France’s Renault recalling over 60,000 cars in China: Xinhua

BEIJING (Reuters) – French carmaker Renault (RENA.PA) has started recalling over 60,000 cars exported to China due to problems with their fuel level sensors, state news agency Xinhua quoted the Chinese consumer watchdog as saying.

Renault’s China unit this week started recalling 61,508 Koleos sport utility vehicles produced between Dec 16, 2008 and July 10, 2012, Xinhua quoted the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine as saying on Saturday.

The cars have faulty fuel level sensors that display incorrect fuel levels on their dashboards, the watchdog said. Renault will change the sensors for free, it said.

The watchdog’s website showed Renault’s vehicle recall was announced on Feb 6, the second in two months. Renault had recalled 5,097 Koleos cars in January due to welding problems, the watchdog’s website showed.

Like other European carmakers, Renault is struggling with swollen inventories owing to weak demand in Europe and wants to gain a foothold in China, the world’s largest auto market and where it lags rivals including Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE).

Besides expanding its Chinese sales network, Renault also wants to build cars in China.

(Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; Editing by Michael Perry)

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Northeast storm disrupts travel for sports teams

Several professional and college sports teams were forced to rearrange their travel plans as a massive storm swept through the Northeast, dumping a few feet of snow in some areas.

The NBA's New York Knicks were stuck in Minnesota after playing the Timberwolves on Friday night, hoping to try to fly home sometime Saturday. The San Antonio Spurs were also staying overnight in Detroit after seeing their 11-game winning streak fall to the Pistons, awaiting word on when they might be able to fly to New York for their game Sunday night at Brooklyn.

"We can't get there tonight — we know that," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "So we're going to stay here tonight and try to get there (Saturday). Hopefully, we will be able to get there, but at this point, we don't know."

Airlines canceled more than 5,300 flights through Saturday, and New York City's three major airports and Boston's Logan Airport closed.

The Brooklyn Nets planned to take a train home instead of flying from Washington D.C. after losing to the Wizards on Friday night.

Knicks coach Mike Woodson said before a 100-94 victory that his team initially planned to fly home after the game, but the flight had already been postponed. New York is scheduled to play the Los Angeles Clippers at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

The NHL's Boston Bruins pushed back the start of Saturday's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning by six hours because of the blizzard. The game originally slated for 1 p.m. was rescheduled for 7 p.m., but Boston was expected to be one of the cities hit hardest by the storm.

The storm had dumped more than 2 feet of snow on New England by early Saturday and knocked out power to 650,000 customers. The National Weather Service said up to 3 feet of snow is expected in Boston, threatening the city's 2003 record of 27.6 inches.

The Bruins and Lightning each already had road games scheduled for Sunday night.

The New Jersey Devils were still scheduled to host the Pittsburgh Penguins at 1 p.m., while the New York Islanders were slated to play at home against the Buffalo Sabres at 7 p.m.

Two Ivy League men's college basketball games that were scheduled for Saturday night were moved back to Sunday because of treacherous travel conditions.

Dartmouth will play at Cornell at noon on Sunday in Ithaca, N.Y., and Harvard will visit Columbia at 2 p.m. Sunday in New York. Dartmouth played at Columbia on Friday night, and Harvard played at Cornell. Two other Ivy League games were still scheduled to be played Saturday night, with Yale visiting Princeton and Brown playing at Pennsylvania.

Aqueduct also called off Saturday's card because of the storm. The track and Belmont Park were expected to remain open for wagering on out-of-town races, with racing scheduled to resume Sunday.

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How Obama can end Congo conflict

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• President Obama can help end the Congo conflict for good, says Vava Tampa


• Obama has asked Rwanda to end all support to armed groups in the Congo


• FDLR militia gang is a threat to stability and must leave Congo


• Obama must push for change in Congolese government, argues Tampa

Editor's note: Vava Tampa is the founder of Save the Congo, a London-based campaign to tackle "the impunity, insecurity, institutional failure and the international trade of minerals funding the wars in Democratic Republic of the Congo." Follow Vava Tampa on twitter: @VavaTampa

(CNN) -- Now that President Obama has taken a public stand on the warlords and militia gangs tyrannizing DR Congo, there is a sense that the next chapter in the human tragedy that has been raging there over the past decade and half is about to be written -- or so we can hope.

In the DRC -- Africa's largest sub-Saharan country -- invasions, proxy wars and humanitarian crises have senselessly shut down millions of lives, displaced millions more from their homes and left countless women and young girls brutally raped with the world barely raising an eyebrow.

The latest murderous attempt by the M23 militia gang to besiege Goma, the strategic regional capital of Congo's eastern province of North Kivu, seems to have backfired.

Vava Tampa

The United Nations says Rwanda has helped to create and militarily supported M23. Although Rwandan President Paul Kagame denies backing M23, the accusation has taken off some of the international gloss he had long enjoyed in the West, and precipitated cuts and suspension of aid money that goes directly to the Kagame regime by the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the European Union.

The United States, which gives no money directly to the Rwandan government, suspended its military aid. In a baffling expression of a refinement of the U.S. position, President Obama made a rare telephone call to Kagame to emphasize "the importance of permanently ending all support to armed groups in the DRC." That set a firm red line on the situation in that region, the first one by President Obama since becoming president in 2008.

Watch video: Kagame on Congo

This was certainly right and good. Kagame is no fool; the diplomatic but emphatic content of that telephone call, monitored by White House's National Security staff and published thereafter for public consumption, speaks volumes. He clearly understood the implicit threat. But it was not good enough.

Left unsaid is that withholding aid money that goes directly to the Kagame regime has not changed many realities on the ground -- a painful reminder of the limits of what previous half-hearted, ambivalent international attempts to halt the crisis in that country had achieved.

However, the situation is not hopeless. President Obama can help to halt the wars engulfing the Congo. It is both economically and politically affordable.

Here is my suggestion -- a three-point road map, if you like, for President Obama, should he choose to put the weight of the United States squarely on the side of the Congolese and engage much more robustly to help end the world's bloodiest war and human tragedy.

Read more: Why the world is ignoring Congo war

1. Changes in Kinshasa

If we are to be blunt with ourselves, Congo's major problem today -- the chief reason that country remains on its knees -- is its president Joseph Kabila. Paul Kagame is just a symptom, at least in theory.

The crisis of leadership in the capital Kinshasa, the disastrous blend of lack of political legitimacy and moral authority, mixed with poor governance and vision deficiency, then compounded with dilapidated state institutions, has become the common denominator to the ills and wrongs that continues to overwhelm the Congo.

In other words, peace will never be secured in Congo, if the moribund status quo is still strutting around Kinshasa.

Obama's minimum objective in regard to ending the wars and human tragedy engulfing the Congo should be to push for changes in Kinshasa. He must make this one of the "10 Commandments" of the Obama Doctrine.

Circumstances demand it to re-energize Congo's chance of success and to enable the renaissance of a "New Africa." And given the effects of Congo's mounting death toll and the speed at which HIV/AIDS is spreading because of the use of rape as a weapon of war, the sooner the better.

2. Keep Kagame in the naughty corner

The wars and human tragedy engulfing the Congo have many fathers and many layers. Rwanda, and to some extent Uganda -- run by Africa's two dearest autocratic but staunchly pro-American regimes -- are, as they have been many times in the past, despite their denials, continuing to provide support to warlords and militia gangs terrorizing the Congolese people.

This is not an apocryphal claim, it's an open secret in Kinshasa, Kampala and Kigali as much as it is in Washington or White Hall, and as real as Charles Taylor's role in Sierra Leone or Iran's support to Hezbollah.

If President Obama is remotely serious about saving lives in Congo, then fracturing Rwanda's ability to directly or indirectly harbor warlords ... is critical.
Vava Tampa, Save the Congo

Indeed, reporters across Congo and across the region would testify to this. Kigali has been, one can safely argue, the sole shareholder in the M23 militia gang -- and its elder sisters CNDP and RCD-Goma.

It cannot wash its hands in Pontius Pilate fashion of either the ICC-wanted M23 warlord Bosco Ntaganda, also known as The Terminator, or Laurent Nkunda, who is wanted by the Congolese government for war crimes and is under house arrest in Kigali.

Read more: Prosecutor seeks new Congo war crimes warrants

If President Obama is remotely serious about saving lives in Congo, then fracturing Rwanda's ability to directly or indirectly harbor warlords, support militia gangs, militarize or ethnicize the wars in Congo for control of Congo's easily appropriable but highly valuable natural resources is critical, however politically disgruntling it may be to some in the State Department.

It would reduce the scale, scope and intensity of the killing, raping and uprooting of the Congolese, it would crush Kinshasa's ability to use external support to warlords and militia gangs as an alibi for a lack of progress and, above all, decrease the growing unease of the Congolese towards Rwanda over the crimes of FDLR and the role played by their government in Congo.

3. FDLR

The continued existence in Congo of FDLR, a Rwandan militia gang made up largely of Hutus -- whose leadership took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsi -- remains one of the most persistent and serious threats to stability in Congo and the region.

Addressing this crisis is of significant importance from both a political and humanitarian viewpoint.

Though there are no definitive statistics on the exact numbers of FDLR fighters, the good news is that experts tell us that the vast majority of its rank and file are in their 20s and early 30s, which means they were too young to have taken part in the genocide in 1994.

The United States, together with the U.N., the EU and African Union, should appoint a special envoy for the African Great Lakes region to midwife a conducive political arrangement in Kigali that could see them returning home -- and see their leaders and fundraisers in Europe arrested.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Vava Tampa.

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To Cure a Hangover, Hang an IV Bag

In the words of every person who’s ever had too much to drink: Hangovers are the worst. They also cost a lot of money. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the economy suffers about $ 161 billion a year in lost productivity from people who are too hung over to do their jobs. People like Michael Thorns, a fundraising officer for the University of Essex, in Colchester, England, who was once so hung over he fell asleep in a training meeting with his manager. Oscar Madrigal, a call center supervisor in Costa Rica, came to work still drunk from a Super Bowl party and couldn’t remember his computer password—so he took a nap for six hours. As Oscar Wilde put it, “Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

Dr. Jack Dybis, a 45-year-old trauma surgeon at Evanston Hospital near Chicago, is out to end the curse, one overserved soul at a time. Two months ago, Dybis opened Revive, a hydration clinic that claims to be able to cure lingering jet lag or a wicked hangover by hooking patients up to a rehydration IV. “It’s a well-known trick among doctors and paramedics,” says Dybis. When he was younger, he and his friends sometimes used IV bags to help them get through 36-hour rotations at the hospital. “We put nails in the wall over our beds so we could hang an IV bag whenever we needed one,” he says. Most IV solutions are nothing but saline and vitamins. At Revive, Dybis can add nausea or headache medicine, depending on your needs. The whole process takes less than an hour and costs $ 99.

Revive isn’t the first hangover cure in a bag. Dr. Jason Burke, an anesthesiologist, does the same thing out of a bus on the Las Vegas Strip. Burke’s business, Hangover Heaven, recently started making house calls to hotel rooms; over New Year’s Eve weekend he served 80 clients (his prices range from $ 99 to $ 199), including one guy who puked 25 times. “Then there was the woman who showed up at 2 p.m. sick on cheap Chardonnay,” says Burke. “She was throwing up uncontrollably but wanted to be able to eat dinner at Craftsteak with her husband.” Burke worked his magic, and the woman ate her steak.

A hangover cure that actually worked sounded too good to be true and begged a rigorous investigation. Someone needed to get drunk—and that someone was me. I organized a team consisting of a photographer named Ryan, some of Ryan’s pals, and my high school friend Julia, who provided useful commentary: “This is much more fun than the time we mixed gin with Diet Sprite in your parents’ basement.”

We started the evening at Scofflaw, a craft cocktail lounge where every drink contains at least seven ingredients, none of which are Diet Sprite. At one point we did shots of something called Malört, which sounds like a Harry Potter villain but is actually a bitter wormwood liquor that’s made and sold only in Chicago. “I like it because it tastes like a bunch of chemicals I’m not supposed to drink,” said Matt, Ryan’s roommate. Then Matt and Ryan suggested we go to a Goth club. Under Malört’s spell, this sounded like a great idea.

Photograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg BusinessweekShots for everyone at Scofflaw

It was a terrible idea. The next morning, the Malört and the Goth club, plus my workweek exhaustion and a slight cold, all left me feeling, on a scale from 1 to 10, like I wanted to die. I hadn’t eaten much dinner, and I’d forgotten to drink water before bed—two things Dr. Michael Oshinsky, a hangover headache researcher at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, recommends as preventives. Oshinsky explains that I felt so horrible because my liver had converted the alcohol into a toxin called acetaldehyde, which has been linked with nausea and other hangover symptoms, and then into acetate, which causes headaches. “But alcohol is also a diuretic, so on top of that you’re dehydrated, and you lose electrolytes,” he says.

Photograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg BusinessweekPulling a Lindsay Lohan

I crawled over to Revive, where Dybis had me fill out some paperwork and asked questions about my medical history, such as “You don’t have any kidney problems, right?” One nurse took my blood pressure while another, Samantha, assured me that injecting myself with a giant bag of fluid wasn’t a big deal. “I did it last week when I was hung over,” she said. “You’ll feel great afterward. But you’ll have to pee a lot.”

The nurses put a needle in my arm and hooked up the IV bag while Dybis explained what he’d prescribed. He crafts each solution to fit the patient’s needs and had ordered me up a standard saline mixture full of potassium, vitamin C, and calcium, along with an anti-inflammatory drug called Toradol—a favorite of National Football League players—that promised to relieve my headache. Dybis also gave me a dose of vitamin B, which turned the IV bag bright yellow. “You may start to taste the vitamins in your mouth,” Dybis warned. Within a minute, I felt like I was licking a large One A Day.

Photograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg BusinessweekThe IV goes in at Revive

The nurses moved me to a secluded room with lounge chairs, blankets, magazines, mint gum, coconut water, and cold eye masks. In another room, a man in his mid-30s sat on a couch with his IV bag, watching football on a large, flat-screen TV. Revive is technically a medical facility, but it looks more like a spa: Patients recuperate separately in rooms that offer everything from wooden desks for busy professionals to quiet, windowless areas perfect for people with the flu. (Revive has recently been treating a lot of flu patients; the hydration and vitamins alleviate the symptoms.) About 10 customers come to Revive each day, usually in the morning and almost always alone. “Sometimes we’ll get a group of friends who went out the night before,” Samantha said. “It’s fun to listen to their stories about what they did to land them in this place.”

It took two IV bags and a second shot of Toradol, but after about an hour I was fully hydrated and ready to go. My headache was gone, and I actually felt better than I do most workdays. Dybis wasn’t surprised; he has one patient who’s started coming into the clinic just for the pick-me-up. “The last time she showed up I told her I didn’t think she needed an IV. This is a medical facility, not a theme park. You can’t just come in here and ask to ride the ride,” he said as the nurses wrapped gauze on my arm where the IV had been and told me to apply pressure to lessen the likelihood of a bruise.

Photograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg BusinessweekStarting to feel like a champ

Afterward, I met Julia for lunch. “It worked!” I told her. “That’s cool,” she said. “I just had a cup of coffee and some water. I feel better, too.”

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Visit the Capital to Celebrate Chinese New Year, as the City Comes Alive With Colour and Excitement!

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM–(Marketwire – Feb 9, 2013) – Based on the lunar calendar, Chinese New Year falls on a different day each year and each year is named and represented by a different animal from the Chinese Zodiac. This special holiday is now popular all over the world and Millennium & Copthorne Hotels have six hotels in London, including hotels in Kensington, Knightsbridge and earls court all within easy reach of the celebrations!

The largest celebrations in the capital begin at 10am on 10^th February, where a parade of colourful floats will make its way through the West End, with music and stage performances taking place. When the parade arrives at Shaftesbury Avenue, local community groups and schools will be putting on plays and shows for the crowd!

Trafalgar Square will also be a hub of activity from noon, with music, dance, Chinese dragons and acrobatics. There will be performances from the ”Britain”s Got Talent” winner, Paul Potts, the Chen Brothers Flying Lion Dance and an attempt at setting a Guinness World Record, as 50,000 people are expected to assemble and recreate the dance moves to popular hit, ”Gangnam Style”.

Chinatown is, of course, at the centre of the action and the streets will be alive all day with stalls, food and music. Look out for the Lion Dance as it snakes through the crowds, stopping along the way at restaurants to wish the owners good luck for the coming year!

After an exciting day out, choose to relax at one of Millennium & Copthorne”s London hotels, which offer convenience, luxury and excellent transport links, to make your stay in the city unforgettable.

MILLENNIUM & COPTHORNE HOTELS

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels operates a portfolio of over 100 hotels worldwide.

Marketwire News Archive – Yahoo! Finance

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Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.

The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.

The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.

Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.

AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.

Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.

"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.

The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.

"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.

Shares of Dell closed at $13.63, up 0.7 percent, after briefly trading above a buyout offering price of $13.65 during the session.

Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.

Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.

Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.

"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."

Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by almost 5 to 3.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Barry and Andrew Hay)

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Illini buzzer-beater upsets No. 1 Hoosiers, 74-72

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — At this rate, no one will want to be No. 1.

Indiana became the fifth straight top-ranked men's college basketball team to lose, falling to unranked Illinois 74-72 on a buzzer-beater by Tyler Griffey on Thursday night.

The senior forward took an inbounds pass with 0.9 seconds to play and made a wide-open layup. And, just like that, the Hoosiers — who moved into the top spot by beating then-No. 1 Michigan just a few days ago — went down.

Indiana coach Tom Crean, whose team has been No. 1 for a total of seven weeks this season after opening there, doesn't know why the top spot is suddenly so hard to hang on to.

"I can't answer that. I'm not sure," Crean said. "I just know that these games are 40-minute games. We played at a high level for most of the game."

The Hoosiers (20-3, 8-2 Big Ten) were in charge until the final 3 1/2 minutes when the Illini (16-8, 3-7 Big Ten) finally put together a run to take and then retake the lead.

"I know this: When we turn the ball over, we're not very good," Crean said. "And the biggest difference tonight was 28 points off turnovers to our 16."

Hoosiers guard Jordan Hulls said flatly that the top rank had nothing to do with Thursday's loss, even for a team that some worried might be looking past unranked, slumping Illinois to a meeting Sunday with No. 10 Ohio State.

"We just didn't execute when we needed to," he said.

If Indiana falls from No. 1 on Monday, No. 2 Florida might not be a candidate to replace the Hoosiers after the Gators' loss this week to Arkansas. That could put No. 3 Michigan back on top if they can make it to Monday without a loss.

For the Hoosiers, nothing could have been worse than the way Thursday's game ended.

With 0.9 seconds, Griffey left defenders Cody Zeller and Christian Watford behind on an inbounds play from the baseline, took the pass from Brandon Paul and delivered the uncontested buzzer-beater.

The shot sent hundreds of students onto the court, though they waited as officials checked the replay to make sure the clock hadn't beaten Griffey. Once the basket was upheld, Paul and fellow guard D.J. Richardson hugged and teared up in relief.

Illinois had endured an awful run since starting 12-0. The Illini had since lost eight of 11 and fallen to 10th in the 12-team Big Ten.

Griffey, who had struggled as bad as any Illini player, seemed surprised at how easily the winning shot came.

"I just made a simple curl cut and left two guys behind me, and Brandon got off a heck of a pass," he said. "Zeller and Watford were both right in front of me and just kind of stayed there."

Crean said the play was a lot like the other breakdowns in the Hoosiers' game that let Illinois climb back from a 12-point halftime deficit.

"We didn't communicate," he said.

Indiana's loss drops them into a three-way tie for first in the Big Ten with Michigan and Michigan State. The win moves the Illini up into a ninth-place tie with Iowa but, more importantly, provides a potential lifeline ahead of a meeting Sunday at No. 18 Minnesota.

"It was good to get back to having that toughness and togetherness and trust that we needed," Illinois coach John Groce said.

Illinois also added a plank to what may be one of the oddest resumes of any team in the country trying to make the NCAA tournament. Illinois has lost to Purdue, Northwestern and twice to Wisconsin. But coming into Thursday night, the Illini had already beaten three teams now in the top 15: No. 6 Gonzaga, No. 10 Ohio State and No. 14 Butler.

Before Thursday, Illinois hadn't beaten a No. 1 team since a win over Wake Forest in 2004.

Richardson had 23 points for Illinois, Paul had 21 and Griffey finished with 14 points and eight rebounds.

Zeller led Indiana with 14 points, while Will Sheehey had 13, Watford 12 and Hulls 11.

Indiana shot 50 percent from the field (25 of 50), 52.9 percent from 3-point range (9 of 17) and 93 percent from the free throw line (13 of 14). The Hoosiers led by an eight- to 10-point margin for most of the second half.

When 6-foot-11 Nnanna Egwu fouled out with just under 5 minutes to play, Indiana appeared in control. Watford made both free throws and, at 69-59, the Illini looked done.

But Richardson went on a one-man run, first burying back-to-back 3-pointers and then hitting a midrange jumper on the run to tie it at 70 with 1:17 to play.

With the clock under 30 seconds and the game tied at 72, Indiana had the ball for what would have been a last shot but Victor Oladipo coughed up the ball. Richardson picked it up and tried a breakaway layup that Oladipo just swatted out of bounds to set up the final play.

Groce credited Richardson for providing a spark.

"I thought he was absolutely terrific on both ends of the floor," Groce said. "He battled, he fought."

Griffey was benched several weeks ago after a blowout loss at Wisconsin. On a team that had lost its shooting touch, the senior forward had especially struggled. And, though one of Illinois' bigger players at 6-9, he wasn't adding much to the inside presence the Illini desperately needed.

Groce said that, even after he benched Griffey, he never gave up on him.

"I just have told him numerous times here I believe in him," the first-year Illinois coach said. "I do."

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Why I dread Chinese New Year

Kids see Chinese New Year through rose-tinted glasses.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Zoe Li: As an adult, Chinese New Year is an annual nightmare


• It's a time when relatives have the right to be judgmental


• Superstitious Chinese New Year foods often aren't that tasty

(CNN) -- For me, Chinese New Year used to be fun.

When I was a kid, I was excited during Chinese New Year when I got lai see and I could stay up late. I even had access to candy, a once-a-year treat while living under the roof of my Tiger Mom.

Riding strong on the sugar highs, I always thought to myself, this is what it must feel like to be an adult. I was flush, free and giddy.

Then at some point in my twenties, Chinese New Year became a chore. Not any garden variety chore, but a cold-sweat-inducing family obligation that I try hard to avoid.

As an adult, Chinese New Year is an annual nightmare, for the following reasons:

1. I find it sucks when you are single

Single twenty-something? Smile while you can until the interrogation begins.

Relatives feel that they have a right to judge you because you do share bits of DNA, so, really, it's almost like they're judging themselves.

Typically, the extended family gathers for Chinese New Year and spends an inordinate amount of time together, during which people get bored and focus their restlessness on judging the younger generation, particularly those who are single.

Singledom means a lack of responsibilities and responsibility-free people need to be reined in by the wisdom of elders, or they will be reckless with their directionless lives.

Here are some unavoidable conversations at Chinese New Year. By "conversations" I really mean monologues by one Wise Elder or another, fired away at a particular Single Younger in a trance-like manner:

"Why don't you have a boyfriend? If you have a boyfriend, why don't you get married?"

"Why are you not dieting at least a little bit? Second Cousin Yong Yong will have to start bringing clothes from America for you."

"What happened to your hair? Blue is not such a good color for us Chinese people."

"Are you saving up for an apartment? Why not? The most important thing in life is to have a roof over your head. You don't want to be homeless, do you? What if the economy collapses again? At least you will have an apartment."

"Why don't you get a better paid job? You are wasting your talent. You will regret your life."

2. I am employed

I loved the great Chinese tradition of gifting lai see. Getting HK$20 for no reason other than tradition really rocked my seven-year-old world.

I have an income now, so twenty bucks here and there doesn't make a huge difference, but I still retain that childhood anticipation for the red packets. It's just a bit disappointing when I open up an envelope and it isn't concealing a massive check.

And it's the guilt from feeling disappointed that makes me really hate Chinese New Year for making me hate myself.

It's just like being unable to conceal your letdown expression when unwrapping that pair of socks at Secret Santa parties.

Gifting is a heartwarming tradition. It's the thought that counts. I am not supposed to care. I am a bad person.

There's even worse.

Chinese New Year gambling is just out of hand.

Now that I have a job, I'm expected to bet real money at The Mahjong Table, a no man's land filled with hidden agendas, treacherous scheming and Janus-faced traitors.

If you beat your elder relatives at mahjong one too many times, beware their wrath. It really hurts when you get hit by a mahjong tile.

If you lose on purpose to your elders and are unable to skillfully conceal your purposefulness, you risk looking patronizing.

It will put them in a bad mood and lead to a vengeful "what are you doing with your life" interrogation later. See point number one.

If you're simply crap at the game, you lose a load of money and will probably be judged for being not very intelligent. See point number one again.

3. I like good food

Chinese New Year cake is good only when it's homemade.

When foreigners make jokes about Chinese eating weird foods, I cringe.

When Chinese New Year comes around, I'm the one making the damn jokes.

At this time of year, we do get some incredible festive dishes.

And then there are those odd ones that make you feel like the taste, texture and nutritional content of food have all become irrelevant -- we only eat for superstitions.

Lots of Chinese New Year foods are auspicious in meaning, but atrocious in taste. I propose that we at least get rid of these three that are now out of touch with our lives:

Chinese New Year cake

Called "leen go" in Cantonese ("niangao" in mainland China), the name sounds auspicious and means "to progress more and reach higher every year."

The cake is made from glutionous rice, sugar and flavored with red bean paste or jujubes. Cut into thin slices, dip into beaten eggs and pan fry until it's gooey on the inside and crisp on the outside.

The problem is, no one makes these at home anymore and the store-bought version is bland and stodgy, like eating slices of caulking.

Since glutinous rice is considered difficult to digest for the elderly, us Single Youngers who have nothing to lose are forced to finish the plateful.

Sugared lotus seeds

Back in the day -- before globalization brought us jelly beans and Sugus, before the invention of Coca-Cola, before Christopher Columbus brought cocoa beans to the Old World -- eating sugar-coated lotus seeds during Chinese New Year seemed like a good idea.

Today, we have so many more delicious ways to feed our sweet tooth, so why do people still buy sugared lotus seeds?

They look like mothballs, taste one dimensional and feel like a marble of sand broken upon the tongue.

The name "leen tsi" sounds like "to birth sons each year." No one in the family likes to eat them and most of them already have kids, which means us Single Youngers have to swallow.

Gok tsai

These are deep-fried sweet dumplings. The skin is a thick, lifeless pastry made from lard, the filling is a mind-numbingly sweet blend of sugar and nuts.

Its shape and color makes it, somewhat, resemble a gold ingot. Eating these symbolize prosperity for the new year.

If I had to run a marathon, I might appreciate the fat bomb. But the only thing that I run are scripts on my browser.

That point, like the others in this post, is lost on the Wise Elders, wise as they are.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Zoe Li. A former CNN employee, Zoe is a Hong Kong resident and edits the Hong Kong section of BLOUIN ARTINFO.

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World stocks rise as China posts big trade jump

BANGKOK (AP) — World stock markets were mostly higher Friday, boosted by better-than-expected trade data from China that provided new evidence of an upswing in the world’s second-largest economy.

Exports rose 25 percent in January from a year earlier, the government reported, while imports soared 28 percent. A large part of the increase was due to companies rushing to fill orders before shutting down for up to two weeks for the Lunar New Year holidays that begin Sunday.

“Seeing the underlying trend is a little difficult. Nevertheless, the data were above expectations and seem generally positive,” said Moody’s Analytics economist Alaistair Chan in a report.

A more accurate picture of China‘s trade at the beginning of the year will emerge once February’s data is released, said Dariusz Kowalczyk of Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong. But he added that investors still might interpret the January figures at face value and push up stock markets.

European stocks rose in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.5 percent to 6,257.97. Germany’s DAX added 0.4 percent to 7,616.93 and France’s CAC-40 advanced 0.6 percent 3,623.22.

Wall Street was poised for a higher opening after a session of losses. Dow futures rose nearly 0.1 percent to 13,909 and S&P 500 futures advanced 0.1 percent to 1,506.70.

Hong Kong‘s Hang Seng rose 0.2 percent to 23,215.16. South Korea‘s Kospi advanced 1 percent to 1,950.90. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.7 percent to 4,971.30. Benchmarks in Singapore, mainland China and Thailand also rose.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 1.8 percent to 11,153.16, slumping after a recent rally spurred by a weakening yen.

Some analysts believe the yen’s weakness may have bottomed out. A weaker yen benefits Japan’s export manufacturers because it makes their products cheaper in overseas markets.

Many stock markets across Asia, including those in mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, will be closed Monday for holidays celebrating the Lunar New Year. Hong Kong‘s holidays run through to Wednesday while China and Taiwan are closed all week. Japan’s markets are also closed Monday.

Among individual stocks, Japan’s Panasonic Corp. fell 5.4 percent while Sony Corp. plummeted 10.1 percent. The struggling electronics giant reported a 10.7 billion yen ($ 115 million) loss for the October-December quarter on Thursday.

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics rose 3 percent. Australia’s Newcrest Mining advanced 5 percent.

Wall Street fell Thursday as weaker earnings unnerved investors despite data suggesting that company layoffs are easing. Media conglomerate News Corp. cut its forecast for annual earnings. Sprint Nextel Corp., the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., lost $ 1.3 billion in its latest quarter as it revamped its network to take on larger competitors.

On the bright side, fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week. Applications for unemployment benefits falling 5,000 to 366,000.

Benchmark oil for March delivery was up 14 cents to $ 95.97 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 79 cents to finish at $ 95.83 a barrel on the Nymex on Thursday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $ 1.3407 from $ 1.3401 late Thursday in New York. The dollar was down at 92.80 yen from 93.52 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

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Mom, I bought a car. Can you pay for it?

Dear Driving for Dollars,
My 18-year-old son, a college freshman, recently purchased a car. It was quite spontaneous, and neither I nor his dad knew he was doing it. It’s been a few weeks, and he realizes now that he cannot afford to make the payments. We cannot afford to make the payments for him. How can he get rid of this car?
– Laurie

Dear Laurie,
It sounds like he purchased the car entirely on his own, meaning no one else’s name appears on the car loan, the title or any of the paperwork. If that’s the case, the car and the car loan are legally just his responsibility, and you have no legal responsibility to help him out. In most states, there is no “cooling off” period for a car purchase, so it’s likely that you have no legal leg to stand on to insist the car be taken back, since he is technically an adult.

First, do a little legwork to find out what the car is worth — at a dealership and in a private-party sale — and compare it to what he owes. Hopefully, the gap is minimal. Next, contact the manager of the dealership to see if you can get him to take pity on your son’s bad decision and allow him to return the car.

Even if you can negotiate the car being returned plus a small payment to compensate for the depreciation, it’s likely this will be the cheapest way out of the situation. If the dealer won’t take it back under any circumstances, consider selling the car privately and paying off the car loan. Again, it’s likely your son will be on the hook for some cash due to depreciation, but if you or someone you know can give him a loan to cover the difference, it will be better than him being saddled with a high monthly car payment or wrecking what little credit he has through late payments.

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Bankrate’s content, including the guidance of its advice-and-expert columns and this website, is intended only to assist you with financial decisions. The content is broad in scope and does not consider your personal financial situation. Bankrate recommends that you seek the advice of advisers who are fully aware of your individual circumstances before making any final decisions or implementing any financial strategy. Please remember that your use of this website is governed by Bankrate’s Terms of Use.

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