Woman’s ‘Dystextia’ Stroke Sign: ‘Some is where!’

Smartphone autocorrect is famous for scrambling messages into unintelligible gibberish but when one man received this garbled text from his 11-week-pregnant wife, it alarmed him: “every where thinging days nighing,” her text read. “Some is where!” Though that may sound like every text you’ve ever received, the woman’s husband knew her autocorrect was turned off. Fearing some medical issue, he made sure his 25-year-old wife went immediately to the emergency room. When she got there, doctors noted that she was disoriented, couldn’t use her right arm and leg properly and had some difficulty speaking. A magnetic resonance imaging scan — MRI — revealed that part of the woman’s brain wasn’t getting enough blood. The diagnosis was stroke. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. A short hospital stay and some low-dose blood thinners took care of the symptoms and the rest of her pregnancy was uneventful. Click here to read about how texting pedestrians risk injuries The three doctors from Boston’s Harvard Medical School, who reported the case study online in this week’s Archives of Neurology, claim this is the first instance they know of where an aberrant text message was used to help diagnose a stroke. In their report, they refer to the woman’s inability to text properly as “dystextia,” a word coined by medical experts in an earlier case. Dystextia appears to be a new form of aphasia, a term that refers to any trouble processing language, be it spoken or written. The authors of the Archives paper said that at least theoretically, incoherent text messages will be used more often to flag strokes and other neurological abnormalities that lead to the condition. “As the accessibility of electronic communication continues to advance, the growing digital record will likely become an increasingly important means of identifying neurologic disease, particularly in patient populations that rely more heavily on written rather than spoken communication,” they wrote. Even though jumbled texts are so common, Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is the director of the stroke center at Duke University, said he also believes it’s possible they can be used to sound the alarm on a person’s neurological state, especially in a case like this where the text consisted of complete words that amounted to nonsense rather than the usual autocorrected muddle. “It would have been very easy to dismiss because of the normal problems with texting but this was a whole conversation that wasn’t making sense,” Goldstein said. “I might be concerned about a patient based on a text like this if they were telling me they hadn’t intended to send a disjointed jumble but they weren’t able to correct themselves.” In diagnosing stroke, Goldstein said both patients and medical professionals tend to discount aphasic symptoms, even in speech, but they can often be the first clue something is up. In this woman’s case, other signs were there. Her obstetrician realized in retrospect that she’d had trouble filling out a form earlier in the day. She had difficulties speaking too which might also have been picked up sooner if a recent upper respiratory infection hadn’t reduced her voice to a whisper. But unlike this woman, most people leave their autocorrect turned on. If we relied solely on maddeningly unintelligible text messages to determine neurological state, neurologists might have lines out the door.

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Link between pot, psychosis goes both ways in kids

Marijuana (cannabis) use may be linked to the development of psychotic symptoms in teens - but the reverse could also be true: psychosis in adolescents may be linked to later pot use, according to a new Dutch study. "We have focused mainly on temporal order; is it the chicken or the egg? As the study shows, it is a bidirectional relationship," wrote the study's lead author Merel Griffith-Lendering, a doctoral candidate at Leiden University in The Netherlands, in an email to Reuters Health. Previous research established links between marijuana and psychosis, but scientists questioned whether pot use increased the risk of mental illness, or whether people were using pot to ease their psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions. "What is interesting in this study is that both processes are going on at the same time," said Dr. Gregory Seeger, medical director for addiction services at Rochester General Hospital in upstate New York. He told Reuters Health that researchers have been especially concerned about what tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active property in pot, could do to a teenager's growing brain. "That's a very vulnerable period of time for brain development," and individuals with a family history of schizophrenia and psychosis seem to be more sensitive to the toxic effects of THC, he said. A 2010 study of 3,800 Australian teenagers found that those who used marijuana were twice as likely to develop psychosis compared to teens who never smoked pot (see Reuters Health article of March 1, 2010 here:). But that study also found that those who suffered from hallucinations and delusions when they were younger were also more likely to use pot early on. CHICKEN v. EGG For the new study, published in the journal Addiction, the researchers wanted to see which came first: pot or psychosis. Griffith-Lendering and her colleagues used information on 2,120 Dutch teenagers, who were surveyed about their pot use when they were about 14, 16 and 19 years old. The teens also took psychosis vulnerability tests that asked - among other things - about their ability to concentrate, their feelings of loneliness and whether they see things other people don't. Overall, the researchers found 940 teens, or about 44 percent, reported smoking pot, and there was a bidirectional link between pot use and psychosis. For example, using pot at 16 years old was linked to psychotic symptoms three years later, and psychotic symptoms at age 16 were linked to pot use at age 19. This was true even when the researchers accounted for mental illness in the kids' families, alcohol use and tobacco use. Griffith-Lendering said she could not say how much more likely young pot users were to exhibit psychotic symptoms later on. Also, the new study cannot prove one causes the other. Genetics may also explain the link between pot use and psychosis, said Griffith-Lendering. "We can say for some people that cannabis comes first and psychosis comes second, but for some people they have some (undiagnosed) psychosis (and) perhaps cannabis makes them feel better," said Dr. Marta Di Forti, of King's College, London, who was not involved with the new research. Di Forti, who has studied the link between pot and psychosis, told Reuters Health she considers pot a risk factor for psychosis - not a cause. Seeger, who was also not involved with the new study, said that there needs to be more public awareness of the connection. "I think the marijuana is not a harmless substance. Especially for teenagers, there should be more of a public health message out there that marijuana has a public health risk," he said. Griffith-Lendering agrees. "Given the severity and impact of psychotic disorders, prevention programs should take this information into consideration," she said.

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Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide

About one in three children in the U.S. are now overweight, and since the 1980s the number of children who are obese has more than tripled. But a new study of 26.7 million young children from low-income families shows that in this group of kids, the tidal wave of obesity might finally be receding. Being obese as a child not only increases the risk of early-life health problems, such as joint problems, pre-diabetes and social stigmatization, but it also dramatically increases the likelihood of being obese later in life, which can lead to chronic diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Children as young as 2 years of age can be obese--and even extremely obese. Early childhood obesity rates, which bring higher health care costs throughout a kid's life, have been especially high among lower-income families. "This is the first national study to show that the prevalence of obesity and extreme obesity among young U.S. children may have begun to decline," the researchers noted in a brief report published online December 25 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. (Reports earlier this year suggested that childhood obesity rates were dropping in several U.S. cities.) The study examined rates of obesity (body mass index calculated by age and gender to be in the 95th percentile or higher--for example, a BMI above 20 for a 2-year-old male--compared with reference growth charts) and extreme obesity (BMI of more than 120 percent above that of the 95th percentile of the reference populations) in children ages 2 to 4 in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers, led by Liping Pan, of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, combed through 12 years of data (1998 to 2010) from the Pediatric Nutritional Surveillance System, which includes information on roughly half of all children on the U.S. who are eligible for federal health care and nutrition assistance. A subtle but important shift in early childhood obesity rates in this low-income population seems to have begun in 2003. Obesity rates increased from 13.05 percent in 1998 to 15.21 percent in 2003. Soon, however, obesity rates began decreasing, reaching 14.94 percent by 2010. Extreme obesity followed a similar pattern, increasing from 1.75 percent to 2.22 percent from 1998 to 2003, but declining to 2.07 percent by 2010. Although these changes might seem small, the number of children involved makes for huge health implications. For example, each drop of just one tenth of a percentage point represents some 26,700 children in the study population alone who are no longer obese or extremely obese. And if these trends are occurring in the rest of the population, the long-term health and cost implications are massive. Public health agencies and the Obama Administration have made battling childhood obesity a priority, although these findings suggest that early childhood obesity rates, at least, were already beginning to decline nearly a decade ago. Some popular prevention strategies include encouraging healthier eating (by reducing intake of highly processed and high-sugar foods and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption) and increased physical activity (both at school and at home). The newly revealed trends "indicate modest recent progress of obesity prevention among young children," the authors noted. "These finding may have important health implications because of the lifelong health risks of obesity and extreme obesity in early childhood.

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One in 12 in military has clogged heart arteries

Just over one in 12 U.S. service members who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had plaque buildup in the arteries around their hearts - an early sign of heart disease, according to a new study. None of them had been diagnosed with heart disease before deployment, researchers said. "This is a young, healthy, fit group," said the study's lead author, Dr. Bryant Webber, from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. "These are people who are asymptomatic, they feel fine, they're deployed into combat," he told Reuters Health. "It just proves again the point that we know that this is a clinically silent disease, meaning people can go years without being diagnosed, having no signs or symptoms of the disease." Webber said the findings also show that although the U.S. has made progress in lowering the nationwide prevalence of heart disease, there's more work that can be done to encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle and reduce their risks. Heart disease accounts for about one in four deaths - or about 600,000 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new data come from autopsies done on U.S. service members who died in October 2001 through August 2011 during combat or from unintentional injuries. Those autopsies were originally performed to provide a full account to service members' families of how they died. The study mirrors autopsy research on Korean and Vietnam war veterans, which found signs of heart disease in as many as three-quarters of deceased service members at the time. "Earlier autopsy studies... were critical pieces of information that alerted the medical community to the lurking burden of coronary disease in our young people," said Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the Framingham Heart Study and a senior investigator with the National Institutes of Health. The findings are not directly comparable, in part because there was a draft in place during the earlier wars but not for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn. When service is optional, healthier people might be more likely to sign up, researchers explained. Still, Levy said the new study likely reflects declines in heart disease in the U.S. in general over that span. Altogether the researchers had information on 3,832 service members who'd been killed at an average age of 26. Close to 9 percent had any buildup in their coronary arteries, according to the autopsies. And about a quarter of the soldiers with buildup in their arteries had severe blockage. Service members who had been obese or had high cholesterol or high blood pressure when they entered the military were especially likely to have plaque buildup, Webber and his colleagues reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. More than 98 percent of the service members included were men. "This study bodes well for a lower burden of disease lurking in young people," Levy, who wrote an editorial published with the report, told Reuters Health. "Young, healthy people are likely to have a lower burden of disease today than their parents or grandparents had decades ago." That's likely due, in part, to better control of blood pressure and cholesterol and lower rates of smoking in today's service members - as well as the country in general, researchers said. However, two risks for heart disease that haven't declined are obesity and diabetes, which are closely linked. "Obesity is the one that has not trended in the right direction," Levy said. "Those changes in obesity and diabetes threaten to reverse some of the dramatic improvements that we are seeing in heart disease death rates," he added.

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Obesity declining in young, poorer kids: study

The number of low-income preschoolers who qualify as obese or "extremely obese" has dropped over the last decade, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. Although the decline was only "modest" and may not apply to all children, researchers said it was still encouraging. "It's extremely important to make sure we're monitoring obesity in this low-income group," said the CDC's Heidi Blanck, who worked on the study. Those kids are known to be at higher risk of obesity than their well-off peers, in part because access to healthy food is often limited in poorer neighborhoods. The new results can't prove what's behind the progress, Blanck told Reuters Health - but two possible contributors are higher rates of breastfeeding and rising awareness of the importance of physical activity even for very young kids. Blanck and her colleagues used data on routine clinic visits for about half of all U.S. kids eligible for federal nutrition programs - including 27.5 million children between age two and four. They found 13 percent of those preschoolers were obese in 1998. That grew to just above 15 percent in 2003, but dropped slightly below 15 percent in 2010, the most recent study year included. Similarly, the prevalence of extreme obesity increased from nearly 1.8 percent in 1998 to 2.2 percent in 2003, then dropped back to just below 2.1 percent in 2010, the research team reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Whether kids are obese is determined by their body mass index (BMI) - a measure of weight in relation to height - and by their age and sex. For example, a four-year-old girl who is 40 inches tall would be obese if she was 42 pounds or heavier. A two-year-old boy who is 35 inches tall qualifies as obese at 34 pounds or above, according to the CDC's child BMI calculator. (The CDC's BMI calculator for children and teens is available here:.) The new findings are the first national data to show obesity and extreme obesity may be declining in young children, Blanck said. "This is very encouraging considering the recent effort made in the field including by several U.S. federal agencies to combat the childhood obesity epidemic," said Dr. Youfa Wang, head of the Johns Hopkins Global Center on Childhood Obesity in Baltimore. Blanck said between 2003 and 2010 researchers also saw an increase in breastfeeding of low-income infants. Breastfeeding has been tied to a healthier weight in early childhood. Additionally, states and communities have started working with child care centers to make sure kids have time to run around and that healthy foods are on the lunch menu, she added. Parents can encourage better eating by having fruits and vegetables available at snack time and allowing their young kids to help with meal preparation, Blanck said. Her other recommendations include making sure preschoolers get at least one hour of activity every day and keeping television sets out of the bedroom. "The prevalence of overweight and obesity in many countries including in the U.S. is still very high," Wang, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health in an email. "The recent level off should not be taken as a reason to reduce the effort to fight the obesity epidemic.

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Oil prices lower in quiet holiday trading

The price of oil fell slightly Monday during a shortened pre-Christmas trading day. Concerns over the political stalemate in Washington continue to be the focus of traders, with the price of U.S. benchmark oil closing down 5 cents to $88.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy traders have been watching Democrats and Republicans clash over tax hikes and social service cuts. Normally, recent good economic data would signal more energy consumption and higher prices. But fears about the "fiscal cliff" have so far tempered prices, according to Phil Flynn of The Price Future Group. "Because of the holiday, a lot of people are sitting on the sidelines," Flynn said. "We've priced in those scenarios and now we're just waiting for something definitive." The average U.S. price for gasoline rose 1.5 cents over the weekend to $3.247 a gallon. Regular unleaded costs nearly two cents more than a year ago. In other energy futures trading: — Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, fell 17 cents to $108.80 a barrel. — Natural gas fell 10.5 cents to $3.346 per 1,000 cubic feet. — Heating oil eased 2 cents to $3.00 a gallon. — Wholesale gasoline rose 1.6 cents to $2.75 a gallon.

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Instagram furor triggers first class action lawsuit

Facebook's Instagram photo sharing service has been hit with what appears to be the first civil lawsuit to result from changed service terms that prompted howls of protest last week. In a proposed class action lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court on Friday, a California Instagram user leveled breach of contract and other claims against the company. "We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an e-mail. Instagram, which allows people to add filters and effects to photos and share them easily on the Internet, was acquired by Facebook earlier this year for $715 million. In announcing revised terms of service last week, Instagram spurred suspicions that it would sell user photos without compensation. It also announced a mandatory arbitration clause, forcing users to waive their rights to participate in a class action lawsuit except under very limited circumstances. The current terms of service, in effect through mid-January, contain no such liability shield. The backlash prompted Instagram founder and CEO Kevin Systrom to retreat partially a few days later, deleting language about displaying photos without compensation. However, Instagram kept language that gave it the ability to place ads in conjunction with user content, and saying "that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such." It also kept the mandatory arbitration clause. The lawsuit, filed by San Diego-based law firm Finkelstein & Krinsk, says customers who do not agree with Instagram's terms can cancel their profile but then forfeit rights to photos they had previously shared on the service. "In short, Instagram declares that 'possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don't like it, you can't stop us,'" the lawsuit says. Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who had criticized Instagram, said he was pleased that the company rolled back some of the advertising terms and agreed to better explain their plans in the future. However, he said the new terms no longer contain language which had explicitly promised that private photos would remain private. Facebook had engendered criticism in the past, Opsahl said, for changing settings so that the ability to keep some information private was no longer available. "Hopefully, Instagram will learn from that experience and refrain from removing privacy settings," Opsahl said. The civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Lucy Funes, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. Instagram Inc., 12-cv-6482.

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Retailers hope late Christmas shoppers bring good cheer

CHICAGO/WHITE PLAINS, New York (Reuters) - Retailers limped into Christmas with last-minute blowout deals on everything from TVs to celebrity-branded clothing, after a disappointing few weeks of sales led many analysts to lower their expectations for the holiday season. Some industry watchers said shoppers were making smaller purchases, even though they are still visiting stores and browsing online. Since the holiday quarter can account for about 30 percent of annual sales and half of profit for many chains, such small distinctions can be crucial. "The attitude of the shopper went from Christmas euphoria on Thanksgiving weekend to more subdued, to less frenetic," said Thom Blischok, chief retail strategist and a senior executive adviser with consulting firm Booz & Company's retail practice. Before the season began, Blischok was looking for sales to rise more than 5 percent in November and December over the same period in 2011. Now, he said a gain of 2 percent to 2.5 percent appears more likely. Research firm ShopperTrak last week said it now expects an increase of 2.5 percent, rather than 3.3 percent. "The season will be an OK season. It won't be as strong as last year, but it won't be maybe as bad as feared heading into it," said Joseph Feldman, managing director and senior research analyst at Telsey Advisory Group. "Christmas comes every year." Some of the winning chains this holiday season appeared to be Macy's, TJX, Michael Kors, Costco, Limited, Gap Inc, Anthropologie and Walmart, Feldman said, citing the number of shoppers in their stores, their products and online presence. Even so, some of those who are buying said they were holding back. Terene Collymore, a student of criminology at Monroe College in New Rochelle, New York, was at a Walmart on Monday, buying last-minute gifts, such as knitting supplies for her mother. Collymore said she was being more careful this year and not spending more on herself. "I don't throw money away," she said. CHEAP TELEVISIONS ABOUND Retailers have done a good job controlling inventory levels, even in the face of diminished forecasts, analysts said. The season has been "decent" but "not exceptional," said Noam Paransky, vice president in AlixPartners retail practice. He said he has not seen unplanned discounting or too much excess inventory despite slightly slower-than-expected growth. "Retailers have been disciplined. They haven't hit the panic button yet," Paransky said. Still, Target Corp slashed the price of its collaborative holiday collection with Neiman Marcus by 50 percent a few days ago. The collection was still marked at full price at Neiman Marcus. Meanwhile Sears was offering 60 percent off clothing from the reality TV family's "Kardashian Kollection," and Target, Walmart and Best Buy all had last-minute discounts hundreds of dollars deep on big-screen TVs. Apple's iPad mini has been tough to find in some places but is still available, while the new iPhone 5 is still in stock, suggesting that people may have stuck with their prior models or bought the less expensive iPhone 4S instead, said Feldman. A mix of electronics are selling "exceptionally well," from low-cost tablets to very large-screen TVs, and items such as audio sound bars and headphones, said NPD Group's Stephen Baker. One area of concern is in computers, as sales of PCs and tablets running Windows 8, from its launch in late October to mid-December, were down 13 percent from a year ago, Baker said. That will likely be a disappointment to Microsoft and many third-party retailers, as past releases of Windows have spurred PC sales. However, that has been disrupted by the popularity of tablets eating away at PC sales, Baker said. AFTER-CHRISTMAS SALES Superstorm Sandy hit sales in the densely populated Northeast in late October and early November but retailers were able to bounce back weeks later with a strong turnout on Thanksgiving weekend. Now, fresh concerns about whether Washington will reach an agreement to avert the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts before January 1 is leading some shoppers to curb spending. Overall, analysts said inventory levels appeared about right, though consumers' minds have changed since retailers placed orders for items such as apparel back in the spring. "I don't think it's an issue of ordering too much, I think it's the fact that the consumer has recognized 'I can learn to live with less, I don't have to have that fourteenth sweater, I just don't have to have it,'" said Blischok. Even if the stores are quiet, the Internet is not. There were 12 days this holiday when spending topped $1 billion, up from 10 such days in 2011, according to comScore. Online sales rose 16 percent in the first 51 days of the holiday season, it said. Those retailers that are seeing weakness before the holiday could use after-Christmas sales to sell discounted goods, analysts said. Typically, retailers like to clear out their holiday merchandise quickly, so that shoppers coming in with the gift cards they received are more likely to buy full-price spring merchandise at fatter profit margins. The S&P 500 retail index rose 0.15 percent on Monday, outpacing a 0.24 percent dip in the S&P 500.

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Ga. counties sue HSBC claiming loss of tax base

Three Atlanta-area counties have filed a lawsuit claiming that British bank HSBC cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in extra expenses and damage to their tax bases by aggressively signing minorities to housing loans that were likely to fail. The Georgia counties' failure or success with the relatively novel strategy could help determine whether other local governments try to hold big banks accountable for losses in tax revenue based on what they claim are discriminatory or predatory lending practices. Similar lawsuits resulted in settlements this year worth millions of dollars for communities in Maryland and Tennessee. Fulton, DeKalb and Cobb counties say in their lawsuit, which was filed in October, that the housing foreclosure crisis was the "foreseeable and inevitable result" of big banks, such as HSBC and its American subsidiaries, aggressively pushing irresponsible loans or loans that were destined to fail. The counties say that crisis has caused them tremendous damage. "It's not only the personal damage that was done to people in our communities," said DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader. "That has a ripple effect on our tax digest and the demand for public services in these areas." The city of Atlanta straddles Fulton and DeKalb counties, while Cobb County is northwest of the city. The lawsuit says the banks violated the Fair Housing Act, which provides protections against housing or renting policies or practices, including lending, that discriminate on the basis race, color, national origin, religion, sex, family status or handicap. The counties say their tax digests — which represent the value of all property subject to tax — have declined from a high point in 2009. Fulton's tax digest has dropped about 12 percent, from $32.7 billion to $28.7 billion; DeKalb's has dropped about 20 percent, from $22 billion to $17.5 billion; and Cobb's has dropped about 15 percent, from $25.5 billion to $21.3 billion, the lawsuit says. That reduces their ability to provide critical services in their communities, the lawsuit says. In addition to reducing tax income, vacant or abandoned homes that are in or near foreclosure create additional costs for the counties, the lawsuit says. Their housing code and legal departments have to investigate and respond to code violations, including having to board up, tear down or repair unsafe homes. They have to deal with public health concerns, such as pest infestations, ruptured water pipes, accumulated garbage and unkempt yards. And fire and police departments have to respond to health and safety threats. The lawsuit says predatory lending practices include: targeting vulnerable borrowers for mortgage loans with unfavorable terms; directing credit-worthy borrowers to more costly loans; putting unreasonable terms, excessive fees or pre-payment penalties into mortgage loans; basing loan values on inflated or fraudulent appraisals; and refinancing a loan without benefit to the borrower. The counties are asking the court to order the bank to stop its behavior and to take steps to prevent similar predatory lending in the future. They are also seeking financial compensation for the damages they've suffered and punitive damages to punish the bank for its "willful, wanton and reckless conduct." The counties say the financial injury they've suffered is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Andrew Sandler, a lawyer for HSBC and its subsidiaries, said he couldn't comment on the case. A federal judge has given the bank until Jan. 25 to respond to the counties' complaint. Lawyers for the counties declined interviews on the case, but one of them, Jeffrey Harris, said in an emailed statement that they are continuing to investigate other banks and could file additional complaints. Similar suits were filed against Wells Fargo by the city of Memphis and surrounding Shelby County in Tennessee in 2009 and by the city of Baltimore in 2008. Those suits were settled earlier this year. Both settlements included $3 million to the local governments for economic development or housing programs and $4.5 million in down payment assistance to homeowners, as well as a lending goal of $425 million for residents over the subsequent five years, according to media accounts. As in those cases, the lawsuit filed by the Georgia counties says the bank, in this case HSBC, targeted communities with high percentages of Fair Housing Act-protected minority residents, particularly blacks and Hispanics. "Communities with high concentrations of such potential borrowers, and the potential borrowers themselves, were targeted because of the traditional lack of access to competitive credit choices in these communities and the resulting willingness of FHA protected minority borrowers to accept credit on uncompetitive rates," the lawsuit says. The lawsuit says minority borrowers were disproportionately targeted with high-cost loans between 2004 and 2007. Before the beginning of the subprime lending boom in 2003, annual foreclosure rates in metro Atlanta averaged below 1 percent, but U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data show that the estimated foreclosure rates for each of the three counties now average more than 9 percent and are as high as 18 percent in the communities with the highest percentages of minority borrowers, the lawsuit says. It is the alleged targeting of minority communities that entitles the counties to seek action against HSBC for loss of tax income and other expenses, the lawsuit says. "If you can show that you yourself have suffered harm by an illegal act under the Fair Housing Act, even if you are not the target, even if you are not the intended victim, you can still sue to stop the behavior and to recover any damages that you can prove you suffered because of the violation of the Fair Housing Act," said Steve Dane, a lawyer whose firm was involved in the Memphis and Baltimore lawsuits. The costs incurred by counties because of high rates of foreclosure are reflected in court records and related fees for each home, and police and fire departments can calculate the costs of responding to a given address, Dane said. He said it takes a lot of time and effort to gather the necessary records to prove the harm. Another discouraging factor could be a lack of political will, said Lisa Rice, vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance. "Politicians may not want to go up against the banks," she said, adding that there will likely be other local governments that give this a try but she doubts the number will be high. But Jaime Dodge, an assistant law professor at the University of Georgia, says she thinks more cases are likely, at least in the short term as municipal governments continue to feel the squeeze of a tight economy and seek ways to refill their coffers. They may try to test federal courts in different parts of the country, she said. Successes in multiple jurisdictions could lead to more attempts, but if courts start knocking the suits down that would likely discourage them, she said.

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New Jersey pension fund sues NYSE Euronext on ICE deal

A pension fund that holds shares of NYSE Euronext has sued the exchange operator over its proposed $8.2 billion sale to IntercontinentalExchange Inc , saying the deal undervalues the company's stock. The New Jersey Carpenters Pension Fund late on Friday filed a complaint in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan contending that NYSE Euronext breached its duty to maximize returns for shareholders. The lawsuit seeks class action status on behalf of other NYSE Euronext shareholders and aims to block the sale. It is the second such lawsuit filed against the exchange operator since the deal was announced on Thursday. An individual shareholder, Samuel Cohen, filed a proposed class action in Delaware Chancery Court on Friday that also seeks to prevent the buyout from going forward. Under the deal, NYSE Euronext, which operates the New York Stock Exchange, will sell itself to Atlanta-based ICE. The stock-and-cash deal is expected to close in the second half of 2013. At $33.12 per share, ICE's offer represents a 28 percent premium to NYSE Euronext's closing price last Wednesday. In court papers, the New Jersey pension fund said the deal was based on a "hopelessly flawed process" that would favor NYSE Euronext Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer and several members of its board of directors. The sale was "designed to ensure the sale of NYSE Euronext to ICE on terms preferential to ICE and designed to benefit NYSE Euronext's insiders," the pension fund said. A spokesman for NYSE Euronext declined to comment. A spokeswoman for ICE, which is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not return a call seeking comment. The lawsuit also names as defendants Niederauer, NYSE Euronext Chairman Jan-Michiel Hessels, and other executives and board members. The buyout is expected to help ICE compete in derivatives trading against U.S.-based CME Group, owner of the Chicago Board of Trade. Derivatives trading is highly profitable for the exchanges, and new rules next year will dramatically expand the demand for clearing over-the-counter contracts. NYSE Euronext's stock market businesses are less valuable to ICE, and the company said it will try to spin off the Euronext European stock market businesses in a public offering, generating speculation it may also have little interest in the NYSE trading floor. Profits from stock trading have been significantly eroded by new technology and the rise of other places for investors to trade, including venues known as "dark pools." The cases are New Jersey Carpenters Pension Fund et al. v. NYSE Euronext et al., Supreme Court of the State of New York, No. 654496/2012, and Cohen v. NYSE Euronext et al, Delaware Court of Chancery, No. 8136.

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