Indianapolis, IN, United States (AHN) – The amount of food that will be consumed on Super Bowl Sunday rivals the biggest Thanksgiving Day feasts.

Americans will down 1.25 billion, or 100 million pounds, of chicken wings, enough to circle the Earth more than twice, the National Chicken Council reports. Game watchers will nosh on 13.2 million pounds of pretzels, 43.2 million pounds of tortilla chips and 45.8 million pounds of potato chips, according to Nielsen. The Beer Council says 111 million gallons of beer will be consumed. And, according to stats from Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s, 4.4 million pizza pies will be eaten.

Also edging their way into Super Bowl feasts are more healthier fare. There is a 25 percent increase in carrot eating on Super Bowl Sunday compared to other Sundays. And, 71.4 million pounds of heart-healthy avocados (used for guacamole dip) will also be eaten.

According to a Harris Interactive Survey, 54 percent of fans eat throughout the game instead of snacking at specific times; 12 percent start snacking before the game as a warm-up; and 9 percent start feasting after kickoff.

Thirty-two percent will snacks on dips and spreads; 23 percent will chew on chicken wings; 14 percent will dine on pizza and 14 percent will down salty snacks such as chips, peanuts, pretzels or popcorn, the survey found.

The number one player (past or present) fans would most like top have at their Super Bowl party is Joe Montana, Harris said. Tim Tebow takes the second spot, followed by Tom Brady.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Wall Street opened lower Friday after a report showed that the U.S. economy expanded less than forecast..

Just after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 33 points, the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index was flat and the NASDAQ was up by about 6 points.

Weighing on stocks was a report that showed the U.S. economy expanded at 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, less than the 3 percent that had been projected.

In Europe the Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 0.7 percent as investors await word on developments on the region’s sovereign debt crisis. European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said authorities are “very close” to reaching an agreement on private-sector involvement in a Greek debt swap.

Despite those words of optimism, the dismal growth of GDP in the U.S. was keeping investors cautious. The health and growth of the U.S. economy is a very important and leading indicator of economic growth worldwide. As analysts like to say, “when the U.S. sneezes, the world catches a cold.”

In corporate news, Ford fell after reporting numbers that missed estimates. Starbucks shares slipped despite reporting better than expected numbers, and Juniper Networks plunged after the second biggest maker of computer networking equipment forecast sales and profits that missed estimates.

In commodities, oil was unchanged at $$99.60 a barrel, gold rose $4.70 to $1,725 a troy ounce and silver was up a few pennies at $33.63.

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Mountain View, CA, United States (AHN) – Teens as young as 13 can now log into Google’s social network site Google +, with some enhanced safety features. The move is a bid to attract more users.

The service has until now only been open only to adults. The announcement on Thursday comes just after the internet search giant announced changes to its users privacy policy.

Beginning March 1, the company will follow the activities of users as they move across the firm’s web sites, including its highly popular YouTube, Gmail and main search sites. The company said the changes would apply only to users who are signed into the Google accounts.

Under the new tracking policy, Google said it could track the activities of teens as they surf across the company’s Web site and when using Google +.

The enhanced safety features include warnings when teens are about to make public posts and rigid default privacy settings.

Currently, Google has 90 million users on Google+ compared with Facebook’s 800 million.

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Davos, Switzerland (AHN) – The International Monetary Fund joined 10 other economic bodies in warning of a threat to global economies posed by the austerity drives adopted by many governments around the world.

In an expression of concern over the weakness of global economic activity and rising unemployment, the head of the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization on Friday issued a statement warning about the economic and social risks of government austerity programs.

The leaders said they were issuing a “call to action” aimed at boosting economic growth and fighting protectionism. They said that governments needed to formulate policies to create jobs, reduce inequality and help to green the global economy to protect the Earth’s environments.

Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, in a joint statement said that world economies faced “significant and urgent challenges.”

The statement was published ahead of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland next week.

There are increasing concerns that the global economy is headed for another severe recession, in part because of the ongoing eurozone crisis.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Consumers decreased their credit card debt by 11 percent last year, with the average debt load declining in every state.

That information came from a report released Tuesday by credit tracking and financial education website CreditKarma.com. It analyzed data from more than 300,000 of its users.

“The new year typically inspires consumers to get in control of their finances, especially after the bout of holiday spending that occurred in December. Starting in January, you’ll see consumers start focusing on decreasing debt,” said Ken Lin, CEO of CreditKarma.com.

CreditKarma.com found that the average credit card balance was $6,576 in 2011, down from $7,404 the previous year.

However, that decline came in a climate of weak consumer confidence, which kept spending down as banks continued to tighten lending while slashing credit limits for many existing customers.

While credit card debt was down, so were credit scores.

Nationally, credit scores fell eight points to 660 in 2011 from the previous year.

States with the highest average credit scores are:

• California, Massachusetts and New Jersey — 679
• Washington — 675
• New York — 674

States with the lowest average credit scores are:

• Mississippi — 622
• Louisiana — 635
• Arkansas — 635
• South Carolina — 635
• West Virginia — 637

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Wall Street banking giant JPMorgan reported a steep plunge in its quarterly earnings Friday morning caused by large losses in its investment banking and trading divisions.

JPMorgan is the nation’s largest bank by assets.

Bank officials reported that it earned $3.7 billion, or 90 cents per share, in the final quarter of 2011, down by 23 percent from $4.8 billion, or $1.12 per share, during the same quarter a year earlier.

The news caused shares of JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500) stock to fall by 3 percent in early trading.

Nevertheless, for the entire year of 2011, profit rose by 9 percent to $18.98 billion, compared with $17.37 billion for 2010.

Net income from investment banking fell by 52 percent to $726 million during the quarter. That drop includes a $567 million loss caused by a narrowing of the spreads between interest rates on certain assets.

However, JPMorgan said that without those debit valuation adjustments the investment banking division would have earned $1.1 billion.

Net income from its asset management business fell by 40 percent to $302 million in the fourth quarter.

However, there was brighter news in JPMorgan’s real estate division portfolio. That lost only $11 million in the fourth quarter, compared to a loss of $823 million a year earlier.

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Wolfsburg, Germany (AHN) – Volkswagen AG announced it had record sales of 5.1 million cars and sport-utility vehicles worldwide in 2011.

Sales were up worldwide by 13.1 percent in 2011 from 2010, company officials said.

Volkswagen is Europe’s largest carmaker.

Although much of its growth came from gains in China, India, Russia and the United States, its two largest markets were Europe and China. The Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker sold 1.72 million vehicles in each of those markets.

However, company officials said they expected challenges in the market environment for 2012.

VW officials credited new versions of some models, such as the Passat, Jetta and Beetle for helping to boost sales in “difficult market conditions.”

The only region that didn’t record strong growth was South America, where sales increased by only 2.2 percent.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Both the NATO chief and a former United States presidential candidate on Thursday welcomed plans announced by the U.S. leadership to make its military “leaner” but keep it “agile, flexible, and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats.”

Flanked by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military officers, President Barack Obama, the first president to address journalists in the Pentagon briefing room, unveiled a new military strategy to make the U.S. military “leaner” while maintaining its superiority as it switches focus to the Asia-Pacific.

Welcoming the announcement, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement, “The review emphasizes the importance of modern capabilities, greater flexibility and effective partnerships,” adding, “In an unpredictable world, the United States’ affirmation that our transatlantic partnership remains indispensable to the security of all Allies is key.”

“As President Obama said, the U.S. will continue investing in NATO because the Alliance has demonstrated time and time again — most recently in Libya — that it is a force multiplier,” noted Rasmussen.

“We have the opportunity and the responsibility to look ahead to the force we need for the future,” said Obama as he highlighted the receding of wars where the U.S. forces prevailed.

Stating that America is the greatest force for freedom and security that the world has ever known, Obama added, “In no small measure, that’s because we’ve built the best-trained, best-led, best-equipped military in history — and as commander in chief, I’m going to keep it that way.”

“Our military will be leaner,” said Obama, cautioning, “but the world must know — the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats.”

The strategy is designed to accommodate at least $450 billion in defense cuts over the next decade. However, there is an additional threat to the Pentagon budget of another $500 billion at the end of this year after Congress failed to agree on deficit reduction following a debt-ceiling deal in August.

“We have to renew our economic strength here at home, which is the foundation of our strength around the world. That includes putting our fiscal house in order,” noted the president. Anticipating criticism from his Republican rivals in the current election year, Obama stressed that the defense budget would keep growing, but at a slower pace.

Reacting to the Obama announcement, Republican Sen. John McCain said in a statement, “I understand the need for reductions in defense spending, but we must also address the broader cultural problem plaguing our defense establishment: the waste, inefficiency and ineffective programs that result from an overly consolidated military-industrial-Congressional complex.”

Lambasting fellow lawmakers, McCain said, “We must cut Congressional earmarks and pork-barrel spending on programs that the military does not request and does not need,” adding, “We must eliminate the shameless cost overruns that characterize too many of our defense programs.”

At the Pentagon, Obama reiterated previous comments during his visit to Canberra, Australia, that the Asia-Pacific was now a top priority for the U.S. “As I made clear in Australia, we’ll be strengthening our presence in the Asia-Pacific, and budget reductions will not come at the expense of this critical region.”

With the Iraq war over and the troop drawdown already under way in Afghanistan, President Obama said that the military “will no longer need to be sized to support the large-scale, long-term stability operations that dominated military priorities and force-generation over the past decade.”

Addressing the issue of veterans, he called it a “profound responsibility” of not only himself but also others in the Pentagon, to “only send them [military service persons] into harm’s way when it’s absolutely necessary, to give them the equipment and the support that they need to get the job done, and to care for them and their families when they come home.”

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Hoffman Estates, IL, United States (AHN) – Sears Holdings has released a list of 79 Sears and Kmart stores it will close nationwide because of the company’s poor sales over the critical holiday period.

The company did not give an estimate of job losses because it said that employment numbers varied by store.

The first list of stores to close are located in every region of the country. But Florida in the Southeast led the list with 11 stores closing followed by Midwest states Michigan and Ohio with six each.

Alabama, California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Virginia are losing three stores each, while Georgia, Missouri, New Hampshire, Washington and Wisconsin will lose two each, and Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina will each lose one store. In North Carolina, four stores will close.

Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500) is one of the nation’s largest retailers. The company did not announce the closing dates for the stores.

Chief Executive Officer Lou D’Ambrosio announced the store closings and outlined other actions in a statement.

“Given our performance and the difficult economic environment, especially for big-ticket items, we intend to implement a series of actions to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model. These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail – at the store, online and in the home,” D’Ambrosio said.

He said the company would also reduce its peak inventory and fixed costs as well as focus on improving profit margins.

Same-store sales were down by 5.2 percent in the eight weeks leading to Christmas Day compared to a year earlier.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks opened higher Friday after a mixed November durable goods orders report that showed a 3.8 percent increase, the most in four months.

In light trading, just after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 15 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up about 2 points and the NASDAQ was up 5 points.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that bookings for equipment meant to last three years rose 3.8 percent in November after no change in October. However, demand for business equipment, excluding military hardware and aircraft, dropped 1.2 percent in November, the biggest decline since January.

The decrease in demand for capital goods signals manufacturers are still slow to boost investment in light of the political gridlock in the U.S. and the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis.

The reports shows that people and businesses are still cautious and hesitant to expand.

Trading is expected to be light ahead of the Christmas holiday. The low volume could potentially stir volatility.

In overseas trading, volume was low as several European markets closed early. The Tokyo exchange was closed for the Emperor’s Birthday holiday.

In commodities, oil was up about 50 cents, trading just under $100 a barrel, while gold was down $1 at $1,609.80 a troy ounce.

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