Cities where homes are the most expensive

This is the most expensive house for sale in the nation's most expensive housing market: Los Altos, California. …U.S. home prices have begun to rebound in the past year. And in the most expensive markets, where the average home sells for well over $1 million, recoveries are among the strongest, increasing between 20% and 50% in most cases.

According to Coldwell Banker Real Estate, there are at least 10 U.S. cities where the average listing price for a home in the first six months of this year exceeded $1.2 million.

about all! Homes is publishing the top five here; to see the rest, go to 24/7 Wall Street:

The majority of these cities are on or near the California coast. For example, in San Jose suburb Los Altos, homes sold in the first half of the year averaged a $1.7 million price tag. Based on data provided by Coldwell Banker, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the most expensive cities for buying a home. In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Coldwell Banker Chief Operating Officer and President Budge Huskey explained that for the first time in years, residents of the country’s most expensive housing markets are largely professionals working in or very near their home. In prior years, he explained, many of the most expensive communities were simply very desirable for wealthy families or individuals, without necessarily being employment centers. Many of these people were retired or worked from home. “Now,” Huskey said, “the emphasis is on those markets that are in proximity to true, strong business centers, where employment has been consistent, and the overall level of wealth and wages has been high relative to other opportunities within the country.”
These expensive markets are concentrated around the tech industry, which has remained strong throughout the recession. As a result, most of these cities and suburbs are near the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. These are areas driven by the tech boom, explained Huskey. “In an area like Los Altos, for example, you’re looking at a location that is 15 minutes away from the headquarters of such corporate giants as Google and Facebook.”
Income in the expensive housing markets is among the highest in the country. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, median household income in these cities far exceeds the U.S. median income by at least $20,000. In Saratoga, California, one of the cities on our list, median income is nearly triple the U.S. figure of $51,914.
Two cities outside California are on the top 10 list, one of which isn't even the continental U.S.; visit 24/7 Wall St. to see them. Based on data published by Coldwell Banker in its annual Home Listing Report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the country’s most expensive cities for buying a home. Homes in these cities had the highest average listing price between January and June of this year. Markets with less than ten four-bedroom, two-bath homes were excluded from the survey. We also examined data on vacancy rates, median price per square foot, and changes in price from real estate listing service Trulia. Information on income, educational attainment, and poverty rate, among other data, is from the U.S. Census Bureau.
5. Palo Alto, Calif.
> Avg. listing price: $1,495,364
> Median household income: $120,670
> Pct. households $200,000+ income: 39.3%
In Palo Alto, 48.7% of adults have a graduate or professional degree — well more than four times the national rate of 10.3%. The city’s proximity to Stanford University, one of the top universities in the nation, may be partly the reason behind the city’s highly educated population. Among the companies headquartered in the city are Hewlett-Packard and Tesla Motors. The city is a large employer of highly skilled employees, as 25.3% of its workers are employed in professional, scientific and management occupations, well above the 10.4% of workers nationwide. Perhaps the most famous resident of Palo Alto is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who bought a $7 million home there last year.
4. Menlo Park, Calif.
> Avg. listing price: $1,506,909
> Median household income: $107,860
> Pct. households $200,000+ income: 34.9%
Menlo Park is one of just four cities where the average listing price for a four-bedroom home exceeds $1.5 million. As of 2010, the median income in the city was slightly below $108,000. However, the recent Facebook IPO has been a windfall to the area. In June, real estate listing service Zillow reported that the “proportion of million-dollar listings” in Menlo Park — where Facebook is headquartered — rose by 87% between the company’s IPO filing and its first day as a public company. Among the houses available in Menlo Park are a five-bedroom home with a gym, theater area and wine cellar, which is listed for $4.6 million, and a six-bedroom 5,200 square feet home that’s listed for slightly under $5 million.
3. Saratoga, Calif.
> Avg. listing price: $1,582,434
> Median household income: $145,023
> Pct. households $200,000+ income: 43.1%
Though home prices in the nearby San Jose metro area fell by 25.1% peak-to-trough, Saratoga is yet another example of how the Silicon Valley housing market has recovered. Currently, the median price per square foot for homes in San Jose is $337, according to Trulia, more than all housing markets except San Francisco and Honolulu. Prices for many homes in the area have skyrocketed, according to listings on Zillow. A home currently listed for nearly $10 million last sold for just over $2.1 million in 2000, while a home listed for $14.9 million last sold in 1994 for just over $1 million. As of 2010, 43.1% of Saratoga households earned more than $200,000 per year, while 40.9% of adult residents had a graduate degree, versus 10.3% nationwide.
2. Newport Beach, Calif.
> Avg. listing price: $1,658,000
> Median household income: $107,007
> Pct. households $200,000+ income: 37.6%
Outside of Northern California, Newport Beach is the most expensive city to buy a home. Home prices are so high in the city that in 2009 legendary bond investor Bill Gross bought a nine-bedroom, 11,000 square feet home for $23 million — and then tore it down. In 2011, Gross listed the empty plot of land for $26.5 million. Orange County as a whole has a vacancy rate of just 1.5%, among the ten lowest in the nation. Despite a 32.7% drop in home prices from peak to trough during the recession, Orange County’s median price per square foot is $265. This trails only the Honolulu, New York, San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.
1. Los Altos, Calif.
> Avg. listing price: $1,706,688
> Median household income: $149,964
> Pct. households $200,000+ income: 43.6%
In Los Altos, the average four-bedroom, two-bathroom home lists for nearly $50,000 more than any other city in the nation. According to Coldwell Banker, for that price a buyer could purchase 28 similar homes in Redford, Mich., the nation’s cheapest housing market. In Redford, the average home lists for just $60,490. Currently, asking prices in the San Jose metro area have risen 12.7% year-over-year, according to Trulia. This is more than nearly every other metro area in the country.

Analysis: Entering the age of the $1 million medicine

LONDON (Reuters) - The Western world's first drug to fix faulty genes promises to transform the lives of patients with an ultra-rare disease that clogs their blood with fat. The only snag is the price. The gene therapy for lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD), a hereditary disorder that raises the risk of potentially lethal inflammation of the pancreas, is likely to cost more than $1 million per patient when it goes on sale in Europe this summer.
Rare or so-called orphan diseases are winning unprecedented attention from drug developers. More than a quarter of the 39 new medicines approved in the United States last year were designated for such conditions.
These are therefore exciting times for campaigners such as Briton Jill Prawer, who leads an LPLD support group, and others championing the needs of people with equally obscure illnesses. Naturally, she is delighted by the arrival of the LPLD drug Glybera. "It's brilliant," said Prawer, a 50-year-old mother of three who has suffered all her life from LPLD. Until now, governments and insurance companies have largely accepted prices that can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars for products that treat orphan diseases. As only a handful of patients need the treatment, the overall cost to health budgets is relatively small.
However, healthcare providers are increasingly having to balance the acute needs of the few against the wider interests of society, within constrained budgets. Scrutiny of the sky-high prices charged for this wave of new drugs is growing.
"More companies are getting into this sector because they've seen the eye-wateringly high prices that can be charged for some of these very rare disease medicines," said Karl Claxton, professor of health economics at the University of York.
"It's unsustainable. Healthcare systems around the world are under increasing financial pressure and all of them are starting to look very carefully at what they get for their money."
PAYERS PUSH BACK
As more treatments become available and scientists learn more about what causes the 6,000-7,000 diseases that affect less than 1 percent of the population, there are signs the payers may be pushing back - especially in austerity-hit Europe.
As from this week, a new drug called Kalydeco is being made available on the state health service to about 270 patients in England with a rare form of the lung disease cystic fibrosis. It was cleared, however, only after Vertex Pharmaceuticals cut the official list price of 182,625 pounds ($297,000) a year. The size of the discount is confidential.
In the Netherlands a row erupted last year over whether the healthcare insurance board, CVZ, should continue funding expensive enzyme replacement therapies for people living with Fabry and Pompe diseases.
In the end CVZ agreed to keep paying but the case highlighted the difficulties of assessing the value of medicines for rare conditions, given the limited evidence that can be collected from clinical trials involving very few patients. In the case of gene therapy, extreme pricing may be unavoidable, since a single dose could last a lifetime, giving any drug manufacturer just one shot at recouping its investment.
Glybera, developed by private Dutch firm uniQure, is the first gene therapy to win approval in the West, although China cleared one for head and neck cancer in 2003.
Several companies are working on other gene therapies, including Sanofi's Genzyme unit, GlaxoSmithKline, Shire and small biotechs like Bluebird Bio.
On both sides of the Atlantic, drugs for orphan diseases have changed ideas about what makes a profitable pharmaceutical.
Traditionally, drugmakers have relied on mass-market pills to fight problems such as high cholesterol. But expiries of patents, allowing competitors to make cheap copies, have undermined their profits in this area. By contrast, rare diseases offer premium prices and far lower competition. The U.S. biotech company Alexion Pharmaceuticals shows how well the orphan drug model can work. Despite treating only a few thousand patients worldwide, sales of its rare blood disease drug Soliris are forecast by analysts to reach $1.5 billion this year and $2.6 billion by 2017 - thanks to a U.S. list price of $440,000 per patient a year.
Soliris is not alone. The past decade has been the most productive in the history of orphan drug development, helped by the U.S. Orphan Drug Act in 1983 and similar later laws in Europe, Japan, Australia and Singapore that provide additional market exclusivity for medicines targeting small populations.
While this policy has stimulated innovation, some investors are also nervous about future pricing. "The issue of the sustainability of orphan drug pricing is really front and center for investors at the moment," said David Pinniger, investment manager of the International Biotechnology Trust, whose holdings include shares in orphan drug companies such as Alexion and Biomarin Pharmaceutical.
"The question is will the orphan drug strategy become a victim of its own success? With austerity and pricing pressure, this area is going to come under increasing scrutiny."
A Thomson Reuters analysis put the global orphan drug market at more than $50 billion at the end of 2011, with spending accounting for about 6 percent of total drug sales.
A number of these drugs started out as treatments for rare cancers but have since become multibillion-dollar sellers as their use has expanded.
The orphan drug market is expanding faster than traditional pharmaceuticals with annual growth averaging 25.8 percent from 2001 to 2010 compared with 20.1 percent for non-orphan drugs.
Moreover, orphan drugs' average "present value" - which measures the current worth of future revenues - is higher than for non-orphan drugs, despite their tiny target populations. This reflects lower development and marketing costs, as well as longer market exclusivity.
Unsurprisingly, big pharmaceutical firms are showing growing interest in rare diseases, reflected in Sanofi's $20.1 billion purchase of Genzyme in 2011 and decisions by companies including Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline to enter the market.
That promises more competition in some established areas, with Pfizer, for example, launching its new Gaucher disease drug Elelyso at a 25 percent discount to Genzyme's Cerezyme.
Large drugmakers are also likely to be under more pressure to curb excessive prices than small biotechs - a fact recognized by GSK, which has said it would like to see more responsible orphan drug pricing.
TIME FOR NEW APPROACH?
Tim Cox, professor of medicine at the University of Cambridge and the first UK doctor to give Gaucher patients enzyme replacement therapy, welcomes industry investment but believes pricing at present is "completely arbitrary".
"I believe we can have a system to approve drugs for a reasonable time at a reasonable cost that can be reviewed after a period, so that the amount of health benefit gained can be used as an arbiter of the final cost," he said. That view is echoed by Yann Le Cam, head of the EU-wide orphan disease patients' group Eurordis, who wants to see more flexible licensing that would allow a new drug to come to market earlier with limited distribution while more data is collected. "At the end of the day, it will be cheaper," he said, since each clinical trial would need fewer patients and could be concluded faster. This concept also appeals to Joern Aldag, the CEO of uniQure, whose predecessor company Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT) was torpedoed by initial rebuffs from EU regulators who wanted bigger trials before approving Glybera.
AMT was taken private by newly created uniQure last April because it could no longer fund itself in the public markets. "We are breaking new ground in science and reimbursement - but we also have to also break new ground in how the regulations are set up," Aldag said. ($1 = 0.6141 British pounds)

Depardieu, in tax fight, gets Russian citizenship

MOSCOW (AP) -- The Kremlin has cast Gerard Depardieu in one of the most surprising roles of his life — as a new Russian citizen.
The announcement Thursday that President Vladimir Putin has approved Depardieu's application for citizenship is almost a real-life analogue to the French actor's 1990 comedy "Green Card," in which his character enters into a sham marriage in order to work in the United States.But in this version, taxes appear to be at the heart of the matter. Depardieu has waged a battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in his native country.
French President Francois Hollande plans to raise the tax on earned income above €1 million ($1.3 million) to 75 percent from the current 41 percent, while Russia has a flat 13-percent tax rate.
A representative for the former Oscar nominee declined to say whether he had accepted the Russian offer.
Thursday was a holiday in Russia and officials from the Federal Tax Service and Federal Migration Service could not be reached for comment on whether the decision would require Depardieu to have a residence in Russia.
But it's clearly an image buffer for Russia, calling attention to the country's attractive tax regime and boosting Putin's efforts to show that the economic chaos of the early post-Soviet period has passed.
"The distinctiveness of our tax system is poorly known about in the West. When they know about it, we can expect a massive migration of rich Europeans to Russia," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin bragged on Twitter.
Others aren't so sure.
Political analyst Pavel Svyatenkov told the state news agency RIA Novosti that the move was "very good, very high-quality PR for Russia" but he was didn't think it would ignite a flood of new residents.
"I don't expect a massive movement of rich people to here, for the reason that Russia remains a pretty poor country by Western measurements and here there are bigger problems with crime and corruption," he said.
As Depardieu's criticism of the proposed tax roiled his country, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called him "pathetic."
Depardieu responded angrily in an open letter.
"I have never killed anyone, I don't think I've been unworthy, I've paid €145 million ($190 million) in taxes over 45 years," the 64-year-old actor wrote. "I will neither complain nor brag, but I refuse to be called 'pathetic'."
Depardieu said in the letter that he would surrender his passport and French social security card. In October, the mayor of a small Belgian border town announced that Depardieu had bought a house and set up legal residence there, a move that was slammed by Hollande's newly-elected Socialist government.
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the French government spokeswoman, didn't comment directly on Depardieu's tax fight. But she drew a clear distinction between people who have personal or professional reasons to live abroad and "French citizens who proclaim loudly and clearly that they they're exiling themselves for fiscal reasons."
She said Putin's offer "is an exclusive prerogative of the Russian chief of state."
Depardieu has had increasingly high-profile ties with Russia.
Last October he visited Grozny, the capital of the Russian province of Chechnya, to celebrate the birthday of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. And in 2011, he was in Russia's Arkhangelsk region to play the lead role in the film "Rasputin."
He is well known in the country, where he appears in an ad for Sovietsky Bank's credit card and is prominently featured on the bank's home page.
"You have to understand that Depardieu is a star in Russia," Vladimir Fedorovski, a Russian writer living in France, told the Europe 1 network on Thursday. "There are crowds around Depardieu. He's a symbol of France. He's a huge ambassador of French culture."
Depardieu has made more than 150 films and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Cyrano de Bergerac in the 1990 film of the same name.
The Kremlin statement gave no information on why Putin made the citizenship grant, but the Russian president had expressed sympathy with the actor in December, days after Depardieu reportedly said he was considering Russian citizenship.
"As we say, artists are easily offended and therefore I understand the feelings of Mr. Depardieu," Putin said.
Although France's highest court struck down the new tax on Dec. 29, the government has promised to resubmit the law in a slightly different form. On Wednesday, the French government estimated the court decision to overturn the tax would cost the country €210 million ($275 million) in 2013.
In an interview, Depardieu told the Sunday Parisien the court decision made no difference.
France's debt burden is around 90 percent of national income — not far off levels that have caused problems elsewhere in the 17-country eurozone.
Depardieu is not the only high-profile Frenchman to object to the super tax. Bernard Arnault — chief of the luxury goods and fashion giant LVMH and worth an estimated $41 billion — has said he would leave for Belgium.

New Year! New Music Releases! 2013! Another Odd-Numbered Year!

Judas Priest hints at new music. Fleetwood Mac are said to be reuniting. Albums by Backstreet Boys, Alice In Chains, Cher, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, The Black Keys, Eminem, AC/DC, Beyonce, Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne, Katy Perry and Mariah Carey are all said to be coming very soon or soon enough. This is the music business, folks! Everything is subject to change! With that in mind, I've searched high and mostly low for the albums that have tentative names and nearly firm release dates! The first quarter of 2013 looks to be a great time for people who enjoy illegally downloading albums! Though, I should point out, it would be much better for the continuance of the music industry and your favorite artists' careers if you actually shelled out some cash for their records! After all, they didn't illegally download their instruments!
Note: albums are listed by release date.

25) Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals and Warbeast -- War of the Gargantuas (split album), 1/8: This is a split album from everyone's favorite singer, the lovable Philip H. Anselmo, with yet another band that isn't Pantera, and Warbeast, who have been touring with Anselmo's other side project, the supergroup Down, which at this point could be his official group. Busy hands are also the devil's playthings? Sheesh!


24) Yo La Tengo -- Fade, 1/15: Despite looking like former record store employees, Yo La Tengo make a sound that sparkles and feeds back and generally covers for the fact that no one in the band is a singer in the conventional 'rock' sense. Rumors that David Lee Roth was to join the band are just that -- rumors. Made up here. On the spot.


23) Mumford & Sons -- The Road To Red Rocks, 1/22: Both a film and an album with several different editions to choose from, The Road to Red Rocks was shot live at Colorado's historic outdoor venue, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, before the legalization of the pot. Listen to the band get low at high altitudes. Feel the thin air breeze through your hair!


22) Camper Van Beethoven -- La Costa Perdida, 1/22: Ten songs recorded at Jonathan Segel's home studio in Oakland are said to be "steeped in their connection to Northern California, specifically the areas where the band members nurtured their musical talents -- Redlands, Santa Cruz and San Francisco." So, expect this music to quake!


21) Adam Ant -- Adam Ant Is The Blueback Hussar In Marrying The Gunner's Daughter, 1/22: "Completely different from anything else I've done before," says Mr. Ant, whose last album of new material was 1995's acoustic-based Wonderful. Said to include 17 songs, with collaborations with Boz Boorer, Andy Bell of Oasis and Beady Eye, 3 Colours Red guitarist Chris McCormack and longtime Ant conspirator Marco Pirroni, the album sports a title worthy of Fiona Apple at her most succinct.


20) Darius Rucker -- True Believers, 1/22: The third solo album from Darius "I'm Not Hootie" Rucker continues in the country music vein, with a cover of Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel" that features Lady Antebellum. Sheryl Crow and Mallary Hope also guest on the album, which is said to include 12 complete songs.


19) Bad Religion -- True North, 1/22: Longtime running punk rock 'n' roll band Bad Religion return with an album named after the record label that released albums by Canadian folkie Bruce Cockburn. But don't think the band has gone folk. In fact, 15 of the album's 16 songs are under three minutes and are full of "fast and concise punk." First single? Something called "F*** (Forget) You." Oh, such cheeky oldsters!


18) Colton Dixon -- A Messenger, 1/29: Despite finishing seventh during season 11 of American Idol, Colton Dixon will release his new album to reach the infidels who need to get right with G-d. As for his less than stellar finish, one internet chat board said, "I think Colton's problem was that his words didn't match his actions. He preached G-d but dressed like the anti-christ." Whoa! People on chat boards aren't very nice!


17) Tegan and Sara -- Heartthrob, 1/29: Everyone's favorite twin sisters from Canada are back with another album! The deluxe version of the album will add two songs. Or you could say the standard album will deduct two songs! It all depends how you look at it. Fans are sure to be disappointed by the song, "I Couldn't Be Your Friend." I mean, don't they even want to try?


16) Ashanti -- BraveHeart, 1/29: This poor album has had its release date pushed back many times. Two singles have already been aired, including "That's What We Do," featuring R. Kelly. Producers such as Alex da Kidd, Danja, Rico Love, Cool & Dre, Warryn Campbell, Carvin & Ivan, Common, Darkchild and Tank are said to have collaborated with Ms. Ashanti. For once, we'd like to see that "Too Many Cooks" adage proven to be overrated and wrong! No mention of a Mel Gibson cameo.


15) Eels -- Wonderful, Glorious, 2/5: Mark Oliver Everett's ditched the Unabomber look and decided to rejoin society ever so slightly. His new album features his road band writing the songs with him and recording with the notoriously meticulous and secretive solo performer in the studio!


14) Josh Groban -- All That Echoes, 2/5: "This album makes me feel good, and I hope others feel the same way," says Josh Groban at this website. His new album, his sixth, was produced by Warner Brothers chairman Rob Cavallo, so you can rest assured the label is satisfied with the results. "We both took risks we wouldn't have taken without one another," says Cavallo. Would your parents let you hang out with these guys?


13) Jim James -- Regions of Light and Sound of God, 2/5: My Morning Jacket's lead beard Jim James has announced his first full-length solo album. He plays all the instruments and engineered the album himself. Inspired by Lynd Ward's 1929 graphic novel God's Man, which "chronicles an artist's struggle with temptation and corruption, along with finding true love," Regions sounds like it could be this year's Dianetics!


12) Coheed and Cambria -- The Afterman: Descension, 2/5: Considering C&C Cola have already issued The Afterman: Ascension, it only makes sense that what comes up must come down. Descension will continue the tale of Sirius Amory as he explores the energy source holding together the Keywork… The album will be released with a coffee-table book to help along those of us who didn't pay attention in school.


11) LL Cool J -- Authentic Hip-Hop, 2/12: "I'm not trying to compete with 17-year-olds on the radio, but I am talking directly to the folks who came up with me," Cool told Essence. "We may not be teenagers anymore, but we do still like to have fun." The album is said to include 15 tracks, which seems a little long for us oldsters who need to be in bed by 10 p.m.


10) Bullet For My Valentine -- Temper Temper, 2/12: The follow-up to 2010's Fever, Temper Temper features the band in medically-sound form. Guitarist Michael "Padge" Paget underwent back surgery and is now well enough to stand on stage again, while singer Matt Tuck has finished touring his side-project Axewound in time to begin touring to support the new album. The future is healthy as hell.


9) Azealia Banks -- Broke With Expensive Taste, 2/12: Harlem rapper and authenticity-enthusiast Azealia Banks pushed her new album to 2013, after over-promising in 2012. "The vision and vibe that I have for Broke with Expensive Taste is just for it to be stylish and authentic like anything I do," Ms. Banks told Beats TV, "There isn't a genre I'm trying to go for or a specific vibe I'm trying for. I'm going for authenticity."


8) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- Push The Sky Away, 2/19: Old goths got the best news in five years when Nick Cave announced that he and the Bad Seeds will issue their first album in -- get this -- five years with Push the Sky Away. Of course, Cave's been busy with the critically-lauded Grinderman for much of recent time, which features several Bad Seeds. Sadly, longtime Cave cohort Mick Harvey will not be included. Surely, though, the album will sound like everything else Nick Cave has done. It's not like he's going electro-clash or anything.


7) 50 Cent -- Street King Immortal, February 26: The album is already a year late, but Mr. Cent is looking to get his new album out near the ten-year anniversary of his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin'. The new album has already seen the singles, "New Day," featuring Dr. Dre and Eminem, "First Date," with Too $hort, and "My Life," with Eminem and Adam Levine, released to the airwaves and is named after his Street King energy drink and is, according to Mr. Cent, "more personal than the albums in the past."


6) Johnny Marr -- The Messenger, 2/26: Tired of guesting on everyone else's albums, Johnny Marr decided to put his own name on something for a change. Marr returned to Manchester, the place of his youth, and told Rolling Stone the new album is inspired by "the New Wave shows I used to sneak in to see when I left school…in terms of the energy, the shadow of the memory of that."


5) Jimi Hendrix -- People, Hell and Angels, 3/5: He may be dead, but he's still Jimi Hendrix. Featuring 12 previously unreleased recordings, the album "follows Hendrix in 1968 and 1969 as he works on material apart from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and suggests new experimental directions," says the press release. "Hendrix toys with horns, keyboards, percussion and a second guitar." Proof you don't need to be alive to still have a recording career.


4) Akon -- Stadium, March 2013: Considering the album's lead single "Angel" was released to radio stations on September 14, 2010!!!, it seems Stadium is the banned-from-Sri Lanka's singer's loooongggg-awaited new album. Surely, the public can hardly wait to hear what new potential ringtones the singer has in store for them!


3) Bon Jovi -- What About Now, Spring 2013: Having been busy with planning the 2013 Because We Can World Tour, the band have apparently remembered to issue a new studio album as well. What About Now is the chosen title and it surely will feature new songs!


2) Nicki Minaj -- Pink Friday: The Pinkprint, Spring 2013: Nicki Minaj reported on the Twitter that she will release another album called Pink Friday. That makes three albums with the same name. This one is to be subtitled The Pinkprint. No word on how many of her alter egos will be present this time.


1) Lady Gaga -- ARTPOP, Spring 2013: Word is that Ms. Gaga is looking to expand her creative reach with her next album ARTPOP. The fully-capitalized album is said to be potentially split into a "Commercial" album, with all the radio-friendly hits and stuff, and an "Experimental" album six months later that will be for the music fans who like their music less radio and more weird. Let's just hope they each come with a poster!

Energy Shot’s ‘No Crash’ Claim Is Disputed by Watchdog

The distributor of the top-selling energy “shot,” 5-Hour Energy, has long claimed on product labels, in promotions and in television advertisements that the concentrated caffeine drink produced “no crash later” — the type of letdown that consumers of energy drinks often feel when the beverages’ effects wear off.
But an advertising watchdog group said on Wednesday that it had told the company five years ago that the claim was unfounded and had urged it then to stop making it. An executive of the group, the National Advertising Division, also said that 5-Hour Energy’s distributor, Living Essentials, had publicly misrepresented the organization’s position about the claim and that it planned to start a review that could lead to action against the company by the Federal Trade Commission.
“We recommended that the ‘no crash’ claim be discontinued because their own evidence showed there was a crash from the product,” said Andrea C. Levine, director the National Advertising Division. The organization, which is affiliated with the Council of Better Business Bureaus, reviews ad claims for accuracy.
The emerging dispute between Living Essentials and the National Advertising Division is unusual because the $10 billion energy drink industry is rife with questionable marketing. And Living Essentials, which recently cited the advertising group’s support in seeking to defend the “no crash” claim, may have opened the door to greater scrutiny.
Major producers like 5-Hour Energy, Red Bull, Monster Energy and Rockstar Energy all say their products contain proprietary blends of ingredients that provide a range of mental and physical benefits. But the companies have conducted few studies to show that the costly products provide anything more than a blast of caffeine, a stimulant found in beverages like coffee, tea or cola-flavored sodas.
The dispute over 5-Hour Energy’s claim also comes as regulatory review of the high-caffeine drinks is increasing. The Food and Drug Administration recently disclosed that it had received reports over the last four years citing the possible role of 5-Hour Energy in 13 deaths. The mention of a product in an F.D.A. report does not mean it caused a death or injury. Living Essentials says it knows of no problems related to its products.
The issue surrounding the company’s “no crash” claim dates to 2007, when National Advertising Division began reviewing all of 5-Hour Energy’s marketing claims. That same year, the company conducted a clinical trial of the energy shot that compared it to Red Bull and Monster Energy.
At the time, Living Essentials was already using the “No crash later” claim. An article on Wednesday in The New York Times reported that the study had shown that 24 percent of those who used 5-Hour Energy suffered a “moderately severe” crash hours after consuming it. The study reported higher crash rates for Red Bull and Monster Energy.
When asked how those findings squared with the company’s “no crash” claim, Elaine Lutz, a spokeswoman for Living Essentials, said the company had amended the claim after the 2007 review by the National Advertising Division. In doing so, it added an asterisklike mark after the claim on product labels and in promotions. The mark referred to additional labeling language stating that “no crash means no sugar crash.” Unlike Red Bull and Monster Energy, 5-Hour Energy does not contain sugar.
Ms. Lutz said that based on the modification, the advertising accuracy group “found all of our claims to be substantiated.”
However, Ms. Levine, the advertising group’s director, took sharp exception to that assertion, saying it mischaracterized the group’s decision. And a review of the reports suggested that Living Essentials had simply added language of its choosing to its label rather than doing what the group had recommended — drop the “no crash” claim altogether.
That review concluded that the company’s 2007 study had shown there was evidence to support a “qualified claim that 5-Hour Energy results in less of a crash than Red Bull and Monster” Energy. But it added the study, which showed that 5-Hour Energy users experienced caffeine-related crashes, was inadequate to support a “no crash” claim.
Ms. Levine said Living Essentials had apparently decided to use the parts of the group’s report that it liked and ignore others.
Companies “are not permitted to mischaracterize our decisions or misuse them for commercial purposes,” she said.
She said the group planned to notify Living Essentials that it was reopening its review of the “no crash later” claim. If the company fails to respond or provides an inadequate response, the National Advertising Division will probably refer the matter to the F.T.C., she said.
A Democratic lawmaker, Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, has asked that the agency review energy drink marketing claims.
Asked about the position of the National Advertising Division, Ms. Lutz, the 5-Hour Energy spokeswoman, stated in an e-mail that the “no sugar crash” language had been added to address the group’s concern.

Correction: January 2, 2013, Wednesday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of deaths in which the Food and Drug Administration said 5-Hour Energy possibly played a role. The number was 13, not 15.