Theres a pellet of law to payments gossip Nicholson

Q: Earlier this year I listened a gossip that President Barack Obama was going to assign that people squeeze Treasury holds inside of their early early early early early early early retirement accounts.

Last week I review that he is going to try to assign that when I retire I will be compulsory to place half of my 401(k) plan in an payments for dual years. I"m already forced to minister to a Social Security complement from that I will probably not embrace a dime, and right afar this!

Can they unequivocally need me to do this with my own money? I live in a ZIP formula that infers I have money, so I"m bombarded by these "educational" cooking offers to assistance me have my early early early early early early early retirement last. You wouldnt hold the dear restaurants at that these presentations are heldplaces I"d never mental condition of going to unless it was a really special occasion.

The majority new call in settled that "even the boss is enlivening people to deposit in the car about that we are going to discuss." I regularly insincere that the people putting on these presentations were creation a killing; how else can they means to buy cooking for a organisation of strangers? I"ve additionally review that annuities compensate out one of the top commissions, so I theory thats the product pitched at these dinners.

Why would the boss validate such a dear investment car for the early early early early early early early retirement supports of the overworked American people?

If you still have the call in utilizing the boss as an endorsement, I inspire you to send it to the White House.

I dont think the administrations new contention about annuities inside of early early early early early early early retirement plans was meant to be an publicity for the sort of annuities majority mostly promoted at the free, tutorial cooking seminars. The annuities promoted at these events are customarily a little sort of equity-indexed or non-static annuity. And you"re right: Most do beget large commissions for the seller.

Recently, a lady told me she had been to a really dear "free" dinner. She showed me an payments she purchased after in attendance a seminar. She was past the 30-day free see duration and longed for her income back, but the payments had a fourteen percent obey assign during the initial dual years, and the obey assign wouldnt go afar until she has owned it for fifteen years. Rule of thumbthe higher the obey assign and the longer it remains, the higher the commission paid to the seller.

Origins of the rumor

The payments thought was referred to in a inform from the administrations Middle Class Task Force. Its an additional try by the supervision to save us from ourselves. As you can imagine, the word companies and their agents are salivating over this proposal. A New York Times essay had this allude to from Christopher O. Blunt, senior manager clamp boss of early early early early early early early retirement income security at New York Life Insurance: "I never thought I"d have the boss as a wholesaler for us, this is awesome. I"m perplexing to see if I can get him to do a big attorney assembly for us."

How it would work

The offer is to have a estimable apportionment of early early early early early early early retirement plan resources automatically destined to an evident payments on retirement. The evident payments would yield an income tide for twenty-four uninterrupted months, and if you do nothing, the income tide is permanent until your death.

At the finish of dual years, you competence elect an pick placement that is not defined, but I pretence you could afterwards hurl the superfluous pile total to an IRA. Under the proposal, you would be authorised to opt out of the on trial lifetime income plan, but you would have to take movement or you will be enrolled automatically.

With a little work on your own or with a associating adviser, you should be means to deposit a pile sum, furnish the same volume of income that an evident payments would provide, and have some-more flexibility.

A commission of the American open competence good from branch over a pile total in sell for a on trial income stream. The vital concerns with this are keeping up with acceleration and failing prior to your income is returned to you. For a price, you can squeeze an acceleration insurance rider. You can additionally squeeze a tenure sure rider, that will pledge the payments are done to a customer if you should die prior to the tenure elected. Both of these options will revoke the monthly payment.

If you know you are a spendthrift, the miss of coherence and additional cost competence be worthwhile.

Holly Nicholson is a approved monetary planner in Raleigh. Reach her at www.askholly.com or P.O. Box 99466, Raleigh, NC 27624. She cannot answer each question.

Regular practice reduces studious stress by twenty percent investigate finds

In a investigate looming in the Feb. twenty-two book of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed the formula of 40 randomized clinical trials involving scarcely 3,000 patients with a accumulation of healing conditions. They found that, on average, patients who exercised continually reported a twenty percent rebate in stress symptoms compared to those who did not exercise.

Our commentary supplement to the flourishing physique of justification that earthy activities such as on foot or weight light might spin out to be the majority appropriate disinfectant that physicians can allot to assistance their patients feel less anxious, pronounced lead writer Matthew Herring, a doctoral tyro in the dialect of kinesiology, piece of the UGA College of Education.

Herring forked out that whilst the purpose of practice in alleviating symptoms of basin has been well studied, the stroke of unchanging practice on stress symptoms has perceived less attention. The series of people vital with ongoing healing conditions is expected to enlarge as the race ages, he added, underscoring the need for a low-cost, in outcome treatment.

The researchers singular their research to randomized tranquil trials, that are the bullion customary of clinical research, to safeguard that usually the top peculiarity interpretation were used. The patients in the studies suffered from a accumulation of conditions, together with heart disease, mixed sclerosis, cancer and ongoing suffering from arthritis. In 90 percent of the studies examined, the patients incidentally reserved to practice had fewer stress symptoms, such as feelings of worry, confinement and nervousness, than the carry out group.

We found that practice seems to work with only about everyone underneath majority situations, pronounced investigate co-author Pat O"Connor, highbrow and co-director of the UGA Exercise Psychology Laboratory. Exercise even helps people who are not really concerned to proceed with turn some-more calm.

Exercise sessions larger than thirty mins were improved at shortening stress than sessions of less than thirty minutes, the researchers found. But surprisingly, programs with a generation of in between 3 and twelve weeks crop up to be some-more in outcome at shortening stress than those lasting some-more than twelve weeks. The researchers remarkable that investigate participants were less expected to hang with the longer practice programs, that suggests that improved appearance rates outcome in larger reductions in anxiety.

Because not all investigate participants finished each practice session, the outcome of practice on stress reported in the investigate might be underestimated, pronounced investigate co-author Rod Dishman, additionally a highbrow of kinesiology. Regardless, the work supports the make use of of practice to provide a accumulation of earthy and mental health conditions, with less risk of inauspicious events than medication.

How Common is Low-Back Pain?

This Weeks Question: Have you ever thrown your behind out? I listen to an horrible lot of geezers protest about their backs. How usual is behind pain?

Yes, Ive had behind problems majority of my adult hold up and I know howdebilitating they are. When I was 30, I put myself in bed for a week bycarrying complicated stacks of newspapers to the curb. Back problems havebeen a repeated complaint in the decades given then.

The initial conflict of low behind suffering customarily happens to people betweenthe ages of thirty and 40. Back suffering becomes some-more usual with age.

Back suffering is really common. It affects about 8 out of 10 people. Thisaffliction incapacitates so majority people and the theme is so extensivethat Im going to do a three-part array on behind pain. This initial oneis about causes.

Back suffering is some-more usual in between people who are not physically fit.Weak behind and intestinal muscles might not scrupulously await the spine. Ifyoure sedentary majority of the time and afterwards strive yourself on rareoccasions, you are some-more expected to harm your behind than someone whoexercises daily.

If youre carrying a big belly, you put combined highlight on the muscles in your low behind and are a claimant for agony.

Some behind pain, together with front disease, might open from your genes.Race can have an influence, too. African-American women, for example,are dual to 3 times some-more expected than white women to developspondylolisthesis, a condition in that a bonevertebraof the lowerspine slips out of place.

Your pursuit can be a vital change on behind health. If your workrequires complicated light or sitting all day, you risk spiteful your back.Many sanitationmen and writers humour from behind troubles.

Once again, cigarette smoking is a health hazard. While smokingdoesnt means behind suffering directly, it increases your risk of developingsciatica, a suffering that runs down the behind of your leg from spinal-discpressure on a nerve. Smoking can retard the bodys capability to delivernutrients to the discs of the reduce back.

Mechanical problems can means behind pain. Perhaps the majority commonmechanical means of behind suffering is front degeneration. The cushioningdiscs in between the vertebral mainstay of the spinal mainstay mangle down with age. If thereis highlight on these compromised discs, they press opposite spinal nervesand you might experience what feels similar to a toothache in a buttock. Atalmost any age, an damage can force these discs to gush or rupturecausing the same kind of pain.

Spine injuries such as sprains and fractures can means eithershort-lived or ongoing pain. Fractured vertebral mainstay are mostly the resultof osteoporosis, a condition that causes weak, porous bones.

Many healing problems can means behind pain. They embody scoliosis,which causes span of the spine; assorted forms of arthritis, andspinal stenosis, a squeezing of the spinal mainstay that puts vigour onthe spinal connective tissue and nerves.

Your emotions have a vital stroke on behind pain. Never underestimatehow they can tie muscles and rouse your recognition of pain. Irecall vividly being free of sciatica when I perceived a little troublingnews. Within minutes, I couldnt put my left feet down since the painin my leg was so intense.

5 Painful Facts You Need to Know Top 10 Useless Limbs 7 Solid Health Tips That No Longer Apply

The Healthy Geezer mainstay publishes each Monday on LiveScience. If you would similar to to ask a question, greatfully write fred@healthygeezer.com. � 2010 by Fred Cicetti.

Jamie Oliver: Taking the series to president

March 26, 2010, 5:44 AM EST

NEW YORK (AP) -- If Jamie Oliver can"t convince the propagandize lunch ladies of Huntington, W.Va., that uninformed food is improved than processed, may be he"ll have improved fitness with President Barack Obama.

While Oliver"s bid to renovate the diet of one West Virginia village unfolds on network television, the British luminary cook additionally will be stumping for inhabitant remodel with an online apply to job for improved food in the country"s schools.

Watching "Jamie Oliver"s Food Revolution" should have people indignant about the state of the American food system, Oliver pronounced in an talk Thursday. And he hopes the ABC being array moves people to channel that annoy for change.

"If you can emanate an sourroundings in that the open expects more, all the cogs in hold up as we know it tumble in to place," he said.

Once the array (which premiers with a 2-hour part Friday) ends the run on Apr 23, Oliver plans to take the apply to to the White House, where initial woman Michelle Obama has done shortening childhood plumpness a priority.

Despite the infrequently cold accepting he got from Huntington locals in early episodes of the series, Oliver pronounced he is assured this is the right time for a food array in the United States.

"I"m starting to see a disproportion right away in America that I"ve never seen as a immigrant in twelve years," he said, observant a connection of pressures for remodel from the White House, Congress, industry, health and primogenitor groups.

By Thursday afternoon, about 50,000 people had sealed on to Oliver"s petition, that was launched in early March.

Oliver"s array front as Congress considers legislation to harden the manners that umpire the nation"s propagandize lunches. The magnitude would emanate new standards for all dishes in schools, together with vending appurtenance items.

The array is formed on a identical module Oliver did in England that did outcome in remodel of propagandize food. The American version is set in a locale the network calls the nation"s unhealthiest city.

That nomination is formed on a 2008 Associated Press story that used sovereign Centers for Disease Control and Prevention interpretation to dub the five-county Huntington civil area the country"s unhealthiest.

The story forked out that formed on CDC statistics, scarcely half the adults in the civil area were portly and that the area led in a half-dozen alternative seizure measures, too, together with heart disease and diabetes.

That didn"t have it any simpler for the village to swallow Oliver"s made-for-TV change-your-diet-or- die message.

"We don"t wish to lay around and eat lettuce all day," internal air wave DJ Rod Willis told Oliver when the cook appeared on his air wave show during the initial episode. "You come to locale and you contend you"re going to shift the menus and all that. I only don"t think you should come in here and discuss it us what to do."

Though he was obviously taken by surpise during the filming, Oliver pronounced Thursday the greeting was expected.

"The accepting is regularly sincerely icy when you go someplace and wish to foster change," he said. "I knew it was going to be difficult and positively the initial month was flattering tough."

But Oliver says it unequivocally got better. "After four, 4 and a half months, it was a love fest."

In the series, Oliver wrestles with propagandize food bureaucracy as he struggles to reinstate the menu of processed dishes with fresh, does a diet makeover for an portly family that was vital on solidified pizzas and junk food, and opens a storefront in progress propagandize to learn simple kitchen skills and full of health recipes.

Still to be seen is what happens right away that the cameras are gone. State officials have questioned either the examination can be replicated elsewhere. And officials have pronounced food and work costs already are higher at the existent program.

Oliver doesn"t buy it. He says a little of those additional costs are debatable. "As far as my experts are concerned, and honestly I certitude them some-more than what"s function down there, they"re observant the food essentially is entrance out the same (cost)."

He acknowledges work costs for operative with uninformed food is higher. And he argues it"s value it.

"This is the loyal cost of stuff oneself your children," he said. "You"ve been vital in a misconception for the last thirty years. Of march when you reheat and renovate pre-portioned and pre-prepared processed rubbish, of march the cheaper and easier. It"s transport food. So underneath the circumstances, the numbers are entrance out unequivocally good."

,,,

UBS urges council to behind U.S. taxation deal: inform

ZURICH Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:43am EST Related News UBS urges parliament to back U.S. tax deal -reportFri, Mar 12 2010 Stocks & &

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland"s UBS has warned parliamentarians failure to back a deal to end its bitter U.S. tax row with the bank could result in a damaging backlash for Swiss banks as well as the Alpine nation"s economy.

The Swiss government wants parliament to overule a Swiss court decision that prevents it from honoring the agreement to hand over data on 4,450 clients of UBS (UBSN.VX)(UBS.N) suspected of hiding money from the U.S. taxman, by cementing the treaty in law.

"The risks for the Swiss finance center and the economy in general are very considerable if Parliament refuses approval," UBS, Switzerland"s largest bank by assets, said in a letter to politicians opposing the deal, seen by Reuters on Friday.

"The (U.S.) Internal Revenue Service obtained information on around 20 banks from the voluntary disclosure program," UBS said in the letter. "It is very possible that the IRS wants to obtain information about other clients of these banks."

Switzerland"s right-wing SVP party said earlier this week it opposed retroactive parliamentary approval of the deal agreed between Berne and Washington in August.

Switzerland"s biggest parliamentary party, does not hold enough seats to block approval in the lower house without the support of at least one other major party, but the government has no contingency plan should parliament not approve the deal.

"The refusal of Switzerland to recognize its legal obligations could signal an escalation of these cases," UBS said.

Around 14,700 individuals came forward as part of a U.S. tax amnesty program last year. Many of these were UBS clients but thousands more had accounts at other non-U.S. banks.

U.S. tax prosecutors are examining more than 7,000 accounts from foreign banks beyond UBS, including other Swiss banks, a top Justice Department lawyer said at the end of February.

A UBS spokesman declined to comment on which politicians had received the letter.

Swiss bank secrecy laws prevent Berne from sharing tax information automatically with foreign authorities. Each request needs to follow an administrative process and clients of Swiss banks can appeal against a request for data transfer in court.

One such client of UBS won an appeal in January to prevent her account data being handed over to U.S. authorities, threatening the basis of the agreement to hand over names, as a Swiss court ruled her behavior did not constitute fraud.

UBS said it had kept its side of the deal, transferring over 4,000 dossiers containing almost 4 million pages to Swiss authorities for handing on to U.S. counterparts.

DBA DANGER

The SVP also said it opposed double taxation agreements (DBAs) Switzerland signed last year to bring it in line with international standards, and may want to put them up for referenda.

Those agreements, 12 of which were required to remove the Alpine state from an international list of tax havens, have to be ratified by parliament. The government has already said one tax agreement could be put to the popular vote.

The DBA with the United States would be in danger if the UBS tax deal fell, putting pressure on the export-reliant Swiss economy, UBS said.

"This could mean that transactions not only for Swiss financial companies but Swiss companies in general could be made subject to a special withholding tax," UBS said, adding the United States could even decide to make its own blacklist of tax havens, including Switzerland.

(Reporting by Jason Rhodes; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

REFILE-UPDATE 1-Hedge account cooking celebration sparks U.S. euro examine

Thu Mar 4, 2010 8:50am EST Related News U.S. probes bets against euro - sourceWed, Mar 3 2010U.S. probes hedge fund bets against euro: reportTue, Mar 2 2010Hedge funds post small gains in FebTue, Mar 2 2010Hedge funds post small gains in FebruaryMon, Mar 1 2010Hedge funds post small gains in February-BoA analystsMon, Mar 1 2010

* Justice Department looking into euro trades by funds

Currencies&&&&Funds News&&&&ETFs News&&&&Financials

* Dinner discussion on euro said to be brief

* Dinners with managers are commonplace (Adds comments from hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, Soros)

By Matthew Goldstein and Svea Herbst-Bayliss

NEW YORK, March 3 (Reuters) - Little-known brokerage firmMonness, Crespi, Hardt Co has long toiled in the shadows ofWall Street, but the boutique suddenly has been thrust into thelimelight because of an "ideas dinner" it sponsored last monthfor a group of about 18 hedge fund traders.

Monness Crespi sponsors unscripted dinners from time totime, said people familiar with the get-togethers. They providea chance for managers to swap trading ideas, network with theirpeers and meet some of Monness Crespi"s largely equity-focusedanalysts.

A Feb. 8 dinner is sparking controversy because one of thenearly two dozen topics discussed during the program was howhedge funds could profit from a decline in the euro, one of theworld"s most heavily traded currencies.

The portion of the program, at the Park Avenue Townhouserestaurant on Manhattan"s Upper East Side, devoted to tradingthe euro took up no more than five minutes, according to peoplefamiliar with the event.

But ever since the Wall Street Journal wrote about thedinner and the discussion about the euro in a Feb. 25 article,a shadow has been cast over much of the $1.5 trillion hedgefund industry.

The dinner adds to the growing perception among the generalpublic and some political leaders that many hedge funds prosperby making money off misery -- whether it is betting on thedecline of a stock, a bond, a currency or even a country"sdebt.

The U.S. Department of Justice"s antitrust division hassent letters to a number of hedge funds that attended the Feb.8 dinner, asking the funds not to destroy any trading recordsinvolving market bets on the euro, said people familiar withthe situation.

Prominent short seller Jim Chanos said he did not attendthe dinner and did not receive a letter from the JusticeDepartment.

CNBC and Bloomberg first reported on the letters from theJustice Department. The Wall Street Journal subsequentlyreported that the Justice Department sent out those letters onthe same day that its story about the dinner was published.ID:nN03198738

"I don"t believe that it is illegal to discuss inconceptual terms whether the euro should be trading lower,"said Paul Roth, a founding partner of law firm Schulte Roth Zabel, which represents some prominent hedge funds.

"But given the crisis in Europe and considering the viewmany Europeans have of hedge funds and private equity funds,there may well be a political component to all of this."

The Justice Department"s interest in euro trading comesamid widespread criticism of hedge funds for betting on adecline in Greece"s sovereign debt.

During the depths of the financial crisis, hedge funds alsocame under fire for betting against shares of Lehman Brothersand Bear Stearns as those investment firms were collapsing.

But it is not clear just how central the discussion of theeuro was to the Feb. 8 dinner now drawing so much scrutiny.

Neil Crespi, president of Monness Crespi, said as a generalrule his firm doesn"t talk to reporters. But before he ended abrief phone conversation, Crespi said the dinner has beenmischaracterized in the media.

"Everything is wrong," he said. "We trade only equities. Iam not saying we didn"t have an ideas dinner, but we aren"t amacro firm."

In fact, people familiar with the dinner said much of thediscussion focused on stocks. The dinner was tape recorded andtranscribed into a research report that was circulated byMonness Crespi after the event.

The suggestion to bet against the euro was raised by AaronCowen, a portfolio manager with Steven A. Cohen"s SAC CapitalAdvisors LP. People familiar with the dinner said there waslittle discussion about the euro after Cowen raised it.

A SAC spokesman declined to comment.

"If only the poor fellow had couched it in terms of goinglong the dollar instead of shorting the euro, I dare say hewould have been called patriotic," Chanos said.

Other guests at the dinner, according to the Journal andsources, included David Einhorn, head of Greenlight CapitalLLC, and a representative from Soros Fund Management LLC, thefirm founded by George Soros.

A Greenlight spokesman declined to comment.

Soros" fund is still well known for having made $1 billionin a day by betting against the British pound in 1992.

A spokesman for Soros said that is has become commonplaceto direct attention toward George Soros whenever currencymarkets are in the news. "Any suggestion of wrongdoing by SorosFund Management LLC implied in those articles is withoutmerit," the spokesman said, adding that the firm intends tocooperate fully with any governmental requests.

It is not clear exactly why the Justice Department hasasked the hedge fund to save trading records.

Some lawyers pointed out that federal authorities mightnever actually request the documents and all of this could be apreliminary measure.

In an antitrust investigation, regulators generally lookfor a pattern of collusion by a group of traders, or a commonagreement to make the same trades to manipulate a market.

However, there is nothing to suggest any of that occurredat the Feb. 8 dinner.

Indeed, investment managers have long talked shop oversteaks and wine or during a round of golf, and industryinsiders are puzzled at why this long-standing practice issuddenly drawing such scrutiny.

The focus by the news media on whether hedge funds gottogether to jointly bet against the euro strikes some managersand lawyers as particularly odd considering that the currencymarkets are among the world"s largest and most liquid.

Ron Resnick, co-founder of regulatory consulting firmCounselWorks and a former managing partner at hedge fund firmHighbridge Capital Management, said: "Not even God alone couldmove the euro market."

Still, the dinner investigation could result in somechanged behavior, at least in the short-term. Some managerssaid social gatherings will continue, but the venues formeeting may be different and more structured.

"Since the line of what you can and can"t do is so unclearright now, people are going to try to stay further away fromit," CounselWorks" Resnick said. (Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Steve Orlofsky)

Currencies Funds News ETFs News Financials

WINTER OLYMPICS 2010: Canada vanquish Russia to keep ice hockey bullion award mental condition alive

Canada"s dream of men"s ice hockey gold stayed alive thanks to an impressive 7-3 quarter-final win over Olympic title rivals Russia.

We"ve done it: Slovakia celebrate their 4-3 defeat or Sweden at ice hockey

The Canadians and Russians had been tipped to meet in the final but the host nation"s loss to the USA last Sunday meant they were in the same half of the draw as their rivals.

Under pressure to live up to high expectations from a hockey-mad country, the Canadians had got back to winning ways with an 8-2 play-off win over Germany onTuesday to set up a last-eight meeting with Russia at Canada Hockey Place.

Any fears of an early exit were quickly dispelled as Canada jumped out to a 4-1 lead after the first 20-minute period and then rammed home their advantage with two quick goals early in the second period before sealing victory over a lacklustre Russian side.

The USA also reached the last four with an earlier 2-0 win over Switzerland and they await Finland while Slovakia will meet Canada in Friday"s semi-finals.

There was more joy for Canada at the Whistler Sliding Centre as their women"s two-man bobsleigh crews took gold and silver.

Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyes took gold ahead of team-mates Helen Upperton and Shelley-Ann Brown, who nicked silver on their final run at the expense of USA2 pair Erin Pac and Elana Meyers.

Germany 2 pilot Cathleen Martini had been in fourth place but crashed out after losing brake-woman Romy Logsch out of the back of the sled and over-turning midway down the course. Both walked away unharmed as did leading British pair Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke and Russia 2 team Olga Federova and Yulia Timofeeva.

It"s there: Russia goalminder Evgeny Nabokov can"t stop Ryan Getzlaf of Canada netting for the hosts

There was also a Canadian medal at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver as their quartet won silver behind China in the women"s 3000 metres short track speedskating relay final.

The Chinese team, featuring 500m gold medallist Meng Wang and 1500m Olympic champion Yang Zhou, set a world record time of four minutes 6.610 seconds in skating to victory. Canada finished three seconds further back with the USA in third.

Olympic record: US speed skater Katherine Reutter

The men"s 500m got under way with an Olympic record 41.397 seconds from Canada"s Francois-Louis Tremblay leading the heat times.

Tremblay"s compatriot Charles Hamelin, defending champion Apolo Anton Ohno of the USA, China"s Jialiang Han, Thibault Fauconnet and Korean trio Si-Bak Sung, Yoon-Gy Kwak and Ho-Suk Lee were the other heat winners.

Katherine Reutter of the USA notched an Olympic record time of 1:30.508 to lead the heat winners in the women"s 1000m, with both that event and the men"s 500m being concluded on Friday.

Austrian Elisabeth Goergl led after the first run of the Olympic giant slalom during which downhill gold medallist Lindsey Vonn broke a finger in a heavy fall.

Goergl was the first starter in wet and foggy conditions on the Franz course and got down in one minute 15.2 seconds.

Frenchwoman Taina Barioz was 0.02 seconds adrift while Kathrin Zettel of Austria was third, 0.16 seconds back.

The second run was delayed by the fog and eventually postponed for the day. Vonn, the 17th starter, lost control in the middle section of the course and landed hard on her left hip before sliding into the safety netting at the side of the course.

Medical staff attended to her and when she groggily got to her feet she was wringing her right hand. It was later revealed that she had a broken right little finger.

Vonn has been troubled by a bruised right shin throughout the Games and, after her latest injury problem, it remains to be seen whether the American will opt to ski in her final event, Friday"s slalom.

Gold medal: Women"s 5000m Speed Skating Martina Sablikova

American team-mate and defending champion Julia Mancuso was the next starter but, after beginning her run, was flagged to stop because of Vonn"s fall and had to restart her run further down the field.

That affected her time as she could only clock 1:16.42, 1.30 seconds adrift of Georgl.

Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic won the gold in the ladies 5000m speedskating at the Richmond Olympic Oval to become the most successful female skaterof the Games with two golds and a bronze.

Sablikova, 22, who won gold in the 3000m and a bronze in the 1500m, said: "Everything is hurting right now. I"m exhausted. I had to give it my all. I pushed my limits."

Champions: Swedish gold medalists Daniel Richardsson, Johan Olsson, Anders Soedergren and Marcus Hellner celebrate their 4x10km cross country relay victory

Germany"s Stephanie Beckert took the silver, 0.48 seconds adrift, while the bronze went to Canada"s 37-year-old defending champion Clara Hughes, who was 4.82 seconds back.

Elsewhere, in the cross country skiing, there was a gold medal for Swedish quartet Daniel Richardson, Anders Soedergren, Marcus Hellner and Johan Olsson. Their winning time was one hour 45 minutes and 5.4 seconds.

The silver medal went to Norway with bronze going to the Czech Republic.

More...PICTURE SPECIAL: British bobsleigh crashes at 70mph and Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke are rescuedWINTER OLYMPICS 2010: Men"s curlers crash out after extra end loss to SwedenGreat Britain on the slide ... but BOA boss backs our losersVonn crashes out of Winter Olympics after injuring hand in giant slalomWINTER OLYMPICS BLOG: Team GB are too easily pleased