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Coast guard divers searching the submerged part of the Costa Concordia on Sunday found the bodies of two elderly men still in their life jackets, authorities said, raising to five the death toll after the luxury cruise liner ran aground and tipped over off the Tuscan coast.

Divers scouring the bowels of the ship in the murky, cold sea discovered the bodies at the emergency gathering point near the restaurant where passengers were dining when the ship carrying more than 4,200 people hit a reef or rock near the island of Giglio, Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro said.

The discovery reduced to 15 the number of people still unaccounted for after an Italian who worked in cabin service was pulled from the wreckage Sunday and a South Korean couple on their honeymoon were rescued late Saturday in the unsubmerged part of the liner when a team of rescuers heard their screams.

“We are still searching” for any bodies, “but (also) in the hope that there might have been an air pocket” to allow the survival of others, Nicastro told Sky TG24 TV dockside.

Authorities are holding the Italian captain for investigation of suspected manslaughter and abandoning his ship among other possible charges. According to the Italian navigation code, a captain who abandons a ship in danger can face up to 12 years in prison. A coast guard official said Sunday officers exhorted Francesco Schettino to return to his ship as panicked passengers desperately fled the cruise liner.

The chaotic evacuation has added to the difficulty in tracking down survivors _ with six of those unaccounted for crew members and the others passengers. Two of the unaccounted for passengers are American, the U.S. Embassy in Rome said.

In the first hours after the accident late Friday night, three bodies were found in the waters near the ship. The victims discovered Sunday were two elderly men who were wearing life vests, said Coast Guard Cmdr. Francesco Paolillo.

“The divers had to remove the life vests to get the bodies out,” he said, because they could have floated away. Their nationalities were not immediately released.

The divers’ search through the ship, which is lying on its side with a huge gash, was already dangerous because of the risk the vessel could suddenly move and sink into waters over a nearby lower sea bed.

Their safety was increasingly threatened by floating objects in the belly of the 290-meter (nearly 1,000) foot long liner, as well as muck drastically reducing visibility, Nicastro said.

“There are tents, mattresses, other objects moving which can get tangled in the divers’ equipment,” Nicastro said. Officials were going to huddle soon to see how long the underwater search could safely continue, he said.

Divers say they are using a kind of long cord they hook near the point of entrance and unroll as they work, so they can find their way out when finished.

Prosecutor Francesco Verusio confirmed reports that prosecutors are investigating allegations the cruise liner’s captain, Francesco Schettino, abandoned the stricken liner before all the passengers had escaped.

Asked Sunday by Sky TG24 about the accusations, Grosseto prosecutor Francesco Verusio replied, “unfortunately, I must confirm that circumstance.”

Paolillo said the captain was spotted on land during the evacuation. Officers had urged him to return to his ship and honor his duty to stay aboard until everyone else was safely off the vessel, but Schettino ignored them, he said.

“We did our duty,” Paolillo told The Associated Press.

A French couple who boarded the Concordia in Marseille, Ophelie Gondelle and David Du Pays of Marseille, told the AP they saw the captain in a lifeboat, covered by a blanket, well before all the passengers were off the ship. They insisted on telling a reporter what they saw, so incensed that _ according to them _ the captain had abandoned the ship before everyone had been evacuated.

“The commander left before and was on the dock before everyone was off,” said Gondelle, 28, a French military officer.

“Normally the commander should leave at the end,” said Du Pays, a police officer who said he helped an injured passenger to a rescue boat. “I did what I could.”

Schettino has said the ship hit rocks that weren’t marked on his nautical charts, and that he did all he could to save lives.

“We were navigating approximately 300 meters (yards) from the rocks,” he told Mediaset television. “There shouldn’t have been such a rock.”

He insisted he didn’t leave the liner before all passengers were off, saying “we were the last ones to leave the ship.” That clearly wasn’t the case as the finding of the three survivors aboard Saturday night and Sunday showed payday loan no faxing.

Coast guard spokesman Capt. Filippo Marini told Sky Italia TV that Coast Guard divers have recovered the so-called “black box” with the recording of the navigational details from a compartment now under water.

A Dutch firm has been called in to help extract the fuel from the Concordia’s tanks before any leaks into the area’s pristine waters. No leaks have so far been reported.

While ship owner Costa has insisted it was following the same route it takes every week between the Italian ports of Civitavecchia and Savona, residents on the island of Giglio said they had never seen the Costa come so close to the Le Scole reefs and rocks that jut from Giglio’s eastern side.

“This was too close, too close,” said Italo Arienti, a 54-year-old sailor who has worked on the Maregigilo ferry service that runs between the island and the mainland for more than a decade. A now-retired Costa commander used to occasionally do “fly-bys” on the route, nearing a bit and sounding the siren in a special salute for his hometown, he said. Such a fly-by was staged last August, but there was no incident, he said.

He said the cruise ship always stayed more than five to six nautical miles offshore, well beyond the reach of the “Le Scole” reefs, popular with scuba divers.

The terrifying escape from the luxury liner, which was on a weeklong Mediterranean cruise, was straight out of a scene from “Titanic.” Many passengers complained the crew didn’t give them good directions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many to be released.

Several other passengers said crew members told passengers for 45 minutes that there was a simple “technical problem” that had caused the lights to go off.

Amateur footage taken aboard the ship showed the situation immediately after it ran aground, as an announcement in various languages tells passengers the liner is having electrical problems and “the situation is under control.” When a man asks a crew member in Spanish why he is wearing a life vest, the crew member doesn’t answer and continues on his way.

Other video shows people crowded together in life jackets, apparently calm and waiting to disembark the ship. A third video taken from a lifeboat, shows mostly darkness as people shout and scream in panic.

Passengers said they had never participated in an evacuation drill, although one had been scheduled for Saturday. The cruise began on Jan. 7.

Costa Crociera SpA, which is owned by the U.S.-based cruise giant Carnival Corp., defended the actions of its crew and said it was cooperating with the investigation. Carnival Corp. issued a statement expressing sympathy that didn’t address the allegations of delayed evacuation.

Some 300 of the crew members were Filipinos and three of them were injured, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said.

The captain has insisted that the reef was not marked, but locals said the stretch of sea is not difficult to maneuver. Anello Fiorentino, captain of a ferry that runs between Giglio and the mainland, said he makes the crossing every day without encountering problems.

“Yes, if you get near the coast there are reefs, but this is a stretch of sea where all the ships can safely pass,” he said.

Islanders on Giglio opened up their homes and businesses to accommodate the sudden rush of survivors. Rossana Bafigi, who runs a newsstand, said she was really moved by the reaction of the passengers.

She showed a note left by one Italian family that said, “We want to repay you for the disturbance. Please call us, we took milk and biscuits for the children. Claudia.”

At Mass on Sunday morning in Giglio’s main church, which opened its doors to the evacuees Friday night, altar boys and girls brought up to the altar a life vest, a rope, a rescue helmet, a plastic tarp and some bread.

Don Lorenzo, the parish priest, told the faithful that he wanted to make this admittedly “different” offering to God as a memory of what had transpired.

He said each one carried powerful symbolic meaning for what happened on Friday night: the bread that multiplied to feed the survivors, the rope that pulled people to safety, the life vest and helmet that protected them, and the plastic tarp that kept cold bodies warm. “Our community, our island will never be the same,” he told the few dozen islanders gathered for Mass.

_____

Frances D’Emilio contributed to this story from Rome.

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The availing process of payday loans no faxing is very simple and convenient as compared to other regular loans.

LONDON

Manufacturing in India and China improved in December, a sign the world

Treasuries (YCGT0025) had the biggest annual return since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008 as Europe

Retail sales look poised for a solid finish to the holiday season as consumers hit stores and went online to snap up last-minute gifts, according to data released on Wednesday.

Still, overall sales growth lagged the increase in online spending and some brick-and-mortar retailers struggled. Steep discounts were prevalent throughout the season, tactics that drove sales but could crimp profitability at some chains.

The International Council of Shopping Centers/Goldman Sachs weekly chain store sales index rose 4.5 percent during the week ending December 24, versus a holiday-shortened pre-Christmas Day week in 2010. Redbook Research put the year-over-year gain at 4.3 percent.

Adjusted for the calendar mismatch, the ICSC/Goldman index rose 0.9 percent for the week ending December 24, compared with the prior week.

“The finish is solid and the season itself was good,” said ICSC Chief Economist Michael Niemira. “November was on the soft side but December will be better.”

ICSC is sticking with its holiday sales growth forecast of 3.5 percent, which it issued in September.

“Major players, such as Macy’s (M.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), are fine,” Niemira added. “Specialty stores are likely to be more uneven. Specialty apparel seems to have been hit by abnormally warm weather. Sales were on the slow side and there has been more discounting consequently.”

The biggest shopping malls and regional malls saw the strongest customer traffic since the first week of 2011. Factory outlets remained busy, but less so than the prior week, he said.

Consumers ratcheted down their online spending compared with

earlier in December, but visits to and spending at electronics and department stores increased during the week, Niemira noted.

U.S. consumer confidence rose more than expected in December, hitting an eight-month high, as Americans grew more upbeat about the labor market and their financial situation, the Conference Board said on Tuesday. That followed a report early in December showing U.S. unemployment at the lowest level since March 2009.

However, U.S. house prices are still falling, tempering economic optimism, and some retailers are suffering.

Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Tuesday that it will shut as many as 120 stores after poor sales. Borders Group (BGPIQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Filene’s Basement were among retailers that filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors this year, and shut down, with Filene’s stores set to close shortly.

Part of the problem may be competition with online retailers, who saw faster sales growth this holiday season, suggesting e-commerce took market share from brick-and-mortar stores.

Online spending in the United States reached a record $35.27 billion from November 1 through December 26, up 15 percent versus the corresponding period last year, comScore (SCOR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) reported.

For the week ending December 25, consumers spent $2.83 billion online, up 16 percent from the corresponding period in 2010, comScore also said.

“E-commerce is going to be awesome this holiday and retail will be mediocre,” said Michael Rubin, head of Kynetic, which owns online retail businesses Fanatics, Rue La La and ShopRunner.

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We want gift cards and like to give them, but for some reason we don’t always use them and wind up wasting billions of dollars.

A recent poll by Consumer Reports, for instance, found that one-quarter of people who received a card as a holiday gift last year still haven’t used it, and more than half of those had two or more unredeemed cards.

We have lots of excuses. We forgot about the card or lost it. The store didn’t have any merchandise we wanted. Or the retailer isn’t nearby, or we don’t like the store.

This has spawned an online secondary market where gift card exchange sites, such as PlasticJungle.com, Cardpool.com, MonsterGiftCard.com and GiftCardRescue.com, help consumers buy and sell unwanted retail gift cards at a discount. Sellers can get around 70 percent to 90 percent of the value of their cards. The more popular the retailer, the higher the price.

“It at least gives consumers the option to get something for an unused gift card,” said Tod Marks, senior editor at Consumer Reports. “It’s like life support for unwanted gift cards.”

Of course, one way to avoid unwanted or forgotten cards is by giving cash or checks instead. It’s unlikely that someone will fail to spend money that’s in their wallet or deposited in the bank. Another benefit: Shoppers tend to spend more at a store than the amount on the gift card. Not so with cash.

But card experts and consumer advocates cringe at my suggestion of cash, saying bills are “gauche.” At least a gift card to a favorite retailer, they say, makes it seem as if you gave some thought to what the recipient would want.

And besides, some say, people want gift cards. They are the No. 1 requested gift this season and are at the top of most shopping lists, according to the National Retail Federation.

Gift card sales are expected to reach a record $100 billion this year, up nearly 10 percent from the year before, according to TowerGroup, a research and advisory firm. About $2 billion of that, though, will be lost through fees and expired, stolen or misplaced cards.

The losses were much worse before federal protections kicked in last year that, among other things, prevent cards from expiring within the first five years.

Still, $2 billion is a lot of money to leave on the table. And if we don’t use it, somebody else will.

Some retailers recognize unredeemed cards as income after a long period of inactivity. Starbucks Corp., for example, reported $46.9 million in income from unredeemed cards for the year ended in October.

And more than a dozen states now recover funds on unredeemed cards, similar to other unclaimed property, said Brian Riley, senior research director at TowerGroup.

So if you are going to give a gift card, make sure it’s from a retailer that the recipient patronizes. Or if you’re not sure, consider a general-purpose gift card that can be used at any store, although you’ll pay a fee to buy the card. American Express, for instance, offers such cards for a $3.95 fee.

And if you’re stuck after the holidays with cards you don’t want, here’s some advice for getting rid of them:

DON’T SPEND, INVEST • The most innovative use of unwanted gift cards this season goes to GoalMine, which caters to small investors by helping them set goals and begin investing for as little as $25.

Between Dec. 19 and the end of January, GoalMine is accepting unwanted gift cards with values of $25 and up that will be sold at PlasticJungle.com, a card exchange site. Consumers decide whether to deposit the proceeds in an FDIC-insured savings account or in a stock or bond mutual fund.

As a further incentive, GoalMine promises to redeem the first card for 150 percent of its value. The card can’t be worth more than $50.

GoalMine’s general manager, Rimmy Malhorta, said the company figured there were a lot of unredeemed cards that could be put to good use. “Wouldn’t it be great instead of letting Starbucks have that money or iTunes or whoever,” he said, “you could make that money for you and put it toward your kid’s college education, your family home or a rainy day fund?”

GIFT CARD EXCHANGES • These middleman websites for consumers wanting to buy, sell or swap cards have been growing. PlasticJungle, one of the major players, bought and sold cards worth about $18 million last year, three times the amount of the year before, said Chief Executive Bruce Bower. “We are having similar growth right now,” he added.

Sites deal in gift cards from hundreds of national retailers, so you likely won’t be able to sell a gift card from a local shop. Cards usually must have a value of $20 or $25 still on them.

Sellers send their cards to the exchange, which verifies the value. They can get as much as 92 percent of the value of the card, but that’s for the hottest retailers.

Buyers can pick up cards at a discount of up to 35 percent, although the saving is much less on popular cards.

Some sites offer a money-back guarantee if a card’s value turns out to be less than promised. That’s a big advantage over trying to sell a card on your own through Craigslist.

If you’re going to buy or sell on one of the exchange sites, check out more than one. CardHub.com has a gift card exchange feature that aggregates card deals from various sites.

Consumer Reports’ Marks, who researched gift card exchanges earlier this year, says no single site gave the best deal every time.

“The sites often had a different idea of the worth of the same card,” he added. The gap between the best and worst offers for a popular Whole Foods card, Marks said, was 22 percent.

Before buying or selling, read the terms, which also can vary among the sites. And buyers should make sure the site guarantees the cards it sells.

Also, buyers should beware of cards with a value that’s an odd number — say, $63.45 — which could signal that the card was given to a customer as a refund on a purchase, said TowerGroup’s Riley. Refund cards, he said, don’t have the same legal protections as gift cards.

If in doubt, he said, ask the site whether the card is from a refund.

Many of the gift card complaints to Maryland’s attorney general deal with the merchant going out of business. When that happens, card owners generally stand in line with all the other creditors and may get little or nothing. Try to avoid this by buying cards from healthy retailers.

You also can set up an account with ScripSmart.com, which sends out email alerts if a retailer appears headed for bankruptcy. ScripSmart also offers a “nag me” alert to remind you to use your gift card.

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Jon Corzine is expected Tuesday to once again distance himself from an estimated $1.2 billion in customer money that vanished when MF Global collapsed this fall.

This time, Corzine will have company.

Bradley Abelow, MF Global’s president and chief operating officer, and Henri Steenkamp, the chief financial officer, are also scheduled to testify to the Senate Agriculture Committee.

All three say they don’t know where the money is, according to prepared remarks and Corzine’s previous testimony to a House panel last week. Nor do they take responsibility for authorizing the movement of money out of customer accoun.

Depending on the circumstances, transferring money from customers’ accounts could violate securities laws and, in some cases, could amount to a crime. Federal authorities have begun criminal investigations. And regulators are looking into whether the firm broke securities rules.

MF Global collapsed into the eighth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history on Oct. 31 after a disastrous bet on European debt. Corzine stepped down as CEO on Nov. 4.

Corzine told the House Agriculture Committee last week that he didn’t know what happened to the money. He said he didn’t become aware of the shortfall until Oct. 30, one day before the firm filed for bankruptcy protection.

In his prepared testimony, Steenkamp says he had no direct involvement in the transfer of funds.

“Direct involvement with operational matters such as bank accounts or fund transfers has never been part of my duties,” Steenkamp says.

Abelow says he cannot explain what happened to the money without having access to MF Global documents, which a trustee now controls.

“At this time … I do not know the answers to those questions,” he says in his prepared testimony.

Anthony Sabino, a law professor at St. John’s University in New York, said Steenkamp and Abelow “are in a riskier position” than Corzine because they were responsible for day-to-day operations of MF Global.

Tuesday’s hearing will include an added element of drama because Corzine, a former Democratic senator from New Jersey, will be pressed by some senators he served with from 2000 through 2005 payday loans.

The Senate panel is one of three congressional committees to have issued subpoenas to compel Corzine’s testimony on the issue. It marked the first time a former senator has been subpoenaed by his former peers in more than 100 years, according to the Senate historian’s office.

Many lawmakers have heard from farmers, ranchers and small business owners in their states who are missing money that was deposited with the firm. Agricultural businesses use brokerage firms like MF Global to help reduce their risks in an industry vulnerable to swings in oil, corn and other commodity prices.

Corzine, who also was New Jersey governor from 2006 until early 2010, told lawmakers last week that he never intended to authorize the transfer of funds from customer accounts. If any subordinates moved clients’ money in the belief that Corzine had authorized it, “it was a misunderstanding,” he said.

Along with Corzine, Steenkamp and Abelow have been sued in class-action complaints on behalf of MF Global shareholders. The lawsuits accuse the executives of making false and misleading statements about MF Global’s financial strength and cash balances.

MF Global didn’t list the European debt on its balance sheet for all to see. Instead, those holdings were shifted to the company’s “off-balance sheet,” deep in its financial statements. Some separate filings with regulators excluded the European debt entirely.

A lawyer for the trustee overseeing the liquidation of MF Global’s brokerage operations said in court Friday that the trustee’s staff has discovered some “suspicious” trades in MF Global customer accounts that were made in the last days before the firm failed. The lawyer didn’t provide details.

Corzine said last week that customers’ losses weigh heavily on him.

“I think about this every day,” he said. “I could not be more regretful, more distressed that we are ruining people’s lives.”

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U.S. battery maker Johnson Controls is at odds with Shanghai’s environmental regulator over tests the company says show it was not responsible for severe lead poisoning cases in children discovered earlier this year.

The Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based company said Wednesday that an investigation by the China Electric Equipment Industry Association found its battery factory in Shanghai’s eastern suburbs was not the cause of elevated blood-lead levels among children in a nearby community. Instead, it pinned blame on a recycling facility in the area.

Shanghai Environment Bureau official Ju Chunfang, who participated in testing the Johnson Control plant, questioned the investigation, saying it was not independent. Ju said the bureau began another investigation of its own last week.

Johnson Controls denied Ju’s contention that the company had agreed it was the largest source of lead emissions in the area.

Local officials insisted the plant, which is much larger than other battery factories in the area, had to be the cause of the poisoning cases. In an interview, Ju cited several instances of occasionally high emissions readings and prevailing wind patterns as the reason for that allegation.

Xia Qing, the scientist who led the probe cited by Johnson Controls, said it was commissioned by the Electric Equipment Industry Association and was not paid for by the battery maker.

The tests showed abnormally high lead levels at a waste recycling facility near the community whose children were poisoned, with lead levels three times the current national standard and 10 times a pending stricter national standard. Zinc levels were 15 times national standards.

“I have three conclusions. First, trust the Chinese environmental protection laws. Second, the lead poisonings were not caused by Johnson Controls. And third, pay more attention to the recycling stations and companies,” said Xia, an engineer with the China Research Academy of Environmental Science.

Soaring use of cars and electric scooters is driving strong demand for lead acid batteries, and their production and recycling are a key source of lead contamination.

China shut down hundreds of battery factories last spring after a slew of lead poisoning cases. Many have remained shut.

The lead contamination drew attention after families living in Kanghua New Village, a small block of apartment buildings erected to house farm families moved to make way for an industrial zone, said checks showed many of their children had abnormally high blood lead levels no fax payday loan.

The Johnson Controls factory suspended production in September after it reached its annual quota for lead use. The plant has sought permission to expand production, but local environmental officials say such requests will not be approved due to concerns over lead emissions.

Johnson Controls says it intends to resume production in January at the factory, which has an annual capacity of 2.5 million batteries.

“We’ve called our employees back. We’re pretty excited,” said Alex Molinaroli, president of Johnson Controls Power Solutions.

“The results corroborate our own data and prove that emissions from our battery plant could not be the cause of elevated blood-lead levels found in the community,” he said.

Johnson Controls, a major supplier to the automotive industry, had insisted all along that its plant’s emission controls would have prevented any significant contamination.

Production at a second, smaller battery plant in the area had also been stopped.

Kanghua is located just north of the zone and close to chemical, battery and electronics equipment factories.

Johnson Controls earlier said its factory has lead emissions at about one-seventh the Chinese national standard. Employees are regularly tested to ensure their blood lead levels remain low enough.

Some experts say that over time they expect use of lead-acid batteries to be phased out in favor of less toxic and more efficient charging methods, such as lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells.

But such changes could take decades.

Despite its difficulties over the Shanghai plant, the company is expanding in China, with annual capacity due to rise to 10.5 million batteries next year with the addition of a new plant in Changqing. A third plant, under construction, will have a capacity of 6 million batteries, and the company is considering locations for a fourth plant.

___

Researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report.

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Local entrepreneurs didn’t let a little thing like the toughest economic recovery since World War II stand in the way of starting new businesses.

Despite the uncertainty in the economy, the owners of restaurants, coffee shops, and service firms that opened here over the past few years found myriad ways to finance their dreams.

They’ve had to be creative though, as banks pulled back on lending after real estate loan defaults led to losses on many banks’ balance sheets. Loans of less than $1 million from locally chartered banks, which primarily went to small businesses, fell each quarter in 2010 and so far this year. And only a very slim margin of those loans went to startups, according to Julie Stackhouse, senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

“Small, entrepreneurial businesses have always faced a challenge of finding credit because they .