CA-BUSINESS Summary

TSX falls sharply as gold leads broad selloff

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell more than 1 percent on Friday, as weak U.S. economic data dulled hopes for the Canada's export sector, while a sharp drop in gold prices pulled mining stocks to multi-year lows. The mining-heavy TSX materials sector dropped 4.21 percent to its lowest level since 2009, fueled by a 4 percent drop in gold prices and sliding copper, while weak oil prices yanked energy stocks down by 1.95 percent.

FAA sees lessons from Boeing 787 battery woes

NEW YORK/COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (Reuters) - U.S. regulators are discussing whether the batteries that burned on Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner hold any lessons for other aircraft or vehicles. George Nield, associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, said a dialogue is taking place about whether the overheating of two lithium-ion batteries on the 787 could have broader implications.

Exclusive: G20 to consider cutting debt to well below 90 percent/GDP: document

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Financial leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies will consider next week in Washington a proposal to cut their public debt over the longer term to well below 90 percent of gross domestic product, a document prepared for the meeting showed. The proposal, prepared by the co-chairs of the G20 Working Group on the Framework for Growth, follows agreement of the leaders of G20 countries in June last year to set ambitious debt reduction targets beyond 2016, when, under an earlier agreement from Toronto in 2010, debt was to stop growing.

Troika concludes Greek bailout review, next aid tranche soon: source

DUBLIN/ATHENS (Reuters) - An inspection team of international lenders has finished its review of Greece's austerity program, paving the way for another 10 billion euros aid payment, a source with knowledge of the talks said on Saturday. The deal reached on Friday, concludes the first review by the so-called "troika" of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank since they unlocked fresh aid in December, staving off a chaotic bankruptcy.

Analysis: JPMorgan's lukewarm results put Dimon under more pressure

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, who came through the financial crisis relatively unscathed, is suddenly looking a little less secure. The top U.S. bank by assets reported tepid first-quarter results on Friday. Income in its biggest businesses - investment banking and consumer lending - fell, excluding accounting adjustments. Outstanding loans grew by just 1 percent, and profit margins on lending narrowed. Stock and bond trading revenue fell.

Greek PM says deposits are safe, banks shielded: paper

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek bank deposits are safe and the country's lenders are protected due to a recapitalization scheme which will be completed by the end of April, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Saturday. In an interview with Imerisia, Samaras ruled out a tax on deposits over 100,000 euros ($131,000) allaying fears of austerity-hit Greeks that their savings may be at risk after a raid on Cyprus depositors as part of the island's bailout.

Italy's Salini eyes foreign growth after Impregilo merger: report

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian builder Salini, taking over larger rival Impregilo , expects the merged group to double revenues over the next three years helped by expansion in the Americas and Australia, its head said in a newspaper interview. Family-owned Salini, which has built a stake of 86.5 percent in Italy's biggest builder after a takeover bid ended on Friday, told Il Corriere della Sera on Saturday he may consider listing the future merged group on more stock markets.

Austria defies mounting pressure to end bank secrecy

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Austria defied growing pressure to follow Luxembourg in ending bank secrecy, after a group led by Europe's six biggest countries pledged to work together to tackle tax havens. Late on Friday, the finance ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland announced their desire to jointly push for more bank transparency, a message they will take to the meeting of the Group of 20 top global economies in Washington next week.

Canada says April "optimal" for naming next Bank of Canada chief

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's government would ideally like to name a new Bank of Canada governor this month to replace Mark Carney, who will step down on June 1 to take the helm at the Bank of England, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Friday. "Part of the process is my interviews of the short-listed candidates," Flaherty told reporters on a conference call during an official visit to Bermuda.

Wells Fargo profit beats, but mortgage business slows

(Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co reported a higher-than-expected 23 percent rise in first-quarter profit on Friday, but its mortgage business showed further signs of slowing and net interest margins continued to shrink. The fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets has emerged from the financial crisis as the leading U.S. home lender as other banks have pulled back from a business that burned them during the housing bust. But the bank has now seen a decline in home loans for two consecutive quarters as fewer borrowers refinance at low interest rates.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-business-summary-034500857--finance.html

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President Obama Plays Golf for Third Saturday in a Row

WASHINGTON - President Obama went back to the golf course today, hitting the links at Joint Base Andrews just outside the capital for the third weekend in a row.

The president's golf partners were the same as last week - White House Trip Director Marvin Nicholson and White House aides Joe Paulsen and Michael Brush. Nicholson and Brush also played with the president two weeks ago.

While the president spent the day golfing, the White House opened its gates to the public for the annual spring White House garden tours.

Visitors who received free tickets through the National Park Service were able to roam through the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, the Rose Garden, and the South Lawn of the White House. They also caught a peek at the White House Kitchen Garden, the first vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden.

But while visitors saw the tulips and roses blooming in the White House gardens, the White House itself is still off limits for tours. White House tours were cancelled indefinitely on March 9th due to sequester cuts faced by the Secret Service.

The White House garden tours are operating today and Sunday only.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/president-obama-plays-golf-third-saturday-row-182200495--abc-news-politics.html

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Rick Warren: Son who killed himself had unregistered gun

Saddleback Valley Community Church via Reuters

Matthew Warren, the son of popular American evangelical pastor Rick Warren

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren said that his son, who killed himself last week after a prolonged battle with mental illness, bought an unregistered gun over the Internet.

?Someone on the internet sold Matthew an unregistered gun,? Warren said Thursday on Twitter. ?I pray he seeks God?s forgiveness. I forgive him.?

The youngest son of the popular pastor and author, 27-year-old Matthew Warren committed suicide last Friday. Warren?s Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., announced his death the next day.

?In spite of America?s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided,? Warren wrote in a letter to church members. ?Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.?

The Orange County sheriff?s department has struggled to determine where the gun came from, The Associated Press reported. It is practically impossible to trace, sheriff?s spokesman Jim Amormino said.

?We can?t tell if it?s registered or not because the serial number is scratched off,? Amormino said. ?At one point in time, it may have been, but it?s going to be impossible to find out.?

Background checks are required on all gun purchases in California, and defacing or altering a gun?s serial number is a federal crime.

The Orange County sheriff?s department was called to Matthew Warren?s home in Mission Viejo last Friday afternoon. They found him dead of an apparent suicide by gunshot, estimated to have been fired seven hours earlier.

The church called the pastor?s son ?an incredibly kind, gentle and compassionate young man whose sweet spirit was encouragement and comfort to many? in a statement. ?Unfortunately, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal thoughts.?

Rick Warren delivered an invocation at President Barack Obama?s inauguration in January 2009, and is the bestselling author of ?The Purpose Driven Life.? He has tweeted regularly about his son?s death.

Suicides accounted for 19,392 of the more than 31,000 gun-related deaths in 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Additional imaging gives better view and reduces complications in patients needing gastric tubes

Public release date: 13-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Samantha Schmidt
sschmidt@arrs.org
703-858-4316
American Roentgen Ray Society

Additional fluoroscopic and CT views can substantially reduce complications that occur during percutaneous radiologic gastrostomy, a procedure used for patients who require a gastric tube for nutritional support.

"In a study of 146 patients, we saw a major complications rate of 5.9%," said Dr. Erich Lang, of SUNY Downstate Medical Center, in Brooklyn, NY and lead author of the study. Major complications included organ injury with hemorrhage and colonic perforation, he said. Minor complications, such as tube leakage or dislodgement, occurred in 17.6% of patients, he said. "We were concerned with the high rate of complications, and we wanted to eliminate them."

"Topographic anatomic misjudgment appeared to be the cause for all major complications in this group of patients so we changed our technique to provide us with a better view," said Dr. Lang. In a follow-up study of 29 patients, we added fluoroscopy in oblique projection, cross table lateral fluoroscopy or biplane fluoroscopy, Dr. Lang said. "We virtually eliminated the problem of misplacement of gastrostomy catheters," he said. "By including CT in AP, lateral and oblique projection, we've eliminated improper passages of entry-tracts through other organs," Dr. Lang said.

It is important to note that surgical gastrostomy and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy two other techniques for insertion of feeding tubes -- have even higher rates of complications, said Dr. Lang. Surgical gastrostomy has a reported 74.3% complication rate, while percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy has a reported 42.9% complication rate.

Dr. Lang's study is part of an electronic exhibit that will be available from April 13-April 19 at the ARRS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 13-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Samantha Schmidt
sschmidt@arrs.org
703-858-4316
American Roentgen Ray Society

Additional fluoroscopic and CT views can substantially reduce complications that occur during percutaneous radiologic gastrostomy, a procedure used for patients who require a gastric tube for nutritional support.

"In a study of 146 patients, we saw a major complications rate of 5.9%," said Dr. Erich Lang, of SUNY Downstate Medical Center, in Brooklyn, NY and lead author of the study. Major complications included organ injury with hemorrhage and colonic perforation, he said. Minor complications, such as tube leakage or dislodgement, occurred in 17.6% of patients, he said. "We were concerned with the high rate of complications, and we wanted to eliminate them."

"Topographic anatomic misjudgment appeared to be the cause for all major complications in this group of patients so we changed our technique to provide us with a better view," said Dr. Lang. In a follow-up study of 29 patients, we added fluoroscopy in oblique projection, cross table lateral fluoroscopy or biplane fluoroscopy, Dr. Lang said. "We virtually eliminated the problem of misplacement of gastrostomy catheters," he said. "By including CT in AP, lateral and oblique projection, we've eliminated improper passages of entry-tracts through other organs," Dr. Lang said.

It is important to note that surgical gastrostomy and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy two other techniques for insertion of feeding tubes -- have even higher rates of complications, said Dr. Lang. Surgical gastrostomy has a reported 74.3% complication rate, while percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy has a reported 42.9% complication rate.

Dr. Lang's study is part of an electronic exhibit that will be available from April 13-April 19 at the ARRS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

###

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/arrs-aig041013.php

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Here's your chance to own a piece of espionage history

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) ? The beige colonial boasts four bedrooms, an updated kitchen ? and the chance to own a slice of Russian spy history.

The U.S. Marshals Service is selling a Montclair, N.J. home whose previous owners were arrested in 2010 by the FBI and accused of being members of a Russian spy ring.

Authorities said the home's former occupants went by the aliases Richard and Cynthia Murphy and led what appeared to be a banal suburban life. Lawyers for the couple said the man was a stay-at-home father to two daughters and his wife worked for a New York accounting firm and made $135,000 a year.

It was all an elaborate, illegal ruse. The couple, whose real names are Vladimir and Lydia Guryev, was part of a group of deep-cover Russian operatives who had been living in the U.S. for years under the guise of leading seemingly normal lives.

Guryevs and eight others were arrested in June 2010 after a decade-long counterintelligence probe that led to the biggest spy swap since the Cold War. Both pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country and were deported not long after their arrests.

Prosecutors described a ring that used techniques both elaborate and seemingly out of a Cold War spy movie. The group meshed into American life while engaging in clandestine global travel with fake passports, using invisible ink and engaging in practices so sophisticated the government would not describe them in open court.

It was all toward the goal of infiltrating U.S. policy circles and learning about U.S. diplomacy and weapons information.

In 2009, authorities allege the Guryevs were asked to find out information from people involved in U.S. politics and foreign policy about President Barack Obama's impending trip to Russia and how he would negotiate with regards to the START nuclear arms treaty, Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear program.

Authorities said they found $80,000 in crisp $100 bills in the Montclair home, which was paid for by the Russian government.

The home has an unfinished basement and a $444,900 list price with Fast Track Real Estate Co., of nearby Waldwick.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/former-nj-home-russian-spies-market-222218581.html

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Lynn Whitfield's New Role Highlights Children in Foster Care ...

?Thousands of families continue to welcome neglected children and teens into their homes each year and actress Lynn Whitfield?s forthcoming role in?Nicholas DiBella?s ?King?s Faith??aims to highlight those acts of benevolence by way of America?s foster care system.

The drama, which is set to hit select theaters a week before?National Foster Care Month, tells the story of a troubled 18-year-old, Brendan King (played by Crawford Wilson), who is trying to leave his past street life behind before it jeopardizes his new relationship with an adopted family (played by Whitfield and James McDaniel).

During a recent interview with the Huffington Post, the Howard University alum turned Emmy Award-winning actress opened up about her role as Vanessa Stubbs and her thoughts on the increasing number of African-American women landing lead roles on network television.

Q:Congratulations on your latest film, ?King?s Faith.? Can you talk about your role as Vanessa Stubbs?

A:The film itself is about this Caucasian kid that kind of lived on the wrong side of the tracks for a long time. Got busted and put into juvenile detention and then when he gets out is in lots of foster care homes. This kid is taken in by an African-American couple who recently just lost their own son to gun violence. And Vanessa Stubbs is this woman who is still grieving for her own son and is a little bit resentful that her husband, Mike, is dead set on taking in this kid as foster parents. She?s looking in and looking at grieving and resentment and wondering what God is doing with her life. So I just found her emotional dilemma to be kind of interesting.

Q:While preparing for the role did you tap into any friends or family who had experiences with adoption?

A: I know a lot of people that have adopted kids. I read about kids who are older and about to age out of the system and are not the most desirable. Thank God, I don?t know about grieving the death of a child. But I know there are grieving counselors. My daughter lost her father when she was 12 and going into puberty. So I know that grieving is a whole thing onto itself. So I did some research on that. And then looking at the set of circumstances that were written into this character and finding a place in myself where some of those truths exist.

Q: What are your thoughts on the significance of the film?s release in honor of National Foster Care month?

A: It?s something that?s a nod to people who have decided to be a part of the foster care system, who are doing it well. Let?s face it, there are some people who are not doing it well, and doing it as a commercial venture. But there are people who do it extremely well and have great successes. Extend a thank you to them and perhaps for families or individuals who?ve not only thought about it, who might be good at it. So I think it is very significant that way.

A: In addition to your role in ?King?s Faith,? you?re also currently a part of the touring theater production, ?My Brother Marvin.? How did you land the role as Marvin Gaye?s mother?

Q: I was invited to do the role. So I guess at this point sometimes I don?t have to land something, it?s just that they land me. The life of an artist is always re-proving what you can do, and I feel like there is still so much more to do. Because I still enjoy it, and I?m not one of those actors who feels like, ?Oh, I?ve arrived and you should worship at my altar,? kind of thing. I still love the art form and I look forward to new challenges and new opportunities?

Read More:?huffingtonpost.com

Source: http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/04/11/lynn-whitfield-talks-broad-range-of-new-projects/

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'American Idol' judges tell Lazaro he's 'horrible'

Frank Micelotta / FOX

Lazaro Arbos struggled with his performances Wednesday.

?American Idol? history was made on Wednesday: Randy Jackson slammed a finalist, and nobody booed.

It was that kind of night for Lazaro Arbos, the last ?Idol? man standing. And he won?t be around much longer if viewers paid attention to the desperate pleading from the judges Wednesday. They did everything but get down on their knees and pray that they won?t have to deal with him for another week.

He?s still one of the most inspiring finalists in the history of the show. The judges all said so, perhaps in an effort to avoid the sympathy votes that unalloyed meanness sometime inspires. But they really think it?s time for him to take that inspiring story to one of the nearby movie studios instead of the ?Idol? stage. Since the hopefuls sang both a Burt Bacharach tune and a song they wish they?d written, the judges got to say so twice.

After Lazaro's first song of the night, ?(They Long to Be) Close to You,? Randy opened the commentary by saying, ?You know that I love you, the person. ... Your story inspires us all. But all I can say is, 'No, no, no NO. That was horrible.'?

Ordinarily, that inspires the audience to voice its displeasure, like angry parents of a spurned child at a talent show. There isn't a more sympathetic audience in the world than this one ? but not on this night. It was as if the audience shrugged and said, ?You know what? That?s a fair point. Maybe birds suddenly appear because they're harbingers of doom.?

Both Mariah Carey and Keith Urban similarly acknowledged his courage while slamming his vocals. Nicki didn?t even go that far. ?Let?s just pretend I already gave my comment, or we?ll be here until tomorrow,? she said.

With his second chance, Lazaro didn?t do much to change their minds. The best that can be said about his cover of Robbie Williams? ?Angels? was that it did not stink.

Keith noted that he?d improved, but, ?The way the girls are singing tonight ? they are so crazy good.?

Randy agreed: ?Slightly better. But Keith is right, the girls are so crazy good.?

And, you know, Lazaro's not.

Candice gets some love
Of all the crazy good girls, Candice Glover was the crazy good-est, and her performance to close the show could be a game-changer.

Everyone else played it relatively safe in the songs-I-wish-I?d-written category, at least sticking with their comfort zone.? Candice went with ?Love Song? by The Cure, slowing it down and truly making it her own in a performance that earned a standing ovation and an ocean of applause. The only downside was that because it was the last vocal of the night and the judges had spent so much time criticizing Lazaro, they didn?t have time to praise it for as long as it deserved.

?One of the greatest performances in the history of ?American Idol,' ? Randy said, saying he spoke for all of the judges.

Kree Harrison also got a lot of love, with Keith predicting she?d become a member of the Grand Ole Opry, which he knows a little bit about since he?s a member himself. Nicki showed love as well and noted that the difference between Kree and Janelle Arthur is that Kree?s got the artistry to sell an unfamiliar song and Janelle doesn?t.

But if Nicki loves Kree, she?s now becoming even more obsessed with Amber Holcomb. ?I am bowing down right now for you, little girl. Yes!? Nicki said after Amber covered ?I Say a Little Prayer.? And that wasn?t even her best performance! Imagine how she?ll react if Amber really takes it back to the next level next week.

If there?s any surprise?
Lazaro should be going home tomorrow, but then again, he should have gone home last week, and instead he was in the top three. Never underestimate the ability of the ?Idol? voters to do something wacky.

If he stays, Janelle, will likely be the one singing for the judges' save, if only because the praise for her was more tepid. ?The judges liked her second song better than the first, but even then, Nicki said, ?There?s no doubt in my mind that you could be an enormous commercial success, but as for that performance, I thought it was really boring.?

Angie Miller would be more surprising, especially since she went back to the piano and did very well with her second song. But the first was more of a paint-by-number exercise that left everyone feeling cold and wanting some more fire. Keith had a point when he noted that someday, she?ll sing with the same passion with just the microphone as she does when she?s at the piano.

If only Angie could sing with the passion the judges feel about the possibility of Lazaro going home, she?d win this for sure.

Did you agree with the judges' assessment of Lazaro's performances? Who knocked your socks off Wednesday night? Tell us on our Facebook page!

Related content:

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Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2013/04/10/17695643-american-idol-judges-tell-lazaro-hes-horrible?lite

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Fed's easy policy faces real test when it's time to exit: Fisher

EL PASO, Tex. (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's unprecedented effort to ease monetary policy will face its biggest test when it comes time to withdraw the policy accommodation, a top Fed official said on Wednesday.

Once the economy begins to grow more quickly and banks start lending out more of the money that they now hold on the sidelines, "We are going to have to titrate or taper back the way that money flows back into the system," Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said at the University of Texas at El Paso.

If the Fed fails to do so at the right rate, inflation could start to take hold, he warned.

Fisher repeated his view that he would not favor an immediate end to the Fed's asset purchases, but wants an end to them because they are less effective than they were at the beginning. He said and his colleagues at the Fed last month had a "serious discussion" about when and whether to taper bond buys.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-easy-policy-faces-real-test-time-exit-222415813--business.html

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Kid Battling Brain Cancer Scores A TD In Nebraska Spring Game ...

http%3A%2F%2Fboston.barstoolsports.com%2Frandom-thoughts%2Fkid-battling-brain-cancer-scores-a-td-in-nebraska-spring-game%2F

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By elpresidente posted April 7th, 2013 at 12:07 PM

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NYC Met Museum gets renowned $1B Cubist collection

NEW YORK (AP) ? New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art is getting a billion-dollar Cubist collection it says will "transform" it.

The museum announced Tuesday cosmetics executive and philanthropist Leonard Lauder has pledged his renowned collection of Cubist works.

The collection of 78 works includes pieces from Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger and is considered one of the most pre-eminent Cubism collections in the world. It's valued at more than $1 billion.

Museum Director Thomas Campbell says the gift is "truly transformational" and will fill in a critical area in the museum's collection.

The Lauder collection is expected to be presented in an exhibition opening in the fall of 2014.

The museum says a new research center for modern art will be created at the museum.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-met-museum-gets-renowned-1b-cubist-collection-000345871.html

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TripAdvisor Buys Luxury Travel Site Jetsetter From Gilt

Word has just come in that TripAdvisor has acquired Jetsetter, Gilt's private community for exclusive travel deals.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4-laBBOdB_c/

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Headlines revive memories of 80s economics

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, left, makes remarks after visiting United States President Ronald Reagan, right, at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Friday, July 17, 1987. Thatcher died from a stroke at 87 on Monday, April 8, 2013. Credit: Howard L. Sachs - CNP Photo by: Howard L. Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, left, makes remarks after visiting United States President Ronald Reagan, right, at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Friday, July 17, 1987. Thatcher died from a stroke at 87 on Monday, April 8, 2013. Credit: Howard L. Sachs - CNP Photo by: Howard L. Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Believers hailed its reduced tax rates and deregulation as springboards for economic miracles under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Critics dismissed the very same ideas as so much trickle-down hocus-pocus and voodoo.

It's been most of three decades since debate over "supply-side" economic policies was at the center of U.S. politics. But for the moment, talk of conservative economic ideas that were as central to the story of the 1980s as Michael Jackson's moonwalk and the first MacIntosh personal computer is back. Why? A pair of its leading proponents have returned to the headlines.

Memories of economic days gone by were rekindled last week when David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, unleashed a scathing attack on years of decision-making by U.S. leaders, including his former boss. It continued this week, when Thatcher's death on Monday prompted recollections ? some fond, others not so much ? of how the Iron Lady imposed her will on a long-stagnant British economy.

The confluence of events got economists waxing about what the past means for today, although there's disagreement on how much supply-side's ideas have been abandoned in the U.S. or are just awaiting their moment of return. In the meantime, there was Arthur Laffer, the U.S. economist often called the father of supply-side, back on television three times Monday, recalling a warm friendship with Thatcher that highlighted a time when prevailing wisdom on taxes, deficits, and the roles of government and individuals was very different.

"We're back in the time machine," said Yoram Bauman, a Seattle economist who makes a living doing stand-up comedy about the dismal science ? and who has long opened with a joke or two about supply-side to test the depth and endurance of his audience's knowledge.

Supply-side economists argued that reducing taxes through lower rates would encourage work, saving and investment. Early supply-side theory promised that the reduced tax rates could pay for themselves by raising tax revenues. Under Reagan, the government lowered tax rates and reduced government regulation as the Federal Reserve worked to rein in inflation. The administration's focus on lowering tax rates for the wealthy, labeled "trickle-down economics," reflected the belief that these gains would encourage the rich to spend and invest more to create jobs for others.

Now that theory ? and Bauman's comic material, for that matter ? may have found its moment, but it's not clear how long it will last.

It began last week when Stockman wrote a lengthy opinion piece in The New York Times, followed by interviews, to build awareness of his new book, "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America." He used the forum to go after everyone from Richard Nixon to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush for decades of decisions that he said have left government bloated and swimming in deficits and the economy on a fault line.

Along the way, Stockman also lambasted Reagan ? whom many Republicans embrace as an economic hero ? for the "destruction of fiscal rectitude" inherent in running up big deficits. The criticism by Stockman, who resigned from the administration in 1985 over disagreement with those policies, was labeled as a rant by some economists. But there was little doubt that, if only briefly, it revived memories of the economics of the 1980s ? and pointed out how much the landscape has changed.

"I think to the extent that anyone is thinking about supply-side anymore it's nostalgically. It's not with an expectation that it's going to make a comeback," said Ed Yardeni, president and chief investment strategist for Yardeni Research

"In many ways, Stockman's book is just a scathing indictment of how the supply-side revolution has been taken apart by a counter-revolution, by the promoters of big government," he said.

With Washington focused on gun control, immigration reform and other issues, attention to the economics debate as embodied by Stockman might not have lasted. But Thatcher's death Monday unearthed memories of the economic malaise that saddled both Britain and the U.S. through the early 1980s. It was characterized by high inflation, weak financial markets, multiple recessions and, in Britain's case, the sense of "an economy that was producing goods that nobody wanted to buy," said Brian Domitrovic, author of "Econoclasts: The Rebels Who Sparked the Supply-Side Revolution and Restored American Prosperity."

In obituaries and recollections, observers recalled how Thatcher cut back on regulation, cut taxes and reduced government's role in enterprise, to recast the British economy. In doing so, she adopted some tenets of the economic gospel preached by Laffer. According to Washington legend, he had introduced the basics of supply-side to Nixon-era officials Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld during a 1974 lunch at a restaurant not far from the White House by drawing, on a cocktail napkin, a curve showing the tradeoff between tax rates and revenue.

To Domitrovic, the revived debate over old economic ideas is a sign that people have not forgotten the crises of the 1970s or the way the Reagan and Thatcher administrations wrestled with them.

"When these great names come up, there is a sense of impressiveness and a kind of awesomeness," said Domitrovic, chair of the history department at Sam Houston State University.

Laffer, who runs an economic consultancy in Nashville, said there are still many believers in supply-side ideas, which he maintains are just as applicable to the huge deficits and economic sluggishness of today as back then.

"I don't think it's Thatcher's death that brought it back or Stockman's resurrection," Laffer said. "I mean, do you think the economy is doing well?"

Even now, the legacy of 1980s economics is quite vibrant, he said. Despite Obama's quest to raise taxes on the wealthy, no one in Washington would consider returning to the policies inherited by Reagan, who lowered the top tax rate from 50 percent to 28 percent, Laffer said. And in states like Kansas and Wisconsin, many governors, most of them Republicans, are working to cut taxes and reduce the size of government, he said.

Others, though, say memories of 1980s economic ideas have largely faded. Their prediction: Even the current turn in the spotlight will be brief.

Bauman, the economic comedian who billed a 2008 series of performances as his "Supply Side Tour," points out how much times have changed. Stumbling on such old economic policies now, Bauman says, is like rummaging through a pantry and finding a bag of chocolate chips with an expiration date from long, long ago and realizing that something once delicious might now be better to leave out of the recipe.

On stage, he introduces himself as a supply-side economist who does standup and lets the jokes trickle down, a line that wins knowing chuckles. But during frequent performances on college campuses, he notices that a joke about the Laffer Curve often brings groans or simply blank stares.

To get the joke about the economics of the 1980s, Bauman said, it helps to have been there.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? AP National Writer Adam Geller can be reached at features (at) ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdGeller

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-10-US-Economics-Back-to-the-Future/id-6ca9a12d81ed406b96b7ec6b4f96578f

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Written in the stars: How an alien planet helped a man woo his true love

PHL @ UPR Arecibo

An artist's conception shows Alpha Centauri Bb, the nearest known exoplanet. Will it end up being called "Amara," or "Tiber," or plain old Alpha Centauri Bb?

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

Zeb Gray thought naming an exoplanet after his girlfriend would be the perfect tribute to "the eternal love that we share for each other"?? and whether or not the name sticks, the decision arguably changed his life. On Friday, Gray asked Amara Somers to marry him, and she said yes.

Did the fact that Gray proposed the name "Amara" for the planet now known as Alpha Centauri Bb have anything to do with the way his more personal proposal was received? "I think it weighed on her decision," Gray, a 25-year-old security guard from Carson City, Nev., told NBC News.

---

The planet-naming gap
Amara is currently the top vote-getter in Uwingu's online contest to give Alpha Centauri Bb, the closest-known exoplanet, a more mellifluous name. Traditionally, the International Astronomical Union has had the job of naming celestial bodies ??but for now,?the IAU has held off on setting up an exoplanet-naming system. Instead, astronomers refer to alien worlds using a combination of the star's name (for example, Alpha Centauri B) and a lower-case letter (which is where that second "b" comes from).

Uwingu, a space-themed entertainment venture, has stepped into the gap with a system that lets users suggest planet names for $4.99, and cast ballots for 99 cents a vote. Half of the proceeds will go to support space science and education projects.

The contest to rename Alpha Centauri Bb runs until April 15, and although the resulting name won't have any official standing with the IAU, Gray would love to see Amara win. "I'm glad to see it has a decent lead, but that could go away pretty quickly," Gray said.

Uwingu

Zeb Gray pays tribute to his fiancee, Amara Somers, with an online card as well as an exoplanet name suggestion.

It helps that Amara is also the name of a magical world featured in Graham Edwards' "Stone" science-fiction trilogy. In Edwards' books, Amara is also known as Stone. It's structured like a spiraling stone wall, and inhabited by hundreds of civilizations.

There's another contender with a strong science-fiction connection, and a high-profile backer to boot. The name "Tiber" is favored by Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, who's the co-author of a 1977 sci-fi novel titled "Encounter With Tiber."?The Tiberians hail from a planet in the Alpha Centauri, and that's one of Aldrin's selling points.

"Don't forget to vote for TIBER in the contest to replace the name for Alpha Centauri Bb," Aldrin told his nearly 800,000 followers in a Twitter update last week. As of this writing, Tiber is No. 17 on the charts with 35 votes ? ranking below Amara as well as Heinlein, Pele, Sagan, Asimov and Ron Paul.

Wooed by a moon
Gray, who met Somers at the state agency where they both work four months ago, isn't the first guy to impress a woman by naming a celestial body after her. When Naval Observatory astronomer James Christy discovered Pluto's biggest moon in 1978, he proposed naming it "Charon"?? not only because Charon was the ferryman of the dead in Greek mythology, but also because the name paid tribute to his wife, Charlene.

("Char" was Christy's pet nickname for his wife. In her honor, the name is often pronounced "Shar-on" rather than "Care-on, " which is the pronunciation associated with the Greek ferryman. That's one of the many fun facts you'll find in my book, "The Case for Pluto.")

Is it really worth all this fuss to give Alpha Centauri Bb a better name? Astronomer Xavier Dumusque, the lead author of the paper that announced the exoplanet's discovery last year, thinks so.

"I would definitively endorse the name for public outreach and lectures," Dumusque told NBC News in an email. "In astronomy, we have some chance to be able to make people dream, by showing a wonderful picture, by discovering new worlds. If someone is interested in astronomy, he should not face troubles to understand all the nomenclature. Therefore, giving memorable names for planets is one way to get more people interested in our wonderful research."

Do you agree? What names would you suggest? Check out the Uwingu list, and feel free to leave your suggestions as comments below.

More about the celestial name game:

---

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday.

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Two senators key to Obama's push for broader checks of gun buyers

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fate of one of President Barack Obama's key gun-control proposals appeared on Monday night to be in the hands of two senators: one Democrat, the other Republican, both of them longtime opponents of restrictions on guns.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are seeking a compromise on expanding background checks for prospective gun buyers. The proposal appears to be Obama's best hope for meaningful gun-control legislation in the wake of the December massacre of 20 children and six adults at a school in Connecticut, where the president spoke Monday evening to a crowd that included some victims' families.

If Manchin and Toomey can't strike a deal, Obama's calls to require nearly all gun buyers to submit to background checks for criminal records and mental health problems likely will fail, Senate aides said on Monday.

Another centerpiece of Obama's efforts, a renewal of a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, appears unlikely to be approved, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. A proposed 10-bullet limit on ammunition magazines also appears to be in trouble, he has said.

Obama, who has called the day of the Newtown massacre the worst of his presidency, made a strong appeal on Monday for action in Congress.

But at this point, Senate aides said, there seems to be strong, bipartisan support for only two of Obama's proposals: a crackdown on gun trafficking and improvements to security at schools.

The talks between Manchin and Toomey - both allies of the National Rifle Association, the nation's largest gun-rights group - symbolize why the background checks proposal is not a sure thing in Congress, even though polls have indicated that it is backed by 80 to 90 percent of Americans.

Toomey is pushing for expanded background checks even as 13 conservative Republican senators are threatening a filibuster to delay votes on any gun-control bills.

And Manchin represents how Democrats' move in recent years to embrace candidates who strongly support gun rights is complicating the Democratic president's push for gun restrictions.

Manchin is among eight Senate Democrats rated as friendly to gun rights by the NRA to have joined the chamber since 2006.

That was when the Democratic officials - fed up with losing congressional races to Republicans in rural and conservative states such as Montana, Virginia, North Carolina, Alaska and West Virginia - stepped up its recruiting of pro-gun candidates.

The strategy worked.

Democrats won control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 2006 and increased their majorities in 2008, when Obama captured the White House.

The House fell back to Republicans in 2010, but not before conservative Democrats such as Manchin helped Obama get his healthcare overhaul through Congress.

But now, those conservative Democrats have become speed bumps for several of Obama's gun-control proposals - particularly his call to ban assault weapons, which both sides see as unlikely to pass even the Senate, where Democrats control 55 of the 100 seats.

On expanding background checks, "Manchin is upbeat about their chances of success," said one Senate aide, who offered an assessment of her own: "50-50."

SEEING A 'SLIPPERY SLOPE'

Reid, who schedules floor votes in the Senate, had planned to begin consideration of gun legislation this week. But that timetable could be pushed to next week to give Manchin and Toomey more time to negotiate, or if Republicans try to delay action, aides said.

Even the gun trafficking plan, which would make it a federal crime for someone banned from having a firearm to buy one, could face problems. The NRA is seeking to revise it in a way that critics say would make it difficult to enforce.

Obama's call to ban rapid-firing assault weapons - a pet cause of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat - has gone nowhere in part because even those in Feinstein's party are not solidly behind it.

Several Democrats who have joined the Senate since 2006 have said they could not vote for Feinstein's plan.

They include Manchin, Mark Begich of Alaska and Jon Tester of Montana, a gun-rights Democrat and farmer who won a Senate seat in 2006 by unseating a three-term Republican.

Tester said he sees an assault weapons ban as "a slippery slope" that could lead to other restrictions on gun ownership. He said he favors stepping up efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

"That would be the smart thing to do," Tester said.

Begich, another Democrat rated as a friend on Capitol Hill by the NRA, ousted a six-term Republican when he was elected in 2008. Begich is a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill to clarify when a person loses the right to possess a firearm based on mental illness.

Critics of the bill, which is backed by the NRA, say the measure could make firearms more accessible to the mentally ill.

Manchin, elected to the Senate in 2010, has been trying for months to find a way to expand background checks while addressing gun-rights' advocates concerns that such checks could be used to create registries of gun owners. Gun rights advocates say the government could use such registries to confiscate weapons.

"I think everyone wants to do something that is right and responsible," Manchin said. "I really do."

A POLITICAL CALCULATION

Few Democrats regret the party's decision to recruit gun-rights candidates in recent years.

If senators such as Tester and Begich had not won their seats, many Democrats figure, the seats would be held by pro-gun Republicans - and many of Obama's legislative accomplishments, including the healthcare overhaul and new regulations on Wall Street, would not have happened.

"The profile of the guy who can win in these states is the profile of a guy who is pro-gun," said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Larry Sabato, who tracks congressional races as head of University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said that in 2006, "Democrats made a practical decision ... to win rather, than to be (ideologically) pure."

Sabato said he now sees some Republicans similarly bending their stances on some issues to try to appeal to more voters, such as easing their opposition to gay marriage and tax increases.

(Editing by David Lindsey and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-senators-key-obamas-push-broader-checks-gun-003114309.html

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Halle Berry: Getting Pregnant at 46 Was a Huge Surprise!

Many people were surprised by Halle Berry's pregnancy -- including the actress herself!

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Exec threatens to pull Fox signal if Aereo goes on

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A top executive with the owner of the Fox broadcast network on Monday threatened to convert the network to a pay-TV-only channel if Internet startup Aereo Inc. continues to "steal" Fox's over-the-air signal and sell it to consumers without paying for rights.

Anyone with an antenna can pick up a TV station's signals for free. But cable and satellite companies typically pay stations and networks for the right to distribute their programming to subscribers. Industrywide, those retransmission fees add up to billions of dollars every year.

Last week, that business was shaken after a federal appeals court issued a preliminary ruling siding with Aereo, which contends that it doesn't have to pay those fees because it relies on thousands of tiny antennas.

News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said that not being paid by Aereo jeopardizes the economics of broadcast TV, which relies on both retransmission fees and advertising.

"This is not an ideal path we look to pursue, but we can't sit idly by and let an entity steal our signal," Carey said at the annual gathering of broadcasters, called NAB Show, in Las Vegas. "If we can't do a fair deal, we could take the whole network to a subscription model."

If realized, Carey's proposal would amount to a sea change in how Fox does business. Currently, Fox sends its signal to TV stations across the country, including 27 that it owns directly. Those stations relay Fox programming such as "Glee" and "Family Guy" for free over the airwaves in local markets and add their own local news and other programming. While most people get Fox through a pay TV provider anyway, millions of other Americans rely on the free signal coming over their own antennas.

Carey didn't explain how TV stations would be affected if Fox shut off the signals it sent to broadcasters and went straight to a pay TV model. Later, the company said in a statement that any change would occur "in collaboration with both our content partners and affiliates."

Aereo takes broadcast signals for free from the air with thousands of little antennas, recodes them for Internet use and feeds that to subscribers' computers, tablets and smartphones. Plans start at $8 a month, which is much cheaper than a cable package, though the service is mostly limited to broadcast channels.

Last week, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said that Aereo could continue its service despite a legal challenge by broadcast networks Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS.

In a split ruling, the court accepted Aereo's position that having individual antennas meant that Aereo wasn't retransmitting signals. Rather, the appeals court said that Aereo enabled its subscribers to do what they already could on their own with their own antenna and video recorder.

In a separate case, broadcasters are suing a different Internet company called Aereokiller LLC. It also takes broadcast signals using mini antennas and transmits them to paying customers. That case is now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Gordon Smith, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, was interviewing Carey onstage when he made the comments. Smith said he hopes that the courts will eventually rule against Aereo and force it to get in line with other pay TV operators.

"We think in the end, we'll be on the right side of the law and we will never get to the 'what-if' scenarios," Smith said.

Smith said he hopes that a different ruling at the 9th Circuit will prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to take over the matter.

Ultimately, Congress could step in and update a cable law governing retransmission fees. It was passed in 1992, before the world even had a commercial Web browser let alone viable Internet video technology.

Aereo, backed by billionaire Barry Diller, was limited to New York City when it debuted early last year, but has since expanded to the New York City suburbs, including parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. It plans to expand to Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and 18 other U.S. markets this spring.

Aereo Chief Executive Chet Kanojia said the legal OK for Aereo's service is now the "law of the land" with or without Fox.

"We believe that broadcasting in this country, irrespective of Fox, is a very powerful, fundamental presence," he said. If Fox exits the space, "we think somebody will be there to take advantage of that great idea of reaching this mass audience."

Analyst Todd Juenger of Bernstein Research speculated in a research note in January on what would make broadcast networks transition to a pay TV model.

Such a system would result in the loss of local news programs, broadcast personalities and advertising. But a pay TV system could be better for network owners such as Fox if services like Aereo were to thrive, because doing so would cut off technology that siphons away customers from pay TV operators, he wrote.

News Corp.'s stock rose 77 cents, or 2.5 percent, to close Monday at $31.41.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-04-08-US-Fox-Broadcast-Threat-Aereo/id-433900846e5e41d8bd63b5c36331bf26

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NASA taps the power of zombie stars in two-in-one instrument

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Neutron stars have been called the zombies of the cosmos. They shine even though they're technically dead, occasionally feeding on neighboring stars if they venture too close. Interestingly, these unusual objects, born when a massive star extinguishes its fuel and collapses under its own gravity, also may help future space travelers navigate to Mars and other distant destinations.

NASA recently selected a new mission called the Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) to not only reveal the physics that make neutron stars the densest objects in nature, but also to demonstrate a groundbreaking navigation technology that could revolutionize the agency's ability to travel to the far reaches of the solar system and beyond.

The multi-purpose mission, also known as NICER/SEXTANT (Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology), consists of 56 X-ray telescopes in a compact bundle, their associated silicon detectors, and a number of other advanced technologies. Both NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Explorers Program and the Space Technology Mission Directorate's Game Changing Program are contributing to the mission's development.

"It's rare that you have an opportunity to fly a cross-cutting experiment," said Principal Investigator Keith Gendreau, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is leading NICER/SEXTANT's development. "The time is right for this experiment. This is one that we can do now."

In addition to NASA Goddard scientists and engineers, the mission team includes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and commercial partners, who are providing spaceflight hardware. The Naval Research Laboratory and universities across the United States, as well as in Canada and Mexico, are providing science expertise.

Space Station Bound

Slightly larger than a typical college dormitory refrigerator, NICER/SEXTANT will be deployed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017. It will fly as an external attached payload on one of the ISS ExPRESS Logistics Carriers, unpressurized platforms used for experiments and storage.

The X-ray instrument's primary objective is to learn more about the interior composition of neutron stars, the remnants of massive stars that, after exhausting their nuclear fuel, exploded and collapsed into super-dense spheres about the size of New York City. Their intense gravity crushes an astonishing amount of matter -- often more than 1.4 times the content of the sun or at least 460,000 Earths -- into these city-sized balls, creating the densest objects known in the universe. Just one teaspoonful of neutron star matter would weigh a billion tons on Earth.

"A neutron star is right at the threshold of matter as it can exist -- if it were compressed any further, it would collapse completely in on itself and become a black hole," said Zaven Arzoumanian, a NASA Goddard scientist serving as the deputy principal investigator on the mission. "We have no way of creating or studying this matter in any laboratory. There are many theories about what it is and how it behaves, but the only way to test our models and understand what happens to matter under such incredible pressures is to study neutron stars," he added. "The closest we come to simulating these conditions is in particle accelerators that smash atoms together at almost the speed of light. However, these collisions are not an exact substitute -- they only last a split second, and they generate temperatures that are much higher than what's inside neutron stars."

Although the nuclear-fusion fires that sustained their parent stars are extinguished, neutron stars still shine with heat left over from their explosive formation, and from radiation generated by their magnetic fields that became intensely concentrated as the core collapsed.

Although neutron stars emit radiation across the spectrum, observing in the X-ray band offers the greatest insights into their structure, the ultimate stability of their pulses as precise clock "ticks," and the high-energy, dynamic phenomena that they host, including starquakes, thermonuclear explosions, and the most powerful magnetic fields known in the universe.

NICER's 56 telescopes will collect X-rays generated from its tremendously strong magnetic field and from hotspots located at the stars' two magnetic poles. At these locations, the intense magnetic field emerges from the surface. Particles trapped in the magnetic field rain down and generate X-rays when they strike the surface. As the hotspots rotate into and out of our line of sight, we perceive a rise and fall in X-ray brightness.

This subgroup of pulsating neutron stars, called pulsars, rotate rapidly, emitting from their magnetic poles powerful beams of light that sweep around as the star spins, much like a lighthouse. At Earth, these beams are seen as flashes of light, blinking on and off at intervals from seconds down to milliseconds.

Because of their predictable pulsations -- especially millisecond pulsars, which are the target of the navigation demonstration -- "they are extremely reliable celestial clocks" and can provide high-precision timing just like the atomic clock signals supplied through the 26-satellite, military-operated Global Positioning System (GPS), an Earth-centric system that weakens the farther one travels out beyond Earth orbit and into the solar system, Arzoumanian said. "Pulsars, on the other hand, are accessible in virtually every conceivable flight regime, from low-Earth orbit to interplanetary to deepest space," Gendreau added.

As a result, NICER/SEXTANT also will demonstrate the viability of pulsar-based navigation. "The hardware needed for neutron star science is identical to that needed for pulsar-based navigation," Gendreau said. "In fact, the mission's two goals share many of the same targets and the same operational concept. The differences are on the back end in terms of how the data will be used."

To demonstrate the navigation technology's viability, the NICER/SEXTANT payload will use its telescopes to detect X-ray photons within these powerful beams of light to estimate the arrival times of the pulses. With these measurements, the system will use specially developed algorithms to stitch together an on-board navigation solution.

If an interplanetary mission were equipped with such a navigational device, it would be able to calculate its location autonomously, independent of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), Gendreau said. DSN, considered the most sensitive telecommunications system in the world, allows NASA to continuously observe and communicate with interplanetary spacecraft. However, like GPS, the system is Earth-centric. DSN-supplied navigational solutions also degrade the farther one travels out into the solar system. Furthermore, missions must share time on the network, Gendreau said.

"We're excited about NICER/SEXTANT's possibilities," Gendreau added. "The experiment meets critical science objectives and is a stepping-stone for technology applications that meet a variety of NASA needs. It's rare that you get an opportunity to do a cross-cutting experiment like this."

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Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/astronomy/~3/SL-GcAeiWQ8/130408035333.htm

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AP PHOTOS: NCAA Final Four

On The Daily Show?last night, Jon Stewart went after Jeff Zucker's newfangled approach at CNN, taking aim at hologram goats, vegetarians who eat bacon, and horrifying murder recreations. Stewart screamed in horror after showing the network's segment on how the Jodi Arias murder happened. "This is the middle of the day," Stewart said. "That piece could have been seen by any child?traveling through an airport."?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photos-ncaa-final-four-030649168--spt.html

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Bravo Gives Kathy Griffin?s Talk Show The Axe!

Bravo Gives Kathy Griffin’s Talk Show The Axe!

Ginger funnywoman Kathy Griffin has confirmed that her talk show on Bravo has been cancelled. Griffin announced that she would not be returning for a third season on the show during a stand-up gig in Cincinnati, Ohio on Friday. Kathy told the audience that she?d been informed by Bravo of the decision the previous day. ...

Bravo Gives Kathy Griffin’s Talk Show The Axe! Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/04/bravo-gives-kathy-griffins-talk-show-the-axe/

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Charter Madrasa Movement (Balloon Juice)

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CA-BUSINESS Summary

Canada posts worst monthly job losses in more than four years

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada posted its worst monthly jobs loss in more than four years in March, another sign the economy is struggling to cope with weak foreign markets and a strong Canadian dollar. Canada shed 54,500 positions in March, more than wiping out the 50,700 jobs that were added in February, Statistics Canada said on Friday. Market operators had expected a modest gain of 8,500 jobs.

Canada's Flaherty: big March job losses just a snapshot in time

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's job losses in March are disappointing, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Friday, but he described the broader performance of employment since the global recession as much more positive. "After strong job growth in February I am disappointed with the job numbers announced by Statistics Canada today," Flaherty said in a statement, referring to the loss of 54,500 positions in the month.

Judge approves BofA $2.43 billion settlement over Merrill

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp on Friday won a federal judge's approval for a $2.43 billion settlement with investors who said the lender hid crucial information when it bought Merrill Lynch & Co. The accord, among the largest investor settlements stemming from the recent global financial crisis, was approved by U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan.

TSX in five-day losing streak on lackluster jobs data

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index capped a five-day losing streak by slumping to its lowest in more than 3-1/2 months on Friday, led by declines in the financial sector, as gloomy Canadian and U.S. jobs data suggested the North American economy could be losing steam. The economic uncertainty weighed on oil prices, which fell to a five-month low, but a rising bullion price took gold shares higher.

EU's Rehn: Big depositors could suffer in future bank bailouts under new law

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Big bank depositors could take a hit under planned European Union law if a bank fails, the EU's economic affairs chief Olli Rehn said on Saturday, but noted that Cyprus's bailout model was exceptional. "Cyprus was a special case ... but the upcoming directive assumes that investor and depositor liability will be carried out in case of a bank restructuring or a wind-down," Rehn, the European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, said in a TV interview with Finland's national broadcaster YLE.

Italy cabinet approves 40 billion euros of state payments to firms

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's caretaker cabinet approved a decree on Saturday to pay some 40 billion euros ($52 billion) of the state's debts to private companies over the next 12 months. The decree, intended to provide vital liquidity to cash-strapped firms and help tackle a deep recession, had been scheduled to be approved last Wednesday but was delayed due to doubts over how to fund the measure.

China's big banks "faking" their micro loans: researcher

BOAO (Reuters) - China's big banks are not delivering on their promise to lend more to the smallest firms and are instead "faking" their micro loans, a researcher said on Saturday, suggesting a government drive to increase micro-lending is struggling. Ba Shusong, a researcher from the Development Research Center, a think-tank that advises China's cabinet, said the biggest Chinese banks are still setting tough collateral standards for small firms, who often cannot meet the demands.

IKEA halts moose lasagne sales after pork traces found

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Furniture retailer IKEA said on Saturday it had halted sales of moose lasagne after traces of pork were found in a batch of the product. Sales of the lasagne, of which about 10,000 tonnes has been produced by a Swedish supplier for IKEA, were stopped at its stores in 18 countries across Europe after tests by Belgian authorities late last month revealed traces of pork.

BizJet officers charged with bribing Latin American officials

(Reuters) - Two officers of a Lufthansa subsidiary were indicted in Oklahoma on charges of bribing foreign officials to secure aircraft maintenance contracts, while two others pleaded guilty to related criminal charges, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. The charges, unsealed on Friday, were filed in January of 2012 against four directors of BizJet International Sales & Support, a U.S.-based unit of Lufthansa that provides aircraft maintenance, after a joint probe by the DOJ and FBI.

Boeing completes 787 Dreamliner test flight for battery fix

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing completed a test flight on Friday of its 787 Dreamliner jet, part of a regimen of tests aimed at certifying a reworked system to prevent fire or overheating of the plane's lithium-ion batteries. The flight lasted about 1 hour and 50 minutes, landing at 12:28 pm Pacific Time (1928 GMT), according to Boeing. Data from the flight, which had Federal Aviation Administration officials aboard, will be submitted to the FAA, which will decide whether to approve the plane for flight. The 787 was grounded by regulators in January after batteries overheated on two planes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-business-summary-000057342--finance.html

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