Better start working on those powerball exercises. At least if Samsung's Galaxy Mega was the thing you thought your life was missing, as it's just landed at the FCC. Yeah, we know this isn't the first time, but on second time around it's the LTE-sporting GT-i9205 model. The usual lab tests show little that we didn't know already -- unless you didn't know it had LTE Band 5, dual band WiFi, NFC or GSM 850 / 1900. As the 5.8-inch isn't 4G-enabled, this means we're looking at the bigger 6.3-inch version, but still no word on if, when or how a version might land on US shores. Still no harm in limbering up though, is there?
Update: Upon further inspection, this variant only uses LTE band 5 (850mhz), which no us carrier currently uses. It's very unlikely this I9205 will hit the US.
Building successful relationships with people who are similar to you is one of the surest ways to ensure you have a successful business. It?s very common for business owners who network together to refer clients to each other when they see how their clients can benefit. The more relationships you create with the people inside and outside your industry, the more chance you have of a potential client being referred to you right when you need them.
Unfortunately, many business owners don?t network enough or don?t even know how to go about doing so. The three tips in the section below will help you figure out how to take advantage of business networking. Here are 3 top tips for successful business networking.
1. Approach Other Business Owners From A Position Of Service
When you decide to do this and start meeting with new business owners once or twice a month, it?s really important that you first of all show them how much you could be of service to their business. Don?t go talking about yourself and your business, but instead ask them questions about themselves and what they do instead. Give them snippets of valuable info they can use improve their business right away, and they?ll pretty quickly see you as someone who can help them rather than just a person who?s out to push their own agenda.
2. Keep Your ?Here?s What I Do? Message Simple
You don?t want to confuse anyone with your complicated objectives, keep it simple so it is easy to explain. Most importantly, if your business goals are too complicated to explain then people will probably assume your business is unorganized and not worth mentioning to clients.
3. A Lot Of Your Business Networking Can Be Done Online
LinkedIn has grown over the last few years and is now a huge online networking opportunity especially for business owners, sales people and people who are self-employed. You can look at a person?s public profile and tell whether or not they are somebody you would like to build a relationship with. Offline networking meetings are still important, but you?ll find it?s a lot better use of your time searching for networking opportunities online, at least initially before you make the first contact
Learn To Grow Your Business With Personal Networking
Your immediate goal should be to put together a crystal clear description of what your business is and does, and then go out and meet business owners with similar interests so you can start referring clients to each other. Successful business networking is an simple but important way to grow your business, get more sales, and make more money.
Want to grow your business quickly and easily? Read this review of Eben Pagan?s Accelerate Training. You can start growing your sales and profits more quickly by understanding this.
Justin Long plays a guy who memorizes a pretty barista's (Evan Rachel Wood) Facebook profile in hopes of winning her over in the film A Case of You. The movie premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where I got a peek. Is the movie worth seeing for its huge list of cameos (Sam Rockwell, Sienna Miller, Vince Vaughn, Peter Dinklage) alone? Find out.
(Reuters) - Weaker oil prices ate into Chevron Corp's first-quarter profits, while the second-largest U.S. oil company also took a hit from downtime at two of its three biggest U.S. refineries.
First-quarter net income fell 4.5 percent to $6.18 billion, or $3.18 per share, from $6.47 billion, or $3.27 per share, a year earlier. Analysts had expected $3.08 per share, according to the average on Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, and shares of Chevron rose by 0.4 percent in premarket trading.
Fourth-quarter production was 2.65 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 2.63 million a year earlier, though down from a particularly strong fourth quarter's 2.67 million.
Increasing output from oil wells has been a struggle for Chevron and larger rival Exxon Mobil Corp, which posted a drop in first-quarter production on Thursday.
Chevron's earnings from the production of oil and gas, or upstream earnings, fell by about a quarter in the United States to $1.13 billion, with operating expenses higher and the average sales price for liquids down to $94 per barrel from $102 a year before.
U.S. downstream earnings, from refining and marketing, declined more than 70 percent, with refinery crude oil input falling by 350,000 barrels per day to 576,000 bpd due to planned work at its largest refinery in Mississippi and an extended crude unit outage at its oldest refinery in Richmond, California.
Chevron is still trying to get Richmond working at normal levels after a fire last August damaged its crude unit, which is expected to start up this month.
Chevron shares rose 0.4 percent to $118.99 in premarket trading on Friday. The stock is up about 10 percent so far this year, compared with a 2 percent rise for Exxon.
(Reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Hello! I'm Shirley Pando, instructor at My Creative Classroom and part of the MCC website support team. In fact, if you email the help desk (support.mcc@gmail.com) I'm the person you'll hear from. :-)
We all treasure our family photos and the memories they evoke. Instead of keeping those beloved photos in your albums, let's bring them out into the open where we can see them everyday. This class is all about creating beautiful embellished memory projects that you will be proud to display in your home or give as gifts. Projects include a mixed media canvas, a decorated printer's tray, a family message center, and an acrylic wall hanging.
For a limited time this class is only $20!! The price will increase on May 1st at 10am CST. CLICK HERE TO GET IN ON THIS GREAT DEAL AND JOIN US IN CLASS.
How about a giveaway? One lucky person will win a free seat to "Scrapbooking: Home Decor". All you need to do is leave a comment on this post and let us know why you'd like to win this class. You have until Monday April 29th at midnight to enter. Already enrolled?? If you are the lucky winner we will refund your?tuition. Good Luck!!
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
This week I'm writing from a special place: from the perspective of a Google Glass owner. Well, to be honest I'm not wearing them this exact moment -- I'm actually at 30,000 feet, making the most of a Gogo connection, and when your phone is in airplane mode there's not much point in wearing the headset. Unless, of course, you're looking for a conversation starter. In that role, the headset performs impeccably even when turned completely off.
It's been an interesting couple days wearing the headset around, days I'll continue to chronicle on the site because I know many of you are eager to know what Glass is like. I know this because I've had dozens of strangers come up to me and ask, "What's it like?" Suffice to say, Glass is very interesting and the potential is compelling, but right now the thing is somewhat frustrating in its limited functionality. That'll change real soon as more developers get to grips with the Mirror API.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. reported a profit for the first quarter on Friday as lower raw material costs helped offset the effect of a decline in global tire sales.
Its adjusted earnings beat Wall Street estimates, and its shares rose more than 2 percent in morning trading.
"Our first quarter earnings demonstrate that our strategic focus on improving productivity and selling innovative products in targeted market segments where our brands add value is working, especially in North America, where our business continues to outperform expectations," said Richard J. Kramer, chairman and CEO.
The Akron, Ohio-based tire maker said its net income was $26 million, or 10 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31. It lost $11 million, or 5 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
After charges, Goodyear earned 45 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 30 cents per share.
Revenue fell to $4.8 billion from $5.5 billion a year ago. Analysts expected $5.09 billion.
Sales dropped 13 percent in Goodyear's core North America market, but also saw a $163 million reduction in raw material costs. Sales dropped 17 percent in Europe, 1.5 percent in Latin America and 1.7 percent in Asia.
Asia and Latin America had increased numbers of tires sold and higher operating income.
Despite an 8 percent decline in the number of tires sold globally, a push to sell high-end products helped Goodyear post record first-quarter operating income in North America and the Asia-Pacific region.
In its outlook, Goodyear said it expects the number of tires sold this year to be unchanged from 2012, reflecting weakness in Europe amid an uncertain economy.
To revive its European business, Goodyear has announced plans to leave the farm tire business and close a manufacturing plant in France, a move that has sparked a legal fight on two continents and street protests by French workers.
Kramer said the company remains confident in its full-year outlook. The company expects global segment operating income of $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion in 2013. Kramer noted that would be up more than 12 percent from 2012 and a record.
Goodyear shares fell 43 cents, or 3.3 percent, to close at $12.51 Friday. They are down 14.6 percent from $14.65 in January. They traded as low as $9.24 last June.
Apr. 24, 2013 ? Antibiotic resistance is a global problem. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that for tuberculosis alone multi-drug resistance accounts for more than 150,000 deaths each year. WHO warns of "a doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics," in which antibiotic resistance will turn common infections into incurable killers and make routine surgeries a high-risk gamble.
Certain types of bacteria are a scourge of the hospital environment because they are extremely resistant to antibiotics and consequently difficult, if not impossible, to treat. This group of bacteria is classified as 'gram-negative' because their cells have a double membrane or outer layer, compared with gram-positive bacteria, which just have one outer layer.
Not only are these cells difficult to penetrate in the first instance, due to their double membrane, but they have effective 'pumps' which quickly reject anything that interferes with the activity of protein-building within the cell and the development of the protective cell wall.
This research, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, gives for the first time a clear insight into how these protein components of the pump work together to transport an antibiotic from the cell.
Examples of gram-negative bacteria include those which cause food poisoning, meningitis, gonorrhoea and respiratory problems. Since the antibiotic is an interfering agent, many of these pathogenic bacteria use the membrane pumps to transport the medication out of the cell.
The pumps are made up of three different proteins within the cell that work together to bring about the movement. Research lead, Professor Adrian Walmsley from Durham University's School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences explained:
"Patients with bacterial infections are often treated with antibiotics, but since many strains are resistant to one or more of these drugs, clinicians often try to bring such infections under control by prescribing a combination of different types of antibiotics in the hope that they will override the resistance mechanisms. This sometimes works, but other times it does not. Pumps exacerbate this situation by reducing the effective concentration of the drug inside the cell. "
"By investigating how these pumps function, we have been able to identify the molecular events that are involved in binding and transporting an antibiotic from the cell. This advance in our understanding will ultimately aid the development of 'pump blockers'. This is important because these pumps often confer resistance to multiple, structurally unrelated, drugs; which means that they could also be resistant to new drugs which have never been used before."
Dr Vassiliy Bavro from the the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham said: "This study greatly expands our understanding of the mechanistic aspects of the pump function, and in particular challenges our previous concepts of energy requirements for pump assembly and cycling. By elucidating the intricate details of how these essential nanomachines come together, it also provides a new working model of their functional cycle in general, paving the way to development of novel approaches to disrupting their function."
Dr Ted Bianco, Acting Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "A world without antibiotics is a world where simple surgery becomes a life-threatening procedure, where a scratch from a rose might prove fatal, and where diseases like tuberculosis return with a ferocity not seen in Britain since the Victorian era. This is why fundamental research to understand the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance is so important. Only when we know what we're up against can researchers begin to design new antibacterial agents to help us win the war against bacterial infections."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Durham University.
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Journal Reference:
Thamarai K. Janganan, Vassiliy N. Bavro, Li Zhang, Maria In?s Borges-Walmsley, Adrian R. Walmsley. Tripartite efflux pumps: energy is required for dissociation, but not assembly or opening of the outer membrane channel of the pump. Molecular Microbiology, 2013; 88 (3): 590 DOI: 10.1111/mmi.12211
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
The chief executives of embattled electric car manufacturer Fisker Automotive and an official from the Department of Energy loan program will face questions from Congress Wednesday on the failure of the government-backed company.
Fisker Automotive?s Karma, a long-range luxury car, had a sticker cost of more than $100,000. The car earned a failing grade from Consumer Reports, faced multiple technical problems, and was temporarily halted after Fisker?s battery manufacturer, A123 Systems, went bankrupt.
Fisker was one of several companies to receive millions in direct loans from the Department of Energy under the Alternative Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program.
The department approved a $529 million dollar loan to Fisker to support the development of two different electric cars, the Karma and Nina. Only a portion of the loan was delivered after the company failed to meet development milestones.
Fisker?s bankruptcy announcement has been expected for weeks. The company recovered only 10 percent of its claim against A123 for contractual failures and in April?laid off 75 percent of its workforce.
It is now facing a lawsuit from workers who contend they did not receive the legally mandated forewarning of their firing.
The company missed its first loan payment, totaling $10 million, to the federal government on Monday. The Department of Energy disclosed this week it seized more than $20 million from the company?s assets on April 11 and will apply that money to the loan.
It is unclear if the federal government will face losses from its loan to Fisker.
Fisker?s founder Henrik Fisker and current chief operating officer Bernhard Koehler will testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee alongside Nicholas Whitcombe, a senior investment officer for the Department of Energy?s Loan Program Office.
The hearing is titled ?Examining the Department of Energy?s Bad Bet on Fisker Automotive.?
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) has criticized the Department of Energy?s efforts to support the green energy sector.
?Attempts to create an artificial green economy have instead created a ?house of cards? economy,? Issa said in December when A123?s bankruptcy was announced.
A123 itself received a grant from the Department of Energy. A Chinese firm now owns the battery manufacturer and renamed it B456 Systems.
Fisker and A123 are the latest in a string of failures of companies the Department of Energy supported financially.
?It?s certainly not an outlier for the loan or loan guarantee programs,? said Nicolas Loris, an economist at the Heritage Foundation.
Fisker is the twentieth business that has gone bankrupt after participating in the loan or loan guarantee program, Loris said.
The bankruptcy of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra was the highest-profile failure of a government-supported green energy company. Solyndra was the first loan guarantee recipient under the 2009 stimulus, with the federal government guaranteeing more than $500 million in loans.
The government was projected to recover less than 20 percent of the portion of the loan that had been disbursed, according to a settlement plan in October. The government could still recover the entire loan in a lawsuit against Chinese solar panel manufacturers.
Mirror manufacturer Flabeg Solar went bankrupt after receiving tax credits from the federal government. The bankruptcy potentially delayed some government-backed solar power projects that were planning on using Flabeg?s mirrors.
President Barack Obama, who targeted much of the 2009 economic stimulus package at the green energy sector, reiterated his support in his most recent State of the Union address.
?Last year, wind energy added nearly half of all new power capacity in America,? he said. ?So let?s generate even more. Solar energy gets cheaper by the year?so let?s drive costs down even further. As long as countries like China keep going all-in on clean energy, so must we.?
The failure of Fisker is indicative of the government?s inability to prop up whole sectors of the economy, said William Yeatman, an energy policy expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
?Industrial policy doesn?t work,? he said. ?It never has and it never will.?
Yeatman said the government subsidized both the battery manufacturer and the car manufacturer in Fisker?s case, beyond subsidizing the car?s purchase with tax credits.
A business? success after receiving help from the federal government does not justify the tax dollars invested in the company,?Loris said.
The federal subsidies crowd out private investment in successful companies, he said, while the failing companies should not have received taxpayer support in the first place.
?It?s just kind of depressing that this much money was wasted,? Yeatman said.
All Critics (88) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (81) | Rotten (7)
The film and its talking head participants paint the picture in both broad strokes and fine detail.
Whatever one's political stripe regarding Israel, it's hard to dispute the impressions and perspective of the film's six eyewitnesses.
The level of candor here may not satisfy hard-liners of either stripe, but it can help viewers begin to formulate new questions about the philosophical, strategic and moral challenges of conflict, in particular "wars on terror."
Ultimately the movie feels evasive, and its flashy, digitally animated re-creations of military surveillance footage unpleasantly evoke the Call of Duty video games.
It offers startlingly honest insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from some of those who called the shots.
As a political testament, the result is revealing and important.
[Moreh] asks just the right questions, never prodding these understandably private men too far but getting what he needs.
A riveting but depressing history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It's a depressing movie, yet there is encouragement to be found in the manifest decency and reasonableness of these six honest, articulate men ...
The former heads of Israel's military anti-terrorism agency Shin Bet break their silence in this unnerving, eye-opening documentary.
The film, though based on the exploits of Shin Bet, gives us reason to think about the drones that take out more than just terrorists.
Makes for truly bracing viewing.
A fascinating film offering a startling look inside one of the most tightlipped intelligence agencies on the planet, and providing powerful resonances with the US and UK's "war on terror".
A compelling overview of a modern security agency - bred in a moral grey area, organising state-sanctioned violence, but uncertain of the strength of its political safety net.
While memorable in sometimes unexpected ways (1980 head Avraham Shalom's long unwashed nails), there is always the nagging feeling that any revelations are being pushed or sold a little too hard.
Dror Moreh's Oscar-nominated documentary is riveting, haunting and depressing in equal measure, offering a sobering assessment of the Israel-Palestine conflict from a unique perspective.
[T]he Oscar-nominated documentary in which the six living former heads of Shin Bet, the ultrasecretive Israeli domestic security agency, talk about their antiterrorism work...
Although The Gatekeepers may not be quite theatrical nor dramatic enough for it to be highly recommended as a cinematic experience, this does feel like a film that really should be seen.
Many secrets are revealed and examined in director Dror Moreh's mind-blowingly fine film. If I have a quibble, it's that he never reveals the most tantalizing secret of all: how the hell he pulled it off.
[An] absorbing documentary, which charts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Six Day War to the presentday.
Insightful, revelatory and profound, Moreh's Oscar-nominated documentary combines riveting interviews, archive footage and - yes - state-of-the-art photographic effects to offer a unique perspective on the Israel-Palestine issue.
Both journalistic coup and unsettling confirmation of the idea that 'you can't make peace using military means.'
Much like Errol Morris' "The Fog of War," Dror Moreh's film is a sobering inside look inside history, at mistakes made and opportunities missed.
Moreh employs a direct interviewing style, reminiscent of Errol Morris' work, to get the men to talk about their days leading Shin Bet.
Moreh gets some startling confessions and insights from each man but also misses the opportunity to truly challenge his subjects on their regard for democracy, basic human rights and their own accountability.
(Reuters) - Diversified U.S. manufacturer 3M Co cut its 2013 profit forecast on Thursday, citing weakening demand for flat-panel televisions as well as the stronger U.S. dollar.
The lowered outlook came after first-quarter profit and revenue both missed Wall Street expectations.
3M, which makes a range of products from Post-It notes to Scotch tape, blamed falling sales in its consumer electronics segment, which makes films used to make flat-panel TV displays.
Prices for those TVs, as well as the amount of televisions sold, have fallen recently as consumers move toward touch-screen devices. Global demand for TVs is expected to plateau this year as many consumers in developed countries already own a flat-screen TV.
TV manufacturers Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd are among 3M's largest customers. Both are paring their TV units.
3M executives had expected weak demand for TV parts and other electronic materials, including insulation and fluids used to make computer chips, but they said actual sales were worse than feared.
"We expected a challenging start to the year, but in fact market conditions were tougher than we had expected," Chief Executive Inge Thulin said on a conference call with investors.
The machines 3M uses to make the TV films are complex and expensive, and the trick for the company will be to find even more ways to use the machines for touchscreen products, William Blair & Co analyst Nick Heymann said.
Already, Apple Inc is a key 3M customer.
"You just have too much capacity" in the TV market, Heymann said. "3M is working through it. Now, they've got to move to the next market."
While a 56 percent drop in pension payments boosted first-quarter margins, analysts were wary because higher sales failed to contribute more to the margin strength.
3M now expects to earn $6.60 to $6.85 per share this year, a range mostly below the $6.82 average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
3M previously had expected to earn $6.70 to $6.95 per share this year.
Also, the rising value of the U.S. dollar compared with other global currencies harmed results, executives said. Previously, the company had not expected foreign currency changes to harm 2013 results, but now it was seen cutting revenue by 1.5 percent.
3M shares were down 2.4 percent at $105.33 late on Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has gained about 16 percent this year, outpacing the Dow Jones industrial average's rise of roughly 12 percent.
REVENUE RISES
St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M posted first-quarter profit of $1.13 billion, or $1.61 per share, compared with $1.13 billion, or $1.59 per share, in the year-earlier period.
Profit per share missed analysts' estimates of $1.65. The number of outstanding shares fell, boosting the most recent earnings per share.
Revenue rose 2 percent to $7.63 billion, missing the $7.81 billion estimate from analysts.
Thulin, who took the top job last year, began a restructuring in January. He merged 3M's security and traffic-safety units, eliminating about 300 jobs, and identified other units that 3M would need to fix, sell or close.
Thulin has said 3M needs to prune its broad portfolio of products, and is likely to focus on fewer but larger takeovers.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder in New York; editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Maureen Bavdek, Jeffrey Benkoe and Matthew Lewis)
ROSWELL, New Mexico (AP) ? The attorney for a proposed horse slaughterhouse in southeastern New Mexico says a federal inspection Tuesday went well and the plant hopes to be in business soon.
Attorney Blair Dunn says agriculture officials found no issues at Valley Meat Co. and told the owners Tuesday they are recommending a grant of inspection be issued immediately. Dunn says he expects final approval for the plant to come in a matter of days.
Valley Meat Co. has become ground zero for an emotional, national debate in America over a return to domestic horse slaughter that has divided horse rescue and animal humane groups, ranchers, politicians and Indian tribes.
Fueling opposition is a recent uproar in Europe over horse meat being found in products labeled as beef. The company hopes the inspection ends a yearlong political drama that has left it idle and made owner Rick De Los Santos and his wife, Sarah, targets of vandalism and death threats.
Valley Meat Co. is a former cattle slaughterhouse whose kill floor has been redesigned for horses to be led in one at a time, secured in a huge metal chute, shot in the head, then processed into meat for shipment overseas.
At issue was whether horses are livestock or pets, and whether it is more humane to slaughter them domestically than to ship tens of thousands of neglected, unwanted and wild horses thousands of miles (kilometers) to be slaughtered in Mexico or Canada.
Front and center of the debate is De Los Santos, who along with his wife, has for more than two decades worked this small slaughterhouse, taking in mostly cows that were too old or sick to travel with larger herds to the bigger slaughterhouses for production.
Now, with cattle herds shrinking amid an ongoing drought, De Los Santos says he and his wife are just trying to transform their business and make enough money to retire by slaughtering domestically some of the thousands of horses that he says travel through the state every month on their way to what are oftentimes less humane and less regulated plants south of the border.
"They are being slaughtered anyway. We thought, well, we will slaughter them here and provide jobs for the economy," De Los Santos said. Instead, Valley Meat has been ensnarled in a yearlong political drama that has left the plant idle and its owners the target of vandalism and death threats ? warnings that increased after humane groups found a video a now-former plant worker posted of himself cursing at animal activists, then shooting one of his own horses to eat.
"People are saying, 'We will slit your throat in your sleep. We hope you die. We hope your kids die,'" De Los Santos said. "Sometimes it's scary. ... And it's all for a horse." Indeed, voice mails left on the company's answering machine spew hate and wishes for violence upon the family.
"I hope you burn in hell," said one irate woman who called repeatedly, saying, "You better pack your (expletive) bags (expletive) and get out of there because that place is finished." The couple have hired security and turned over phone records to federal authorities.
"It's complicated, this industry of feeding the world," Sarah De Los Santos says matter-of-factly. The meat would be processed for human consumption and exported to countries in eastern Europe and Asia.
The Obama administration wants to prohibit horse slaughter. The administration's 2014 budget request excludes money for inspectors for horse slaughter plants, which would effectively keep them from operating.
Humane groups and politicians including Gov. Susana Martinez and New Mexico Attorney General Gary King strongly oppose the plant. They argue that horses are iconic animals in the West, and that other solutions and more funding for horse rescue and birth control programs should be explored over slaughter.
Still others are pushing for a return to domestic slaughter. Proponents include several Native American tribes, the American Quarter Horse Association, some livestock associations and even a few horse rescue groups that believe domestic slaughter would be more humane than shipping the animals elsewhere.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Manufacturing grew in April at its most sluggish pace in six months as demand from domestic customers fell, suggesting the American economy was losing momentum in the second quarter, a survey showed on Tuesday.
Financial data firm Markit said its "flash," or preliminary, Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell to 52.0 this month from 54.6 in March. That was the slowest reading since October 2012.
Output slipped to 53.6 from 56.6, its weakest rate of growth since last November. While new export orders rose, demand at home increased at its slowest pace in six months, with the new orders component coming in at 51.8 after hitting 55.4 last month.
The data "raises concerns that the manufacturing expansion is losing momentum rapidly as business and households worry about the impact of tax hikes and government spending cuts," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.
The results suggest output growth slowed from an annual pace of nearly 8.0 percent earlier this year to 2.0 percent at the start of the second quarter, Williamson said.
Gross domestic product due on Friday is likely to show the economy expanded at 3.0 percent annualized rate in the first quarter, rebounding from a weak performance in the final three months of 2012.
But the slowdown in manufacturing suggests "the picture looks to have already began to darken again, with growth set to weaken in the second quarter," Williamson said.
The "flash" reading is based on replies from about 85 percent of the manufacturers surveyed. Markit's final reading will be released on the first business day of the following month.
(Reporting by Steven C. Johnson, editing by Clive McKeef)
MANCHESTER, Ill. (AP) ? The bodies of five people who had been shot to death were found early Wednesday in a house in a tiny southwestern Illinois town, and authorities said a suspect was injured and taken into custody a short time later.
Illinois State Police spokeswoman Monique Bond would only say that the five were homicide victims, but could not confirm how they died. But two area school superintendents said they received calls from county sheriffs before 6 a.m. informing them that victims had been shot to death at a house in Manchester and that a suspect was at large.
Superintendent David Roberts of the Winchester School District and Les Stevens of the North Greene Unit District No. 3 said they both immediately canceled classes when they were told of the shootings, and that other school districts had done the same. They said the sheriff's offices later informed them that the suspect had been captured near Manchester, a Scotts County community of 300 people about 50 miles west of Springfield.
The Scott County Sheriff's Office declined to comment to The Associated Press early Wednesday.
Stevens said that he was told by the sheriff's office in nearby Green County that the suspect was captured after a brief car chase that included gunfire.
Manchester Mayor Ronald Drake said the suspect was injured in the chase and taken to a hospital.
Drake, who lives a block from the house where the shooting occurred, said the shootings happened at about 4:30 a.m.
Roberts and Stevens said they were waiting to hear if any of the victims were children who attended schools in their districts.
More developments on the unsolicited Dish offer to buy Sprint for $25.5 billion, first announced one week ago. Sprint announced that it has formed a Special Committee, from independent directors, to review and evaluate the deal, and weigh up whether it is "reasonably likely" that Softbank will increase its original offer of $20.5 billion, first made last year with the support of Sprint.
THE VILLAGES, Fla. (AP) ? A North Carolina man has rolled the first 900 series in Professional Bowlers Association history ? three straight perfect games.
Joe Scarborough, a 50-year-old self-employed electrical contractor from Charlotte, opened the first round of qualifying in the PBA50 Sun Bowl on Sunday with three games of 300, throwing 36 consecutive strikes.
Scarborough was competing in his second event in the renamed PBA Senior Tour. He said his previous high three-game series was an 838 and he had bowled 14 prior 300 games.
Scarborough was a PBA member from 1991-2001 and twice bowled in standard PBA Tour events. He rejoined when he turned 50 in October.
"I'm pretty surprised," Scarborough said. "I had the shot, I took my time and it worked out. To be honest, no, I wasn't nervous. I was pretending I was at home practicing, and I blocked out the crowd and focused on executing every shot."
Norm Duke had three consecutive 300s in a standard PBA Tour event in 1996, the PBA said Monday, but the performance didn't count as a 900 series because he ended one round with two perfect games and started the next round with the third.
Scarborough threw another strike to start his fourth game, but his streak ended at 37 when he left a split on his next shot. Three straight sub-200 games then knocked him out of the lead and into a tie for 12th place with 1,921 pins, 77 behind the leader, PBA Hall of Famer Mark Williams.
Apr. 21, 2013 ? Intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) gives better results than standard radiotherapy in patients with early breast cancer, according to results from a randomised trial presented today (Sunday) to the 2nd Forum of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO). IMRT is an advanced, high-precision form of radiotherapy that can deliver an even dose of radiation, thus reducing the cosmetic problems that can often occur after breast radiotherapy.
"We believe that this study, the largest prospective trial in the world to test breast IMRT against standard two-dimensional radiotherapy, will be practice-changing at an international level," said Dr Charlottes Coles, from Addenbrooke's Hospital Oncology Centre, Cambridge, UK. "Analysing the results five years after treatment, we saw significant benefits in patients who had received IMRT."
The researchers analysed the radiotherapy treatment plans of 1145 patients with early breast cancer who had previously had breast-conserving surgery. The plans were screened to see if they would produce an uneven radiation dose with standard two-dimensional radiotherapy (2DRT). A total of 71% of the plans fell into this category, and those patients were randomised between standard 2DRT and IMRT. The 29% of patients whose plans would not produce an uneven dose were treated with standard 2D RT, but still followed up within the trial.
One of the aims of external radiotherapy is to treat the target -- in this case the whole breast -- with an even dose distribution, i.e. within a range of 95% to 107% of the prescribed dose. Too low a dose can risk tumour recurrence, and too high a dose can cause undesirable side-effects such as skin changes.
"The problem with 2D breast radiotherapy is that the dose distribution is only recorded across the central part of the breast. Usually it meets the 95-107% constraints, but the shape of the breast changes, so if the same plan is looked at in 3D, then there may well be areas with overly high doses. By modulating the intensity of the radiation beam, IMRT can be used to correct for this and smooth out the dose," said Dr Coles.
The researchers set out to see whether the effect of using IMRT in those patients who would have received a dose greater than 107% to parts of their breast with 2DRT would translate into clinical benefit. IMRT planning uses results from scans to determine the dose intensity that will best treat the tumour, and therefore is more complex and time-consuming than 2DRT planning, so there was an important need to see a clear advantage to patients from the use of the procedure.
The only previous study looking at this was much smaller, and rather than picking out all patients with doses greater than 107% and randomising them, it only included women with larger breasts who are already known to be more likely to have regions of dose above the upper limit. "Our trial was more inclusive as all women were able to take part and we could quantify those who would receive an uneven dose," said Dr Coles.
"We saw that fewer patients in the IMRT group developed skin telangiectasia (dilated blood vessels near the surface of the skin), and the overall cosmetic effect in the breast was better," she said. Although there was no significant difference between the two groups in breast shrinkage, breast oedema, breast induration (hardening), and pigmentation changes, the benefits of using IMRT in these patients were clear.
The researchers intend to follow up their work by analysing the patients' questionnaires to see whether IMRT has an influence on quality of life. The trial has also contributed 1000 blood samples to the UK translational research study RAPPER (Radiogenomics: Assessment of Polymorphisms for Predicting the Effects of Radiotherapy), which aims to ultimately develop individualised radiotherapy plans based on the analysis of individual patients' genetics.
"Although IMRT is employed increasingly in breast cancer, its use is far from universal throughout the world. We hope that the evidence of benefit shown in our trial will encourage its greater use, resulting in improved patient access and, ultimately, improved outcomes for breast cancer patients," said Dr Coles.
President of ESTRO, Professor Vincenzo Valentini, a radiation oncologist at the Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli, Rome, Italy, said: "This study not only shows a better outcome for the women treated with IMRT, but has an additional value in defining the selection criteria for providing treatment to those patients who will benefit from new frontline technologies. In the study design, the patients who could be treated satisfactorily by standard technology were not referred for IMRT, avoiding the use of a complex technique where it was not necessary. At a time when resources are limited, individualised medicine can help us offer new technology only to those patients who will have a tangible benefit from it."
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Following a severe rainstorm, a sinkhole opened up in Chicago's South Side, devouring three cars and sending one driver to the hospital. ?
By Eoin O'Carroll,?Staff / April 18, 2013
Officials survey a gaping sinkhole that opened up a residential street on Chicago's South Side after a cast iron water main dating back to 1915 broke during a massive rainstorm, Thursday in Chicago.
M. Spencer Green/AP
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A sinkhole opened up on a residential street on Chicago's South Side on Thursday morning, swallowing three cars and sending one person to the hospital.
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According to the Chicago Tribune, the sinkhole opened up at about 5 a.m. on Houston St. in?Chicago's South Deering neighborhood, where it quickly expanded from about 20 feet in diameter to about 40 feet. Two parked cars initially fell into the hole, and a third fell in as its driver was attempting to navigate around the hole and the ground below gave way. He?was taken to?Northwestern Memorial Hospital and is in "serious-to-critical" condition
According to the Associated Press, the sinkhole was preceded by a severe rainstorm that ruptured a water main in the neighborhood.?The AP quotes a spokesman from the city's water department, who speculated that the weight of the rain-soaked ground could have cracked the cast-iron pipe, which was laid in 1915. Water from the pipe would have then quickly eroded the soluble rock.
"The water will come out any way it can," the spokesman told the AP.?
Sinkholes are often caused by the underground erosion of salt beds or soluble sedimentary rocks, such as limestone or dolomite. Groundwater flows through these rocks, creating subterranean caverns that can suddenly collapse.
In recent years, sinkholes have appeared in Florida; California; Illinois; Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania; Guangzhou, China;?Guatemala City;?Quebec;?Milwaukee; and Germany.
EDITOR'S NOTE:Oblivion is rated PG-13 and runs 126 minutes. It is now playing at North Point Market on North Point Parkway. For more theater information, show times and pricing, click the link above.
Tom Cruise leads a cast of well known actors in his latest thriller, out this weekend.
Here's what the critics are saying:
"The good news: Here's a lavish, serious science-fiction picture, one that on occasion transcends big-budget hit-making convention to glance against grandeur...Which brings us to Tom Cruise, the not-necessarily-good news. However engaging its end-times mysteries, Oblivion is still a Tom Cruise movie." Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice. Full Review
"A moderately clever dystopian mindbender with a gratifying human pulse, despite some questionable narrative developments along the way." Justin Chang, Variety. Full Review
Movie information aggregated from?MovieFone.com
Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review of the film with a comment below after you do.
If you have smaller-than-average hands, or you have kids who can't comfortably use a full-sized game controller, it's easy to modify the gamepad to better accommodate small thumbs.
This isn't a complete transformation, but it will at least make the control sticks easier to reach and manipulate. You can see the full process in the video above, but basically you'll use a Dremel to cut the "stalk" of the stick at an angle, rotate the top 180 degrees, then reattach it. You'll want the left stick facing out towards the left side of the controller, and vice versa for the right. The finished product probably won't be very comfortable if you can easily use an unmodified controller, but this would be great if you have an extra gamepad lying around for your kids.
How to Modify Your Xbox 360 Controller To Fit Your Really Tiny Hands | YouTube via WonderHowTo
More developments on the unsolicited