Mexico's America Movil completes share bid for Dutch KPN

Mexican telecoms giant America Movil announced Thursday it had completed an unsolicited bid for a 27.7 percent share in Dutch operator KPN.

America Movil will now "hold 393,283,000 shares, representing approximately 27.7 percent of all issued and outstanding shares," it said in a statement.

Controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim, America Movil launched its bid on May 30 for just over a quarter of the Dutch group, offering eight euros ($10.07) a share or 2.6 billion euros ($3.2 billion) for the stake.

They gradually edged closer to the 27.7 percent goal, which was opposed by KPN who said it substantially undervalued the company.

"With this investment America Movil has achieved its objective of securing a meaningful minority stake in KPN, a company with an attractive position in important European markets," the statement said.

America Movil added: "Pursuant to this announcement... payment of the offer price for each tendered share accepted under the offer is made against delivery of such shares... which shall be July 3, 2012."

America Movil controls the mobile telephone market in Latin America with some 225 million clients in 18 countries at the end of 2010. In 2011, it posted the equivalent of 39 billion euros in revenues.

Dutch group KPN employs 31,000 people and recorded sales of 13.16 billion euros last year.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Expatica-DutchHeadlines/~3/3koQew-jIuA/mexico-s-america-movil-completes-share-bid-for-dutch-kpn_236018.html

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Officials slam Iran on anti-Semitic statement

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[ [ [['did not go as far his colleague', 8]], '29438204', '0' ], [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-slam-iran-anti-semitic-statement-195304440.html

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Me @ the Zoo: An Intimate Portrait of Chris Crocker, Viral Video Blogger and Britney Apologist [Video]

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How sweet it is: Tomato researchers discover link between ripening, color and taste

ScienceDaily (June 28, 2012) ? For many grocery shoppers, those perfect, red tomatoes from the store just can't match the flavor from the home garden. Now, researchers at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, USDA and the University of California at Davis have decoded a gene that contributes to the level of sugar, carbohydrates and carotenoids in tomatoes.

Cuong Nguyen, a Cornell graduate student in plant breeding working at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI), along with colleagues at BTI, USDA, UC Davis, Universidad Politec?nica de Valencia (Spain), Universidad de M?laga (Spain) and University of Suleyman Demiral (Turkey) revealed the gene that underlies the uniform ripening mutation.

This gene also influences how tomato fruits ripen and is used by commercial breeders to create tomatoes that develop into perfectly red, store-ready fruit. "Practically, it is a very important trait," says James Giovannoni, a plant molecular biologist with BTI and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, who is a senior author on the paper. "It's a gene that whether you realize it or not, most of your tomatoes have." However, this same trait reduces sugars and nutrients in the fruit.

Naturally, tomatoes have uneven ripening, showing darker green patches when unripe and variable redness when ripe -- traits that still show up in garden-variety and heirloom breeds. However, in the late 1920s, commercial breeders stumbled across a natural mutation that caused tomatoes to ripen uniformly -- from an even shade of light green to an even shade of red. This mutation, known by plant biologists as 'uniform ripening', has become indispensable to the $2 billion a year US commercial tomato market, showing up in almost all tomatoes produced for grocery stores. The uniform redness makes it ideal for the grocery sector, which has to appeal to customer expectations of evenly colored, red fruit.

Nguyen conducted positional cloning and, with access to solgenomics.net, an online, public database hosted at BTI, he determined that the uniform ripening gene was located at a specific location on chromosome 10. With this location now known, the team could decipher the gene coding for the protein that controls photosynthesis levels in tomato fruit. While leaves are the primary photosynthesis factories in a plant, developing tomato fruit can contribute up to 20 percent of their own photosynthesis, yielding high sugar and nutrient levels in fully ripe fruit. The uniform ripening mutation, which commercial breeders select for, eliminates this protein in the fruit, therefore reducing sugar levels. "This is an unintended consequence," says Giovannoni, explaining why commercial growers continued to select for the trait. "Producers currently don't get a penny more for [flavor] quality."

This discovery has practical applications. Commercial producers -- who wish to produce uniform red fruit over multi-colored, flavorful ones -- can now do an early test on seedling DNA for the uniform ripening mutation, rather than waiting to observe the mature fruit. Conversely, those who don't care about appearances can make sure of the opposite -- that their plants are mutation free and thus may have better-tasting fruit.

Ann Powell, a research biochemist who led the UC Davis team's efforts on the research, says that the study "is a rare chance to translate scientific findings to the real world?it provides a strategy to re-capture quality characteristics that had been unknowingly bred out of modern cultivated tomatoes."

Funding for the Giovannoni lab at BTI is supported by the USDA and the National Science Foundation.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cornell University, via Newswise.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. A. L. T. Powell, C. V. Nguyen, T. Hill, K. L. Cheng, R. Figueroa-Balderas, H. Aktas, H. Ashrafi, C. Pons, R. Fernandez-Munoz, A. Vicente, J. Lopez-Baltazar, C. S. Barry, Y. Liu, R. Chetelat, A. Granell, A. Van Deynze, J. J. Giovannoni, A. B. Bennett. Uniform ripening Encodes a Golden 2-like Transcription Factor Regulating Tomato Fruit Chloroplast Development. Science, 2012; 336 (6089): 1711 DOI: 10.1126/science.1222218

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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

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Growth Shares Outperform Value Stocks as Europe's Problems Grow

Growth stocks include firms whose earnings are likely to rise, and?are chosen by investors based on the assumption that a firm that can grow its earnings rapidly should see its stock price rise faster than average. Value stocks are generally seen as those that have fallen out of favor in the marketplace, and are bargain priced compared to book value.

Value and growth are two fundamental approaches to stock investing. While some money managers combine both approaches, growth and value investment styles fall in and out of favor. Standard & Poor?s 500 Growth and Value Indices for the 30-year period ended in 2010 show that growth and value stocks have taken turns leading and lagging.

?European growth stocks as defined by MSCI have outperformed European value stocks by 8% [in about six months], which brings the three-year outperformance to 28%,? Fitch said in a statement on June 8. ?Interestingly, while most investors do not expect positive returns from equity investments, European growth stocks have managed to deliver positive returns (+3%) over the past two years, unlike the broad MSCI Europe index and the value index (down 12%).?

Aymeric Poizot, managing director at Fitch?s Fund and Asset Manager Rating Group, said the performance difference is explained by ?structural trends at play. Fitch previously identified four critical factors that have a direct implication for stock-picking: low growth prospects, the sovereign crisis, globalisation and disruptive innovation. In this context, quality growth remains a scarce asset, while value managers are threatened by ?value traps?, i.e., stocks stuck at a discounted price.?

Montreal-based Wutherich & Co., a fund management company, believes growth stocks pay off in the long term. Wil Wutherich, president of the company, said he looks for stocks with the ?right growth at the right price.? His portfolio, which has grown 15 percent a year since it started in 2001, is focused on Canadian stocks, most of them in the industrial sector, followed by energy, drilling services, suppliers to resource markets, and consumer and healthcare services.

In May for example, while the S&P 500 fell 6 percent, the Dow Jones fell 5.8 percent, and the Nasdaq declined 7.2 percent, Wutherich & Co.?s composite was down only 1.3 percent.

?When the headlines seem all bad, as they do now about Europe and the global economy, we go back and look at the fundamentals of the companies that we invest in,? Wutherich said. ?Free cash flow growth is the most important. It?s all about going back to the fundamentals and looking at balance sheets.?

John Waggoner recently reported for USA Today?that?when it comes to value or growth investing, the strategies are not always so cut and dried. Some growth managers do not believe in paying too high a price for a stock, and most value managers do not just buy cheap stocks with no growth prospects.

Waggoner wrote that one ?could argue that growth and value managers simply swap stocks. Growth managers buy the stocks on the way up; value managers buy on the way down. It?s the financial Great Circle of Life.?

Microsoft?(NASDAQ:MSFT), for example, one of the great stocks of the late 1990s boom in growth stocks, now resides in the portfolios of many great value funds. Since the bull market started in March 2009, growth funds are on top.

?Is it time to jump on the growth train?? Waggoner asked. His answer: ?It really depends on which style is in favor on Wall Street. Had you invested in one of the biggest large-company growth funds in 1979 and sold 20 years later ? a long-term investment by any definition ? you would have earned 3,072%, versus 1,944% for a similar large-company value fund. Ten years later, the results are different, to say the least. An investment in a value fund 20 years ago would have gained 303% ? and a growth fund would have returned 216%.?

?

Securities Disclosure: I, Karan Kumar, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

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Get Moving to Manage Osteoarthritis | Freedom Home Health Care

Regular, moderate exercise offers numerous benefits to people with arthritis.

Exercise reduces joint pain and stiffness, builds strong muscle around the joints, and increases flexibility and endurance. It reduces inflammation from arthritis and related conditions and lowers the risk of other chronic conditions. It also helps promote overall health and fitness by giving one more energy, helping one sleep better, controlling one?s weight, decreasing depression, and giving one more self?esteem. Furthermore, exercise can help stave off other health problems such as osteoporosis and heart disease.

Check out some of these arthritis-specific exercise classes and get moving to manage osteoarthritis:

• Arthritis Foundation Exercise Program (AFEP): AFEP (formerly People with Arthritis Can Exercise, or PACE) is a community-based recreational exercise program developed by the Arthritis Foundation. Trained AFEP instructors cover a variety of range-of-motion and endurance-building activities, relaxation techniques, and health education topics. All of the exercises can be modified to meet participant needs. The program?s demonstrated benefits include improved functional ability, decreased depression, and increased confidence in one?s ability to exercise. Classes typically meet two or three times per week. To find out about availability, check with the Arthritis Foundation (Arthritis.org).?
  
• Active Living Everyday (ALED): ALED is a group-based program developed at the Cooper Institute focused on helping sedentary people become and stay physically active. Participants learn behavioral skills (identifying and overcoming barriers, setting goals, creating an action plan) needed to become more physically active. Visit ActiveLiving.info to find where the classroom courses are held or to sign up for an online course.??
  
• Arthritis Foundation Aquatic Program (AFAP): AFAP is a water exercise program created by the Arthritis Foundation for people with arthritis and related conditions. The classes are conducted by a trained instructor and are designed to improve flexibility, joint range of motion, endurance, strength, and daily function and to decrease pain. The aquatics classes include joint range of motion, stretching, breathing, and light aerobic activities. The classes typically meet two or three times per week for one hour. To find out about availability, check with the Arthritis Foundation (Arthritis.org).
• EnhanceFitness (EF): EnhanceFitness (formerly Lifetime Fitness) is an evidence-based, community-delivered exercise program proven to increase strength, boost activity levels, and elevate mood. Certified EF instructors offer a program that focuses on stretching, flexibility, balance, low impact aerobics, and strength training exercises. Typically, classes meet three times a week for one hour. To find out about locations and availability, visit ProjectEnhance.org/locations.html.?
  ??
• Exercise online: Visit Arthritis Today to view expert-approved step-by-step photo and video demonstrations for exercises that are designed to be safe and effective for people with arthritis. Demonstrated exercises include stretching, tai chi, yoga, sitting exercises and surgery prep exercises. ArthritisToday.org/fitness/exercise-videos-and-photos/index.php????

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Hot Weather, High Energy Costs Put Strain on Air Conditioners ...

The summer of 2012 could easily be remembered for two words: hot and expensive.

With unusually warm spring temperatures leading into the summer season, the heat set in earlier than usual. Take the higher temperatures and add in increasing energy costs, and Columbus residents will likely be paying a pretty penny to stay cool and comfortable.

We?re already starting to hear from our customers who want some relief in their energy bills. With temperatures hitting high 90?s this week, we know that air conditioners are already working overtime, and they?re not going to slow down for months. The extra work puts a strain on older air conditioning systems, so not only are they costing more to run, they?re also more likely to need a poorly timed repair.

There are four areas in particular that homeowners can do to help their air conditioners perform better and use less energy. Changing or cleaning filters regularly ? in most cases monthly ? is a very low-cost maintenance step that improves performance. Setting the temperature a little higher when you?re not in the home is another practical solution ? and one that can be easily managed if you install a programmable thermostat

We also try to educate our customers on the importance of routine maintenance on home comfort systems prior to the busy season ? both to improve energy efficiency and prevent breakdowns.

Even when you?re taking care of your system year after year, at some point, the time will come for a new model. This is a big decision for the homeowner. But the good news is that the energy-efficient systems available today are far superior to those twelve years or older and will provide a big energy savings month after month.

For more information on improving the energy efficiency of your home comfort system, call us today or schedule an appointment online.

This entry was posted in Maintenance, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

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After high court's health ruling, then what for little guy? | Health and ...

New York ?

Small business owners will be watching when the Supreme Court issues its ruling on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The overhaul of the nation?s health care system requires that by 2014, all businesses with more than 50 employees must provide health care benefits that are deemed affordable under the law.

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Opponents of the act have targeted a key provision known as the individual mandate. It requires all people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. The rationale for the mandate is that the more people in the health insurance pool ? in particular, younger and healthier people who need little health care ? the cheaper care will be for everyone. Opponents of the individual mandate contend that it?s unconstitutional to require people to buy health insurance. The court has the power to uphold the law or rule all or part of it unconstitutional.

With a decision expected in the coming days, here are some questions and answers about how this affects small business owners:

Q. What will owners have to do if the law is upheld in its entirety?

A. Employers will be subject to the law if they have 50 or more full-time workers or the equivalent of full-time workers (two people working half-time are the equivalent of one full-timer). Small businesses that don?t comply with the law ? either by not offering insurance or by offering insurance that?s not considered affordable ? will have to pay penalties. To be considered affordable, the insurance must pay for at least 60 percent of covered health care expenses, and employees may not be forced to pay more than 9.5 percent of their family income (before deductions and adjustments) for coverage offered by employers. Penalties are set according to a complicated formula in the law; they start at $2,000 per worker when there is no coverage, with the first 30 workers excluded from the calculation. Companies also face penalties if they provide coverage that isn?t deemed affordable.

Employers get a tax deduction for providing insurance, but some business owners may decide it?s cheaper to skip the insurance and pay the penalty, says Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. Deloitte is a consulting and financial advisory firm.

?You can lose the tax deduction, pay the penalty and be better off,? Keckley says. But he also points out that the penalties are scheduled to rise over time, and so eventually employers are likely to comply with the law.

The law also requires small businesses to provide what?s called an essential health benefits package. The states are permitted to determine what benefits should be contained in policies that are issued in their states. That means that businesses that have employees in more than one state will have to comply with each state?s requirements.

Employers can buy insurance from health insurers. Others may opt to join companies known as professional employer organizations like Insperity or ADP?s TotalSource division that provide health insurance and other human resources services. The law creates what are being call health insurance exchanges ? markets where employers and individuals can search for the best rates. John Arensmeyer, CEO of the Small Business Majority, an organization that lobbies on behalf of small businesses, says the exchanges essentially give small businesses negotiating power on insurance rates that they haven?t had in the past.

Q. How many small business owners does this affect?

A. Relatively few. The Census Bureau doesn?t report the number of businesses with more than 50 employees. But it counted 616,693 companies with 20 to 99 employees in 2008, the most recent figures available. That was about 10 percent of the 5.91 million small businesses (those with fewer than 500 employees) the agency counted. Since those figures include companies too small to be covered by the Affordable Care Act, the number of small businesses subject to the law is likely to be much lower. The National Federation of Independent Business, the largest U.S. small business advocacy group says on its website that its typical member employs five people, but notes that it has ?thousands? of members with more than 100 workers. The NFIB argued against the law before the Supreme Court in March. The group?s membership includes about 350,000 small business owners.

Q. Are there advantages for small businesses to the Affordable Care Act?

A. The act limits how much premiums can go up each year, Keckley says. But it?s widely predicted that if the individual mandate is struck down, premiums will rise because fewer people would be buying insurance than they would if the mandate stands.

Some companies? premiums may drop under the law compared with what they?re paying now. The law eliminates the surcharges that insurers impose on companies who have patients with serious medical conditions. ?It gives small businesses peace of mind. They won?t see their premiums rise significantly if one person gets sick,? says Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care policy.

The exchanges are expected to offer small businesses lower rates than insurance companies charge. Businesses will also get tax credits for six years for providing coverage.

Q. What happens to small businesses? costs if the entire law is thrown out?

A. ?It?s essentially back to the way things used to be,? before the law was passed in 2010, Levitt says.

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Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Article source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/54352412-79/insurance-law-businesses-health.html.csp

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'Paddington' Poster Holds Adorable Potential

It's a little bit "Harry Potter" (especially with producer David Heyman aboard) with a dash of "Hugo" (train station plus gold lettering), but what really matters in the first poster for "Paddington" (via ComingSoon.net) is the polite little fellow in the middle of the poster. Yes, this is the first one sheet for the upcoming [...]

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Online Gaming Is Lucrative For Organized Gold Farming Rings ...

So-called ?gold farmers? play massive multiplayer online games, not for fun, but to accumulate virtual currency, or ?gold,? which can then be sold to other players, despite the fact that most game operators explicitly ban the exchange of in-game currency for cash. Gold farming is so lucrative, people in China and other developing nations can support themselves by working full-time operating gold farming rings.

During an interview with TechRadar?s Dan Griliopoulous, Will Leverett, Senior Manager of Customer Service at South Korea-based online video game company NCsoft, explains,?We?re convinced that groups on the seedier side of the Internet run in parallel to each other, with many offenders in China and Russia. The simplest thing players could exchange for real-world cash was in-game currency, which would then hugely unbalance the in-game economy and auction systems; essentially, those people buying currency were using their real-world wealth to employ a tribe of servants to do their work for them, as opposed to their compatriots who were attempting the same thing by the sweat of their brow.?

Massively multiplayer games that are free-to-play typically feature in-game currency, which can be converted to real cash. This currency drives organized criminals to set up banks of gamers on various IP addresses, manipulating the game in order to accumulate as much currency as possible.

Many leading gaming publishers and MMOs are finding it increasingly necessary to deploy a layered defense to prevent gold farming, chargebacks, virtual asset theft, and, increasingly, account takeovers within gaming environments.?By leveraging the power of device identification and device reputation technology, which examines the computers, smart phones, and tablets being used to connect to an online game, the publisher can easily detect patterns of players working together and shut down an entire ring of cheaters at once. In one case, a major gaming publisher implemented Oregon-based iovation?s fraud protection service and was able to take action against 1,000 fraudulent accounts almost immediately.

Robert Siciliano, personal security and identity theft expert contributor to iovation, discusses identity theft for the National Speakers Association. (Disclosures.)

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Real-estate Negotiation Tips - Business Negotiation

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Article by George Key

Chios Real Estate can guide you to make the best deal for fields and houses in Chios island of Greece. Visit www.ChiosRealEstate.info and discover the best Chios Property offers.

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U.S. wants "flesh on the bone" from Europe on crisis

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Tropical Storm Debby threatens Gulf Coast

MIAMI (AP) -- Slow-moving Tropical Storm Debby's outer bands lashed Florida with rain and kicked up rough surf off Alabama on Sunday, prompting warnings for those states and causing at least one death.

The death in Florida was blamed on a tornado spawned by the storm, while a man went missing in the Gulf at an Alabama beach.

Underscoring the storm's unpredictable nature, forecasters discontinued a tropical storm warning for Louisiana after forecast models indicated Debby was less likely to make a westward turn than initially predicted. Coastal Alabama and parts of Florida, including the Panhandle, remained under tropical storm warnings.

Debby already has dumped heavy rain on parts of Florida and spawned some isolated tornadoes, causing damage to homes and knocking down power lines. High winds forced the closure of an interstate bridge that spans Tampa Bay and links St. Petersburg with areas to the southeast.

Storm tracks are difficult to predict days in advance. But as of late Sunday the latest forecast map shows the center of the storm 100 miles (165 km) south-southwest of Apalachicola, Fla., and likely to meander northward for several days before making landfall.

Chris Landsea, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, said forecasters rely on computer models which were contradictory until Sunday.

"They came into a bit more of an agreement that the westward turn is less likely," he said.

Landsea said every storm is different and has different characteristics, "and in this case it's a very unpredictable storm." He said Debby could become a hurricane.

A major concern will be flooding from heavy rainfall. The storm is moving slowly, allowing its clouds more time to unload rain. A public advisory said parts of Florida and southeast Georgia could receive 5 to 10 inches of rain, with some areas getting as much as 20.

Debby's top sustained winds were at about 60 mph (95 kph). The storm was moving toward the northeast at 3 mph (6 kph).

The Highlands County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that several tornadoes moved through the area southeast of Tampa, damaging homes.

Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Nell Hays said a woman was found dead in a house in Venus that was destroyed in the storm. A child found in the same house was taken to the hospital. No further information was available on the child's condition or either person's age.

"This is quite common with this type of storm," senior hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart with the National Hurricane Center said of the twisters. "They tend to not be very large or long-lived, which can be difficult to detect on radar. So people need to keep an eye on the sky."

In Orange Beach, Ala., a 32-year-old man went missing Sunday in rough surf kicked up by the storm, said Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Torry James. Further information wasn't immediately available.

Near the mouth of the Mississippi southeast of New Orleans, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said officials were making preparations to protect the main highway from tidal flooding. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal also declared a state of emergency to make it easier to send supplies and workers to areas that may need it.

However, despite warnings in the Panhandle, Debby hadn't totally dampened vacations.

Thousands were on the beach at Pensacola Beach, Fla., on Sunday morning. Many used their phones to take photos of huge waves crashing into the concrete supports of a fishing pier. There wasn't any rain yet; just gusty winds and dark, fast-moving clouds.

Few people were in the water. Red flags warned tourists to stay out of the surf, and lifeguards cruised the sand on all-terrain vehicles, blowing whistles at anyone who got near the waves.

Workers from rental companies used pickup trucks to gather chairs and umbrellas as a precaution against an unusually high tide.

As of Sunday morning, 23 percent of oil and gas production in the region had been suspended, according to a government hurricane response team. Employees have been evacuated from 13 drilling rigs and 61 production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

___

Laboy reported from Miami. AP Auto Writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.

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New York Debuts Pro-Business Pitch With Spike Lee and Robert ...

Some of New York?s most prominent entertainers are associated with new ads aimed at growing business in the state. Governor Andrew Cuomo has just unveiled ?The New New York Works for Business,? campaign, shot by Spike Lee and featuring voiceover work by Robert DeNiro and the song ?Empire State of Mind? by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys.

The six commercials, produced by BBDO for Empire State Development, are part of the state?s ?Open for Business? initiative which has received $50 million in marketing funding. A lead spot serves as introduction to the state?s new attitude toward business. It cites early New York accomplishments before admitting the state lost its competitive edge and is now working to regain it. The commercial uses historical black-and-white footage of railways and skyscrapers which transitions into modern color shots of examples of the state?s commitment to technology and its entrepreneurs. Those latter stories are told in four? 30-second vignettes about New York businesses like Fage Greek yogurt; Smith Electric Vehicles, the Global 450 Consortium and BAE Systems. The ads will run across the state and on national TV networks.

In addition to the ?The New New York Works for Business" TV campaign, the state has also launched a new related website offering access to information about business assistance available from New York.

?

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DirecTV cuts 3-D channel from 24-hour to part-time

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? DirecTV says it has reduced the programming hours of its 24-hour 3-D channel, n3D, due to a shortage of 3-D content.

The satellite TV provider launched the channel to much fanfare in July 2010, boasting the backing of Panasonic Corp. The company said it was the first 3-D channel to operate around the clock.

A dearth of 3-D programs on n3D led to the same shows being run in a constant loop. Now, when there is nothing available, the channel will show the n3D logo. If there's an upcoming special event, details will appear on the program guide two or three weeks in advance.

The reduced hours began June 1.

It's the latest setback for 3-D TV, which has had trouble attracting mainstream audiences.

DirecTV's channel isn't the first 3-D offering to stumble. Last August, AT&T Inc. said its U-verse lineup of video channels would no longer include ESPN 3D. The company said the cost wasn't justified, "especially considering the low demand we've seen from customers."

Meanwhile, sales of 3-D TVs are growing. Tracking firm NPD Group said last month that 3-D TVs accounted for 11 percent of all flat-panel TV sales in the first three months of the year. That's nearly double the rate of a year ago.

DirecTV spokesman Robert Mercer said n3D will continue to air 3-D shows like "Guitar Center Sessions" and plans to air Olympics coverage in 3-D this summer.

To watch the channel, viewers need a 3-D ready TV, an HD receiver, and HD service, which costs $10 a month. The channel is available to all DirecTV subscribers.

Associated Press

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Governing Iraq is nice work _ if you can avoid it

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Paraguay president faces impeachment trial

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) ? Paraguayan lawmakers voted to impeach President Fernando Lugo for his role in a deadly clash involving landless farmers and announced that the former Roman Catholic bishop's impeachment trial would begin on Friday in the Senate.

Lugo, who was elected four years ago on promises that he would help the South American country's poor, went on national television to dismiss rumors that he would resign and vowed to face the trial "with all its consequences."

The lower house voted 76-1 on Thursday to impeach the president. Hours later the Senate announced that it will begin his impeachment trial on Friday.

In Paraguay, a poor, landlocked country with a history of political instability, the vote prompted frightened residents in the capital, Asuncion, to shutter businesses and pull children out of schools. Hospitals were put on alert, freeing up beds in case of possible violence.

Paraguayans were unnerved by the possibility that the looming showdown in the opposition-controlled Senate could spark street protests such as those that followed the March 1999 assassination of Vice President Luis Maria Argana.

"We are not going to escape turbulence, it's coming," said Paraguayan political analyst Horacio Galeano Perrone, who specializes in national defense issues. "If you were to ask me, I'd tell you to go to the supermarket and buy batteries, buy everything."

Lugo's election in 2008 ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party, and he has constantly clashed with Congress, where he has few firm allies. His election was seen as part of South America's leftward swing.

If ousted, Lugo would be replaced by Vice President Federico Franco, who belongs to the president's governing coalition. Franco, of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, "is ready to assume command and pacify the country," said Liberal lawmaker Sallim Buzarquis.

Critics blame Lugo for the violence that erupted last week when police tried to evict about 150 farmers from the 4,900-acre (2,000-hectare) reserve, which is part of a huge estate owned by a Colorado Party politician. Advocates for the farmers say the landowner used political influence to get the land from the state decades ago, and say it should have been put to use for land reform.

Seventeen people died in the clash.

Lugo, 63, has expressed sorrow at the confrontation and accepted the resignations of his interior minister and his chief of police.

On the streets of the Paraguayan capital, opinions about the impeachment effort were mixed.

"Lugo should finish his mandate," said Benito Canete, a 68-year-old concierge in an apartment building. "I think that if they get rid of him now it will be bad for the country."

Ana Campuzano, a 42-year-old odontologist, backed the ouster effort.

"Lugo should resign, it was bad for him to remain" after the deadly clash, she said. "It's his fault because he doesn't know how to manage things."

Socialist Carlos Filizzola, who until Saturday was Lugo's interior minister, called the vote by lawmakers an "institutional coup" and said he thought the president's fate had already been decided.

"The political trial is a formality," he said.

Paraguay is the world's No. 4 supplier of soybeans and land disputes have risen in recent years as farmers seek more land to grow the crop, which is the country's top export earner.

Lugo, who resigned as a bishop to run for the presidency, had promised farmland for 87,000 landless families. But as he nears the end of his term next year, he has failed to deliver, partly because his programs have been blocked in the legislature.

Lugo is still backed by some farmworker groups, including several whose leaders said they wanted to travel to the capital to demonstrate their support.

On Thursday, Lugo urged lawmakers to do all they can to avoid an impeachment trial, warning that it could be resisted by many citizens who back him and would put them on the wrong side of history.

Paraguay's land ownership problems stretch back nearly 140 years to a war Paraguay lost to Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Saddled with crushing war debt, Paraguay began selling off government holdings that amounted to 95 percent of the country, with the most fertile parcels going to political cronies.

Privatizations accelerated under the 1954-1989 dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner and into the early 1990s, when about 17 million acres (7 million hectares) ended up in the hands of just 1,877 people, according to a 2004 government study.

In 1999, the assassination of Vice President Argana deepened a political clash and led to demonstrations calling for President Raul Cubas Grau of the Colorado Party to be tried for Argana's killing. Seven demonstrators died in a confrontation with government forces, leading to Cubas' resignation.

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Sri Lankan radio amateurs offer emergency communications ...

Sri Lanka?s amateur radio operators have renewed their call to be included in communication work during national disasters, after the defence authorities relaxed rules on clearing equipment.

The report in Lanka Business says:

Popularly known as ?ham radio? enthusiasts, amateur radio operators use a designated radio frequency spectrum to communicate non-commercial messages, private recreation, wireless experiments and emergency communication.

?We would like to join-up with the National Disaster Management Centre in some small way, to help them with emergency communication work,?
Radio Society of Sri Lanka official, Victor Goonetilleke 4S7VK said during Tuesday?s public lecture on Disaster Risk Reduction, organised by LIRNEasia, a regional ICT think-tank.

With some 200 members under its umbrella, the Radio Society of Sri Lanka is not new to disaster communications in the island.

The society played a crucial role during the 2004 Asian tsunami that claimed over 30,000 lives when giant tidal waves struck the island?s shores displacing about one million people.

Read the full Lanka Business story at
http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/fullstory.php?nid=1289520459

The Radio Society of Sri Lanka
http://www.rssl.lk/

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Poll: Romney closes in on Obama, economic angst up

In this June 19, 2012, file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks in Holland, Mich. A new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Republican challenger Romney has moved into a virtually even position with the president after three months of declining job creation that have left the public increasingly glum. Fewer Americans believe the economy is getting better and a majority disapproves of how President Barack Obama is handling it. Only 3 out of 10 adults say the country is headed in the right direction. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

In this June 19, 2012, file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks in Holland, Mich. A new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Republican challenger Romney has moved into a virtually even position with the president after three months of declining job creation that have left the public increasingly glum. Fewer Americans believe the economy is getting better and a majority disapproves of how President Barack Obama is handling it. Only 3 out of 10 adults say the country is headed in the right direction. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference at the G20 Summit, Tuesday, June 19, 2012, in Los Cabos, Mexico. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Fighting a swell of economic anxiety, President Barack Obama has lost much of the narrow lead he held just a month ago over Mitt Romney and the two now are locked in a virtually even race for the White House, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. The survey also found a majority of Americans disapproving of how the Democratic president is handling a national economy that fewer people think is improving.

Less than five months before the election, 47 percent say they will vote for the president and 44 percent for Romney, a difference that is not statistically significant. The poll also shows that Romney has recovered from a bruising Republican primary, with more of his supporters saying they are certain to vote for him now.

The economy remains Obama's top liability. Only 3 out of 10 adults say the country is headed in the right direction and 55 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy, the highest level detected in AP-GfK polls this year.

"I'm not going to vote for Obama," said Raymond Back, a 60-year-old manufacturing plant manager from North Olmsted, Ohio, one of the most competitive states in this election. "It's just the wrong thing to do. I don't know what Romney is going to do, but this isn't the right way."

Yet, in a measure of Romney's own vulnerabilities, even some voters who say they support Romney believe the president will still be re-elected. Of all adults polled, 56 percent believe Obama will win a second term. And despite three months of declining job creation that have left the public increasingly glum, Romney has not managed to seize the economic issue from the president, with registered voters split virtually evenly on whether Romney or Obama would do a better job improving it.

The polling numbers come as no surprise to either camp. Both Romney and Obama advisers have anticipated a close contest that will be driven largely by economic conditions. The Obama camp is busy trying to define Romney, hoping it is reaching more independents like Doss Comer, 58, of Jacksonville, N.C., who said he would vote for Obama again, despite the lagging economy.

"I think we are on the wrong track," he said. "We're not getting anywhere. We're not growing. The unemployment rate just spiked up again." But, he added: "I don't trust Romney because of what he's doing. He's telling his business experience, that he was an investor in business. ... I don't think he has the right background any more than Obama."

With his Republican nomination now ensured, Romney has succeeded in unifying the party behind him and in maintaining a singular focus on making the election a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy. Over time, polls that measure Obama's standing have reflected fluctuations in the economy, which has shown both strength and weakness since it began to recover from the recent recession. The new survey illustrates how an ideologically divided country and a stumbling recovery have driven the two men into a tight match.

The poll results among voters who live in states decided by less than 10 percentage points in 2008 underscore Obama's challenge. Among those voters in the new poll, Romney has an advantage, a shift from last month when Obama held that edge.

Still, Obama's overall 49 percent approval rating is not unlike the approval ratings George W. Bush faced in June 2004 during his re-election campaign, when he and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, were also locked in a dead heat.

Besides weak job growth and still high unemployment, Obama is at the mercy of European countries struggling with a debt crisis that has already sent ripples across the Atlantic. Indicators released Thursday held bad news for hiring and for home sales, a day after the Federal Reserve downgraded its outlook for the economy.

For all that, and with preferences for November in a virtual tie, a majority of people believe Obama will still be re-elected, a shift from an even split on the question seven months ago. In December, 21 percent of Republicans said they thought Obama would win re-election; that's risen to 31 percent now. And among independents, the share saying Obama will win has climbed from 49 percent to 60 percent. Among Democrats, it was 75 percent in both polls.

Tim Baierlein of Brandon, Fla., believes Romney would be a reassuring voice for a business community worried about regulations and higher taxes. But he said he still thinks Obama will win because the right wing of the Republican Party could alienate voters from Romney and because, in his view, Romney lacks a clear message.

"He just comes across as very elitist and I think that's going to hurt," he said.

About 4 out of 10 adults say they are worse off now than they were four years ago, compared with nearly 3 out of 10 who say they are doing better now. Among those who say they're doing worse, 60 percent say they plan to vote for Romney in November.

Amy Thackeray, 35, of Alpine, Utah, said her husband and five children experienced the economic downturn when it affected her husband's job. "We've dealt with a pay cut," she said. "We are grateful we still have a job. We live within our means. We save and we feel that in situations like this, it makes us save even more."

"We need someone with more financial and business experience than what Obama has," she said. "We need a president who takes one term and makes the hard decisions to put us back on the right track, and I hope it will be Romney."

The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted June 14-18 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,007 adults nationwide, including 878 registered voters. Results from the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points; it is 4.2 points for registered voters.

___

Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

___

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

___

Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jkuhnhenn

Associated Press

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Video: Chesapeake's Board Moves

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9198 212A PL, Langley - House/Single Family F1216068

View more homes for sale in Langley - Click here
Street Address: - 9198 212A Place Area/City: Langley Community: Walnut Grove Postal Code: V1M 2B9 MLS? F1216068 Property Type: House/Single Family Property Style: "Rancher/Bungalow" Taxes: $3527.0/2011 Approx Year Built: 1986 Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 2 Total Floor Area (sqft): 1316 Lot Size (sqft): 5904.000 Frontage (feet): 65.600 Depth (feet): 90 Title to Land: Freehold NonStrata Name of Complex: Listing provided by: RE/MAX Treeland Realty Board: Fraser Valley Real Estate Board
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Joe Manhas 604-720-0438 or Rimpy Hothi 604-725-0017

Listed under: Walnut Grove

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Caroline at Coastcard: Poetry Plus: Ars Poetica (4): Nature and ...

Some days ago I invited those who read my blog or Facebook page to join me in penning a sentence (or so), defining the difference between nature poetry and ecopoetry, in not more than 21 words. What follows are the responses I received from friends on both sides of the Atlantic, and a bit of commentary from me. I hope something may strike a chord!?

?Nature poetry extols the beauty and splendor of the natural world without sending a warning that it is being ruinously exploited.

??

I teach a creative writing class devoted to environmental writing versus nature writing! I'll try and think of a neat 21-word definition ... I think in general that you need to be careful with poetry that is trying to deliver a message: too much focus on the message and it becomes a political rant rather than poetry. Having said that, I read so much poetry these days that seems to not really have anything to say that sometimes it's quite refreshing to find an overtly political poem.

What is Nature?

I liked the six year old?s simple answer to that huge question:?

?Grass and insects.?

Beyond, it gets too romantic.

Poetry is thoughts in words, not necessarily political, making a point, or angry, but always personal, passionate and always emotionally touching.

Rose Kelland, England, UK

Nature poetry is not didactic per se.

P. Mc Daid (via Facebook)

?

Ecopoetry pushes us beyond our normal landscapes to a world in which our relationship with the universe affords possibilities for change.

***?

My thanks to all who sent in their thoughts ... and also to those who read the post and began to think, without formulating a specific statement. Belva's answer takes me right back to Wordsworth and the way in which he claimed that his times of engagement with the natural world were later 'recollected' at an emotional level 'in tranquillity'. There are those these days who find or make little time to 'stand and stare', preferring instead to write 'in the raw' and to depict the natural world 'red in tooth and claw'. Interestingly. this second expression, employed by Tennyson in his poem, In Memoriam A. H. H., 1850, originally referred to the nature of human beings, despite the fact that the phrase 'tooth and claw' was in circulation as early as 1837 as a description of wild (animal) nature.?

Those who read my blog posts will know that I struggle with politics, but since this word appears in the statements from both Juliet and Rose, I feel I must make some reference to it! I think we are all pretty much agreed that the poems that work best (in our opinion) as poems tend to be those that allow the reader to feel that he or she is left with the lingering thought along the lines of 'yes ... and if only I had been able to express that nuance/position/thought/point of view myself'. There may also be poems that cause us to shout a resounding 'No!', but we may actually admire the quality of the work, even if we find ourselves in definite disagreement with the sentiment.?

Shelley famously hailed his fellow poets as the 'unacknowledged legislators of the world', but I fear that this may be at best a sweeping statement in our current climate. Speaking personally, the closest I have (probably) come to writing political poems has been when I have touched upon subjects that stir strong negative emotions in me, such as those triggered (sorry!) by the atrocities of war or by unhelpful portrayals of disability. The former example brings me back, of course, to Wilfred Owen and his much cited dictum, 'all a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true poet must be truthful.'?Speaking of 'truth', I am taken back to a favourite childhood collection that included two very different poems by William Blake, namely 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger'. And yet, of course, Blake's poems of Innocence and Experience were probably two sides of the same coin. This brings me to the delightful and pertinent response from Kay.?

It is my personal opinion that Nature poems have - and always will have - their place alongside other types of poetry. However, I feel Kay is right to hint at a line somewhere between the bounds of sentimentality or romance and that fresh vision of the world that we can sometimes see or appreciate in work that exudes a fresh childlike (but never childish) vision of the world around us. I'm sure, if we are honest, most of us can name a couple of favourite 'nature' poems that have little to do with saving the whale (important as that may be!) or picking up litter. By the same token I would be astonished if any of our favourite choices were pastorals in which shepherdesses skip lightly through an Arcadian landscape.

But the story doesn't end there. Poetry - or some poetry - has been a vehicle for change for a very long time. Only last month I read a lively section from the Frog Chorus by Aristophanes at our local Poetry Cafe. You can read a summary of the plot here.?

So, zooming forward in time, where do we go from here? Perhaps we need to read more broadly. I suggested that contributors to this topic might like to share the title of a favourite nature poetry/ecopoetry volume, and a few suggestions have been made by Juliet, so thank you for these.?

Juliet recommends Earth Shattering, edited by Neil Astley. 'A wonderful anthology of eco-poetry and nature poetry'. Juliet also recommends the following poets (among others): -

A short selection of my own recommendations - in no particular order - would include:

I have purposely not divided the list above into 'nature poetry' and 'ecopoetry' because the boundaries are blurred in some cases, and it goes without saying that when Edward Thomas was writing, the term ecopoetry had not been coined!?

Many would say that the concept of ecopoetry really began to take shape in the years leading up to the turn of the Millennium, initially in the work of UK writer, Jonathan Bates, and in the writing of the American, Gary Snyder.

And finally, some weblinks that seem helpful to me ...

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all who participated in this post, including P. Mc Daid, whose words have only just been added. I take a personal interest in ecopoetry, but am certainly no eco-expert. I wear my L-plate on my sleeve, but am keen to learn and share!?

***

P.S. This post has made me realise that I would like to do a follow-up at some point on favourite prose books that have had an impact on our own nature poetry or ecopoetry writing ... Please watch this space.

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