Jobs report shows snail?s pace recovery

A lukewarm July jobs report, with employers reporting that they added the fewest new positions since March, is another sign of a sluggish recovery, economists said.

Employers added 162,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent, largely because of a shrinking labor force.

?It?s not striking you as something horrible, but it?s not the direction you want to see,? said Elliot Winer, chief economist at Northeast Economic Analysis Group.

Many of the jobs that were added were low-paying, low-productivity jobs in the retail and food-services industries, according to Nigel Gault, co-chief economist of The Parthenon Group.

?We didn?t create a lot of jobs, and we weren?t creating good ones,? Gault said, who added the trend is not new. ?It?s certainly been something evident over the past year.?

More than half of the new jobs added in July were in those sectors. The average workweek and hourly earnings both dropped, as well.

The results leave uncertainty about the short-term decisions of the Federal Reserve Bank. Chairman Ben Bernanke had indicated tapering of the central bank?s $85 billion bond buying program could end in September if the economy continued to improve. The bond buying program has kept interest rates low, and has been a key factor in a resurgent housing market.

?It leaves fed policy up in the air,? Gault said.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bostonherald/business/general/~3/RKRxnafOIkE/jobs_report_shows_snail_s_pace_recovery

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Animal Helper give us a shout out!

We are excited to report New Orleans Pet Care is the first sponsor for our Fourth Annual Fur Ball November 16th 6-10 pm at St Micheal's Episcopal School in Metairie. We have table sponsorships for $500 which includes a table for eight people. Please contact us at animalhelperneworleans@gmail.com if you'd like more information or to become a sponsor.?

More about Animal Helper.

If you have something you can donate for the silent auction or want to sponsor a table... they do great work!

Source: http://neworleanspetcarelaginappe.blogspot.com/2013/08/animal-helper-give-us-shout-out.html

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NM exhibit shines light on rare Beatles photos

This Feb. 11, 1964 image provided by the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos, N.M., shows a photograph of the Beatles taken by photographer Mike Mitchell during a news conference before the band's first live U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Mitchell?s portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong photography exhibition at the gallery. This marks the first time the images have been shown since their unveiling in 2011 at a Christie?s auction in New York City. (AP Photo/David Anthony Fine Art, Mike Mitchell)

This Feb. 11, 1964 image provided by the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos, N.M., shows a photograph of the Beatles taken by photographer Mike Mitchell during a news conference before the band's first live U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Mitchell?s portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong photography exhibition at the gallery. This marks the first time the images have been shown since their unveiling in 2011 at a Christie?s auction in New York City. (AP Photo/David Anthony Fine Art, Mike Mitchell)

This Feb. 11, 1964 image provided by the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos, N.M., shows a photograph of John Lennon taken by photographer Mike Mitchell during the Beatles first live U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Mitchell?s portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong photography exhibition at the gallery. This marks the first time the images have been shown since their unveiling in 2011 at a Christie?s auction in New York City. (AP Photo/David Anthony Fine Art, Mike Mitchell)

This Feb. 11, 1964 image provided by the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos, N.M., shows a photograph of George Harrison taken by photographer Mike Mitchell during the Beatles first live U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Mitchell?s portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong photography exhibition at the gallery. This marks the first time the images have been shown since their unveiling in 2011 at a Christie?s auction in New York City. (AP Photo/David Anthony Fine Art, Mike Mitchell)

This Feb. 11, 1964 image provided by the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos, N.M., shows a photograph of Ringo Starr taken by photographer Mike Mitchell during the Beatles first live U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Mitchell?s portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong photography exhibition at the gallery. This marks the first time the images have been shown since their unveiling in 2011 at a Christie?s auction in New York City. (AP Photo/David Anthony Fine Art, Mike Mitchell)

This Feb. 11, 1964 image provided by the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos, N.M., shows a photograph of Ringo Starr taken by photographer Mike Mitchell at a news conference before the Beatles first live U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Mitchell?s portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong photography exhibition at the gallery. This marks the first time the images have been shown since their unveiling in 2011 at a Christie?s auction in New York City. (AP Photo/David Anthony Fine Art, Mike Mitchell)

TAOS, N.M. (AP) ? Snow and frigid temperatures didn't stop thousands of screaming teenagers from crowding into the Washington Coliseum in the nation's capital for the Beatles first live concert on American soil.

And not having a flash didn't stop photographer Mike Mitchell, then just 18 years old, from using his unrestricted access to document that historic February night in 1964 using only the dim light in the arena.

Ghostly shadows and streams of light filled some negatives. With the help of modern technology and close to 1,000 hours in front of the computer screen, Mitchell was able to peel back decades of grunge and transform those old negatives into a rare, artful look at one of pop culture's defining moments.

Mitchell's portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong exhibition at the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos ? the first time the prints have been exhibited since being unveiled in 2011 at a Christie's auction in New York City. The gallery started hanging the first of the framed prints a week ago in preparation for Friday's opening.

"Just amazing," gallery owner David Mapes said as he looked around the room at the large black and white prints and wondered aloud what it must have been like to be in Mitchell's shoes that night.

Mapes pointed to a photograph of the four band members, their backs to the camera with a thin ribbon of light outlining their silhouettes. When he first saw it, he said he teared up. He knew he had to find a way to share it with others.

"It brought back memories of that time. I was a teenager and it was so much about love and everything was optimistic feeling," he said.

It didn't take long from the time the Beatles released their debut album in 1963 to go from a little British bar band to an international sensation. The Beatles' reach eventually stretched beyond music and haircuts to religion and politics.

"The Beatles came to represent some of the yearnings for peace and hope and equality and a larger social justice. In the United States and throughout the world, their personalities became as important as the music," said Norman Markowitz, a history professor at Rutgers University.

For Paul Vance, who teaches a class on the Beatles at Winona State University in Minnesota, the band was the reason he pursued music. He was 11 years old when the Beatles first came to the U.S.

The Beatles had good timing, he said, having arrived at a time when America was still heartbroken over the assassination of then-President John F. Kennedy and young people were looking for meaning in their lives.

"Much has been said and written about it," Vance said of the Beatles' influence. "It's a very significant point that the world after the Beatles was a radically different place than the world before the Beatles, and they did influence and change so many aspects of not just American life, but life everywhere."

Mitchell can't predict what role his photographs will play as historians and music fans continue to examine the evolution of American pop culture. Still, those moments captured by his camera that February night tell a grainy story of four young men who seemed to be having the time of their lives.

Mitchell remembers how hot it was inside the coliseum. The crowd was deafening but the resonating bass beats were unmistakable. He said the Beatles were "on fire" that night.

"They were really juiced. It was obvious at the time that they were really, really, really into it and I think the pictures really benefit from that," he said.

Mitchell said his goal was simple. He wanted to make great portraits of the Beatles while discovering a little more about who they really were.

With no flash, he was forced to wait for the perfect time to snap that shutter. His photographs immortalized the important details of the moment in a bath of light while the rest faded into darkness. It was the concert that marked the beginning of his fascination with light.

"I think that was the first time in my life that I had to really look more deeply at light and take my queues from what the light was doing," he said. "I learned to sort of feel from the light."

____

Follow Susan Montoya Bryan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/susanmbryanNM

____

Online:

www.mikemitchell.us

www.davidanthonyfineart.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-08-02-Beatles-Rare%20Photos/id-f6a3ca958b3a4f6fbe82706e77a522d6

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Controversial Golf Project in Croatia's Dubrovnik Cleared by Authorities

Critics have raised environmental concerns over the development on a site, and also said that the modern project is incompatible with the architecture of the city, a UNESCO world heritage site.

The project, backed by Australian former world number one golfer Greg Norman, aims to build two golf courses, two hotels, 240 villas and 400 apartments on 310 hectares (766 acres) of the land.

"A total of 16 city councillors of the 24 present during Tuesday's vote backed the project," city council spokeswoman Kristina Civalo told AFP of the vote on Tuesday evening.

Construction on the project -- the brainchild of Israeli businessman Aaron Frenkel -- could begin later this year.

Those supporting the scheme say it will result in the creation of local jobs and provide a boost to the tourism industry.

Norman, who won two Majors, is to open a golf academy at the project site, local media reported.

Some 100 protestors had gathered outside Dubrovnik's city hall to voice their opposition and carried banners which read "Srdj is ours" in reference to the name of the land where the complex will be built.

The newest member of the European Union, Croatia hosts more than 11 million tourists yearly, almost triple of its population of 4.2 million.

Dubrovnik is visited by some 700,000 tourists every year.

Source-AFP

Source: http://www.medindia.net/news/controversial-golf-project-in-croatias-dubrovnik-cleared-by-authorities-122983-1.htm

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IRA parade: A whiff of smart aleck game-playing from Sinn Fein

By Liam Clarke ? 02 August 2013

It is hard to see Sinn Fein's decision to back an IRA parade through Castlederg as anything other than an attempt to create a bargaining chip for the forthcoming Haass talks on parading.

For unionists it will never be seen as anything but a coat trailing exercise.

One of the problems for republican negotiators is that the vast majority of parades are loyal order events. A glimpse at the Parades Commission's website shows that, and republicans may feel they need something to trade at the talks.

That could be why it has suddenly created this parade route and has borrowed heavily on the language of the loyal orders, the very arguments which in Ardoyne and Portadown were described as irrelevant.

The orders call the road from Woodvale past Ardoyne shops and Twaddell Avenue in north Belfast a shared space which all can use. Republicans disagree and say it must be negotiated with local residents. The Orange Order called a park in Portadown a shared space and sought to search the boundaries of what this meant by holding a prayer service there.

"Shared space does not mean abused space," said John McGibbon, a Sinn Fein spokesman arguing that the Orange Order could not use the park as it did not have a good relationship with nationalist residents.

In north Belfast, the Orange Order talked of its "template" for parading and presented it as a concession. Not good enough, countered Sinn Fein, you can't impose your template, you have to agree it with people.

In Castlederg the roles are reversed. Sinn Fein and the Tyrone Volunteers committee make the arguments the loyal orders make elsewhere. They have a template, the town centre is a shared area and people should show tolerance to them. The arguments have a smart aleck, game-playing "see how you like it" air to them. This sort of inconsistency, and the decision to pull this issue out of a hat, is unlikely to wash with Haass, and it put the Parades Commission in an impossible position.

Having stopped the Orangemen at Woodvale, it had to reroute the republicans in Castlederg.

Sinn Fein knew that ? but it is not aping the reaction of unionists in north Belfast.

"This determination makes a mockery of the concept of shared space within Castlederg centre and the fact that locally there has been dialogue for over five years surrounding parades in the town," said councillor Ruarai McHugh, lamenting the re-routing's potential to "undermine attempts by local republicans towards addressing contention in Castelderg".

There is also an attempt to claim anyone who is Catholic as a republican, for example Castlederg is regarded as a republican town because 62.7% of people voted for nationalist parties in Derg Ward.

Indeed, as Ross Hussey of the UUP was quick to point out, only 35.1% of townspeople consider themselves Irish. Many of those would not be supporters of the IRA. Although many may regard the two IRA men whose death in a premature bomb detonation three miles outside the town as tragically wasted young lives, far fewer will wish that Seamus Harvey and Gerard McGlynn had succeeded in bombing the town.

Support for such events must be tested, it cannot just be claimed. In the Haass process we need an all-round look at parades and decide if, or when, we do want single community events in our shared spaces.

This sort of jockeying only makes an agreed solution more difficult.

Source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/debateni/blogs/liam-clarke/ira-parade-a-whiff-of-smart-aleck-gameplaying-from-sinn-fein-29466534.html

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Cheryl Boone Isaacs + Kerry Washington = the Obama Effect hits Hollywood

By Sharon Waxman

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Something is in the air in Hollywood. Call it the Obama Effect.

Can it be coincidence that Cheryl Boone Isaacs, an African-American woman, has been voted president of an organization that is 94 percent white and 77 percent male?

Doesn't it feel unusual - or more accurately, of the moment - that Kerry Washington scored the first best actress Emmy nomination for an African-American in 18 years, catapulting her to the cover of magazines like Vanity Fair?

"It's major," acknowledged Boone Isaacs in an interview with TheWrap's Steve Pond on Wednesday. "I know that, and you know that. To be given this trust is quite a big deal. It's an honor, it's a privilege, and I hope it's inspirational for people the way others have been an inspiration for me.

Something seems to have budged in the uber-liberal conscience of the industry, and it's hard to believe that five years of an African-American family in the White House hasn't helped. Seeing a black First Lady and a dark-skinned POTUS seems to have spread a quiet, normalizing effect on Hollywood culture.

It was high time. A 2012 L.A. Times study found that nearly 94% of Academy voters are white and 77% are male. Blacks make up about 2% of the Academy and Latinos less than 2%.

This year, not only has Cheryl Boone Isaacs been elected president, but in the Actors branch, fully half of the 22 new members are minorities, including Lucy Liu, Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Oh, Michael Pena, Danny Trejo and Chris Tucker.

Coincidence? Certainly not.

Yesterday I was sitting in a meeting where celebrity names were being tossed about for hotness and relevance, and who was tossed out first? Washington, who plays the savvy, kind and drop-dead beautiful political fixer Olivia Pope on "Scandal," and Rashida Jones, the Harvard-educated, writer-producer-actress with the piercing blue eyes and mixed race parentage.

Washington talked to TheWrap's Jethro Nededog in recent days about her Emmy nomination, and is well aware of the connection her fictional character has to real-life figures in Washington and the shift in public perception.

"I'm really proud to live in world where a show that has a woman of color as its lead character can be a success," she said. "I'm proud to be in a show that really champions inclusivity, because our show values diversity not just in terms of race but in terms of ethnicity, in terms of sexual orientation, in terms of age in terms of gender."

The funny thing about Hollywood is despite being at its heart is a liberal place, its power structure has remained overwhelmingly white and male (and Jewish and/or gay - but who's looking?). Everyone professes to be color-blind and racism-free, yet when you walk around the entertainment industry you almost never see any other color but white. In fact you'd never know - except by watching television and movies - how diverse the country has become.

But it looks like that may be starting to change, along with people's consciousness about the imbalance.

No, this is not any coincidence. Kerry Washington, who had a central, gruelling role in Quentin Tarantino's slave epic, "Django Unchained," is certainly one of the boldest actors going. It makes sense to celebrate her work. It makes sense to place Boone Isaacs at the head of the Academy.

And if it isn't the New Normal yet, perhaps it will be sooner than we think.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cheryl-boone-isaacs-kerry-washington-obama-effect-hits-222930156.html

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In June, the European Union - EU allowed its embargo on supplying arms to Syria...

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Updated: Edward Snowden vs. Bradley Manning, By the Numbers

This story, originally published June 10, 2013, has been updated.

Name: Edward Snowden

Job Title: Former CIA employee currently employed by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

Age: 30

Security clearance: Snowden had access to NSA documents during the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors.

Number of documents leaked: Undetermined. Snowden leaked a PowerPoint presentation and possibly among other documents about PRISM, a government computer program used for managing foreign intelligence collected from Internet and electronic service providers.

UPDATE: Word got out via The Guardian earlier this week that he also disclosed details of the XKeyscore program. The British newspaper says that XKeyscore is the NSA?s ?widest-reaching? system, giving analysts the ability to monitor millions of Internet users? emails, online chats and browsing history.

Agency betrayed: National Security Agency

Potential years: Undetermined. Snowden is still holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong, though he said in a video that he?s prepared for the fact that he could be "rendered by the CIA" or "have people come after me" at any time.

UPDATE: The U.S. government leveled charges against Snowden of ?theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person,? according to Reuters. The latter two offenses violate the Espionage Act and, if tried before an American jury, Snowden could face 10 years in prison for each of those charges. However, it?s unlikely that the U.S. will get its hands on him anytime soon. After holing up in Hong Kong in the weeks following the leak, Snowden fled for Russia. He was not allowed to leave Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow until Thursday, when he was granted a year?s asylum by the Russian government. Snowden can now live and possibly work anywhere in Russia for the next year. His lawyer told Reuters that Snowden will rent an apartment and has no immediate plans to leave.

Motive: The Guardian interviewed Snowden, who lived in Hawaii with his girlfriend and had a stable, well-paying job: "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

"The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to," Snowden added. "There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to." Snowden says he hopes that his efforts will spur public debate about the intelligence programs the government is running.

Name: Bradley Manning

Job title: Army Private First Class, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Age: 25

Security clearance: Manning "was allowed to surf massive closed databases of secret information without any restrictions as well as download classified files to CDs," according to The Guardian.

Number of documents leaked: Manning provided 700,000 documents to Wikileaks in the most extensive leak of confidential and classified material in U.S. history.

Agency betrayed: U.S. Military

Potential years: Government prosecutors are charging Manning with aiding the enemy, a charge that carries a maximum of a life sentence. Manning, who faces 22 charges altogether, is allowed to plead guilty to seven of them (not including the aiding the enemy charge), which together carry a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison.

UPDATE: Manning was found not guilty earlier this week of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, but Judge Col. Denis R. Lind convicted him on six counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and most of the other crimes he was charged with. Manning?s sentencing hearing began on Wednesday, and he now faces up to 136 years in prison. Prosecutors are pushing for the maximum sentence, a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay, dishonorable discharge and a fine.

Motive: Manning became increasingly disillusioned with the Army and the U.S.?s tactics in Iraq and, during online chat sessions with Adrian Lamo, a former hacker, said that he wanted "people to see the truth? regardless of who they are? because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/edward-snowden-vs-bradley-manning-by-the-numbers-15574490?src=rss

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'Love hormone' oxytocin: Difference in social perception between men and women

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The "love hormone" oxytocin improves men's ability to identify competitive relationships whereas in women it facilitates the ability to identify kinship, according to a recent study.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/sdOQ59sTxhg/130731093257.htm

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Analysis: Pope seeks to align Church hierarchy with the pews

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Some say his trip last week to Brazil, capped by a Mass for 3 million on Copacabana Beach, and the 80-minute, unfiltered news conference on the plane back to Rome, were the real start of Pope Francis's pontificate.

During the flight, he fielded 21 questions on subjects ranging from scandals at the Vatican bank to women in the Church to why he carries his own briefcase. But perhaps the comments that revealed most about the type of Church he envisions came in response to a question about gays in the Vatican.

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" he said, pointing out that the Church's Catechism says homosexuals should not be marginalized, and should be treated with respect and integrated into society.

It was the first time any pope had uttered the word 'gay' in public - using it five times - and was another sign that he has his ear closer to the ground than his predecessor Benedict, whom he succeeded as head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics in March.

It also chimed with the Church precept of "loving the sinner and hating the sin", a notion not always evident in Benedict's pronouncements; a 2005 document he approved said homosexual tendencies were "objectively disordered", and in a 2010 book he described homosexuality as "one of the miseries" of the Church.

"'Who am I to judge' may end up being the most-quoted five words spoken by a modern pope," said John Thavis, author of the best-selling book The Vatican Diaries and who covered the Vatican for 30 years for the U.S.-based Catholic News Service.

"Pope Francis has realized the simple truth, that when the Church preaches on pelvic and political issues like birth control, abortion and same-sex marriage, many people stop listening. So instead of repeating the rules and revving up the 'culture of death' rhetoric, he's focusing on another essential side of Christianity, mercy and compassion. And of course, that's much more inviting," Thavis said.

Much the same point was made by a senior Vatican official, who asked not to be named.

"What is the benefit of hammering on about issues where the position is already well known, either embraced or not?" he said.

"What is the immediate association we want in people's minds when the Catholic Church is mentioned? A stern governess, or one who teaches the same values by being approachable, kind, understanding and patient?"

TRICKLEDOWN EFFECT

It's about "putting people before dogma", said Paul Vallely, author of "Pope Francis - Untying the Knots".

It's also about changing perceptions, without moving on substance.

"Pope Francis clearly wants to change the image of the Church from that of a top-down organization that issues edicts and runs by rules to a more populist model of a Church of evangelizers," said David Gibson, a U.S.-based Catholic author of several books who once worked at the Vatican.

"In viewing all people as sinners - like himself, as he notes - and making no distinctions but stressing the pursuit of holiness and doing good, Francis is very much in line with where Catholics in the pews tend to be, and their clergy, too," he said.

Unlike Benedict, who was either a professor or Vatican official most of his life, Francis has always been a pastor.

"He knows what Catholics in the trenches think," said John Allen, correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, a U.S. publication, and author of several books on the Vatican and the Church.

"He wants to lift up the rest of the Church's teaching, especially its social gospel. Doing so may invite a lot of people, beginning with alienated Catholics, to take another look," Allen said.

Some forecast a trickledown effect.

"When Francis speaks in a whole new register about gays, or when he is so open and easygoing and informal in his dealings with people, the clergy will take notice," said Gibson. "They may not like it, but they also know they need to get with the program."

Others were bemused by the media reaction.

"It's amazing what attention a colloquial paraphrase of the Catholic Catechism can attract," said Father John Paul Wauck, a professor at Rome's Pontifical Holy Cross University, a conservative institution.

During the press conference on the plane the pope referred to the Church's Universal Catechism, which says that while homosexuality is not a sin, homosexual acts are.

Wauck, who is a member of the conservative Church group Opus Dei, said Francis wanted people to see the greater picture of the "joyful message" of Christianity.

"If you were pope and had to identify the most crucial misunderstandings afflicting the world today, you might well not settle on a familiar list of moral faults, but rather focus on more fundamental issues about how we relate to God. Without understanding those fundamental issues, there is little hope of appreciating or accepting moral rules," Wauck said.

What will the future hold for the Church under Francis?

"The Church is still coming to terms with this new pope, who, as one cardinal put it, 'plays for the same team but kicks the ball in an entirely different direction'," said Vallely.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-pope-seeks-align-church-hierarchy-pews-075732321.html

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Chris Christie and Rand Paul Reveal a Huge GOP Divide

(Left) Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul speaks with reporters at the 114th annual VFW National Convention on Monday, July 22, 2013, in Louisville, Ky. (Right) New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks during the Clinton Global Initiative America's meeting Friday, June 14, 2013, in Chicago, Ill.

The spat between New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul defines, in a way, the fundamental issue that divides the country: that of the role of government in protecting, monitoring and bailing out the American public.?

Unfortunately for the GOP, the fight is between two Republicans who are being discussed as possible contenders in the 2016 presidential nomination race. Not only does the snit expose campaign-damaging, election-losing divisions within the party itself, but the fight has such a schoolyard quality to it that it doesn't much end up benefiting either possible candidate.

It started when Christie, the blunt-talking defender of all things New Jersey, questioned the approach by some of the party's ardent libertarians, of whom Paul is a leader. Such pols don't want to use government funds for much of anything, and especially not to help the needier in society. Said Christie:

[See a collection of political cartoons on the Republican Party.]

You can name any number of people and he's [Paul's] one of them. These esoteric, intellectual debates ? I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. And they won't, because that's a much tougher conversation to have

Fighting words, even by New Jersey standards. Paul responded without a trace of Southern gentility, saying:

They're precisely the same people who are unwilling to cut the spending, and their 'Gimme, gimme, gimme ? give me all my Sandy money now.' Those are the people who are bankrupting the government and not letting enough money be left over for national defense.

Paul, to his credit, has been intellectually consistent on this theme, arguing against spending across the board. But it's a stretch to say the money Congress approved (after unprecedented opposition from non-northeastern Republicans) to help victims of the superstorm is somehow what broke the federal budget. That serious problem ? and Paul should be commended for taking it seriously ? has been building for decades, surely long before the storm left thousands homeless and traumatized. And it's the coldest way to argue against federal spending. If we can't help people who have been left with nothing through no fault of their own, whom can we help? Wall Street created its own mess and got bailed out anyway.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the budget and deficit.]

Christie was ready with the trump card, noting that New Jersey is, in fact, a "donor state," meaning that the state's residents send far more money in taxes to the federal government than they get back in services. Paul's old Kentucky home, meanwhile, is a beneficiary, getting, Christie noted, more than a buck and a half for every dollar it sends to Washington.

And here is where the GOP's troubles lie. It tends to be the more anti-government states that actually benefit from the redistribution of resources engineered by the federal government they so distrust. And it's the donor states that tend to lean more Democratic. In Mitt Romney's makers-and-takers view of the world, the "takers" are the ones lambasting the redistribution to begin with.

There's a serious and important conversation to be had over what we want our government to do, and how much we're willing to pay for it. But the tenor of the Paul-Christie fight doesn't anything more than remind voters that the GOP does not have a unified and clear idea of what that is.

Source: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/susan-milligan/2013/7/31/chris-christie-and-rand-paul-reveal-a-huge-gop-divide.html?s_cid=rss:susan-milligan:chris-christie-and-rand-paul-reveal-a-huge-gop-divide

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Spitzer Discovers Young Stars with a 'Hula Hoop'

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have spotted a young stellar system that "blinks" every 93 days. Called YLW 16A, the system likely consists of three developing stars, two of which are surrounded by a disk of material left over from the star-formation process.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/OTVpYo2RPQ4/130731155743.htm

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Fact Checker: Obama's low-ball estimate for Keystone pipeline jobs

A protest against the Keystone oil pipeline. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

"My hope would be that any reporter who is looking at the facts would take the time to confirm that the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline ? which might take a year or two ? and then after that we're talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 [chuckles] jobs in a economy of 150 million working people."

? President Barack Obama, interview with The New York Times, July 24, 2013

We are always interested when the president directs reporters to look at the facts.

In 2011, we looked deeply at the question of the number of jobs that might result from building the Keystone XL pipeline. We labeled it "a bipartisan fumble," knocking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for uttering greatly inflated job estimates that in one case even topped 100,000.

But now here's the president, tossing out a rather low figure ("maybe 2,000" during the construction phase) and then chuckling that it would only be "50 to 100 jobs" after that.

When we had looked at this before, we concluded that all such estimates are subject to guesswork, but the most mainstream estimate appeared to come from the State Department ? 5,000 to 6,000 construction jobs per year. Interestingly TransCanada, which would build the pipeline, had a very similar estimate for the two-year project ? 13,000 jobs, or 6,500 per year.

The numbers get fuzzier after that, because thousands of "spin-off" jobs (suppliers, and suppliers of suppliers) get added into the mix. Believe it or not, such claims can get far afield, adding in dancers, dentists, clergy, bartenders and the like who supposedly receive jobs because of a big construction project. But at the same time, there clearly is also a second-order effect of some sort.

So how does the president end up with such a low figure?

The White House would not explain the president's math, except to point to an anodyne statement made by spokesman Josh Earnest at Monday's daily news briefing, after he was asked about the president's jobs estimate, which was published in the Sunday edition:

"There are a range of estimates out there about the economic impact of the pipeline, about how this pipeline would have an impact on our energy security. There are also estimates about how this pipeline may or may not contribute to some environmental factors. So there are a range of analyses and studies that have been generated by both sides of this debate."

Our colleague Juliet Eilperin suspects that the president is relying on an estimate generated by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute, which opposes the pipeline project. Cornell figures each segment of the pipeline requires 500 workers per segment. The southern leg of the pipeline is now nearly complete, so that means 10 segments are left. That translates into 5,000 jobs over two years, or 2,500 a year.

Meanwhile, because part of the pipeline is complete, the State Department has revised downward its estimate of the construction jobs to 3,900 jobs per year over a one-to-two-year period. That's still a higher figure than the one generated by opponents.

The State Department also says the project could "potentially support approximately 42,100 average annual jobs across the United States over a one-to-two-year period." State said the employment would translate into about $2 billion in workers' earnings, $3.3 billion in construction and materials costs and $67 million in state and local taxes. That sounds like real money and quite a few jobs, at least in the short term.

Still, echoing what the president said about operation of the pipeline, State says that "operation of the proposed project would generate 35 permanent and 15 temporary jobs, primarily for routine inspections, maintenance, and repairs. Based on this estimate, routine operation of the proposed pipeline would have negligible socioeconomic impacts."

Ordinarily, we would expect the president to cite an estimate from his own State Department, rather than a think tank opposed to the project. (Note to Obama: When researching such matters, reporters generally look askance at estimates produced by advocates or foes of a particular issue.)

Of course, perhaps the president just took State Department estimate of the construction jobs and divided it in half, to come up with an (incorrect) yearly figure.

But that doesn't make much sense either, because the White House routinely claimed the job gains created by the stimulus by adding up the number of "person-years" ? in other words, one person employed per year. That's how the White House could claim 3 million jobs were saved or created by the stimulus through 2012.

Thus, using the White House's stimulus math, the president should be saying Keystone XL would create as many as 7,800 construction jobs.

Predictions of possible jobs are always fraught with complications, guesstimates and fuzzy math, so they often should be taken with a grain of salt. No one really knows exactly how many jobs will be created. So maybe the president is right to be skeptical.

But the president shouldn't pick and choose how he cites job-creation numbers. Perhaps he is tipping his hand on what he secretly thinks of the Keystone XL by citing a low-ball figure, generated by the pipeline's opponents, but he should stick to using the official government estimate. (His 2,000-job figure is actually slightly lower than the Cornell estimate.)

Otherwise, the president ironically seems to be signaling that even his own government does not produce the "most realistic" estimate that should be used by reporters.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dp-politics/~3/vy6HTOEKa-E/fact-checker-obamas-low-ball-estimate-keystone-pipeline

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Site_Specific International Land Art Biennale is happening ...

International artists

Cornelia Konrads ( Germany )

Born 1957 in Wuppertal/Germany ? Studies: Philosophy, Cultural Science ? Freelance artist since 1998

Focus on site specific sculptures ? indoors and outdoors, temporary and permanent for public spaces, sculpture parks and private gardens. Various expositions, residencies and commissions in Europe, Asia, Australia and America.

2012 . Schweizerische Triennale der Skulptur Bad Ragaz (Switzerland)1

2011 . Sculptor on Campus ? Visiting Sculptor Program, Cal. State University, Bakersfield (USA)

2010 . Public Art Commission for the N8 Cashel ? Mitchelston Road, Cahir (Ireland)

2009 . Artist in Residence, Aomori Contemporary Art Center, Aomori (Japan)

2008 . Southern Forest Sculpture Walk? Northcliffe (Australia)

Jeon Wongil ( South-Korea )

Born 1961. Since he started life as an artist in 1983, Wongil Jeon continues to work within nature: Attempting to untangle nature?s order through painting and drawing methods lead by the formative imagination within himself and his body?s sense ? creating natural art to work along with nature. He has been expressing various connections with nature in different media and currently is expressing a reminiscence of time ? a conceptual documentation through painting and photography of the aspects of nature that he encounters in his studio (a secluded garden in Ansung). Wongil taught at the college of art as an artist as well as an exhibition designer and art theoretician. Currently he is acting as a director of the YATOO International Project.

?

National artists

Hannelie Coetzee

Hannelie Coetzee is a Johannesburg-based professional photographer and visual artist. Her approach to photography is a documentary one. She has worked as a photographer for more than twenty years and is represented by agencies in New York and Germany. Visit www.hanneliecoetzee.com to view a portfolio and list of clients. Her transition into art, sculpture to be exact, was to be expected. She went from photographing stone formations and scars in the landscape to collecting stone, creating urban and land? artworks,? mosaics and ultimately stone sculpture.

Wilma Cruise

Wilma Cruise is a South African sculptor and visual artist. Working mainly with fired clay on a life size scale she has had sixteen solo exhibitions, curated others and completed a number of site specific works including the national monument to the women of South Africa in Pretoria and the Memorial to the Slaves in Cape Town.

Erynne Ewart-Phipps

My creative process is developed by observing a sites natural materials and manipulating them into a sculptured form, deliberate and conflicting within the organic surroundings. These intentional manipulations reflect man?s presence within the environment yet once commemorated via photograph can be easily forgotten within nature?s ever changing process. Non-permanence is vital to the overall notion I wish to create, and the impact permanence has within an interacting and adapting environment. All creation has a duration, I only wish to emphasise it.

Gordon Froud

Gordon Froud has been actively involved in the South African and international art world as artist, educator, curator and gallerist for the last 30 years. He has shown on hundreds of solo and group shows in South Africa and overseas and has served on various arts committees throughout South Africa. He has judged many of the important Art competitions from local to national levels in South Africa. Froud graduated with a BA(FA)Hons from the University of Witwatersrand in 1987, a Higher education Diploma from the same university in 1987 and a master?s degree in Sculpture from the University of Johannesburg in 2009 where he runs the Sculpture department as a senior lecturer. He has lectured at this department since 2004 and manages the third year undergraduate program. He has taught continuously at school and tertiary level in South Africa and in London since 1990.? Froud directed gordart Gallery in Johannesburg from 2003 to 2009 where he showcased the work of new, up and coming artists. He regularly shows on more than 20 exhibitions a year. Last year he was represented in ?The Rainbow Nation? sculpture exhibition in The Hague, Holland and was the first recipient of the Site Specific land art residency in Plettenberg Bay. Apart from showing on 30 other shows last year, Froud has curated 2 shows that will travel SA over the next 2 years. He showed work internationally in Holland, the USA and France in 2012.

David Jones

David Jones is an artist -lecturer in the School of Music, Art and Design at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He heads the department of Studio Arts and is engaged with Community structures working at rehabilitating the Inner City. This allows a synthesis of Public Art with in the landscape of the City.

Marcus Neustetter

Johannesburg based artist and cultural activist, Marcus Neustetter, reflects critically and playfully on his context through process driven production at the intersection of art, science and technology. Following the completion of his Masters Degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2000 his cross-disciplinary production has led to exhibitions, site specific installations, virtual interventions and socially engaged projects internationally, www.marcusneustetter.com. Neustetter has also been producing projects in partnership with Stephen Hobbs as The Trinity Session and in their collaborative capacity as Hobbs/Neustetter www.onair.co.za.

Blessing Ngobeni

I am Blessing Ngobeni 28 years old, live and work in Johannesburg, I studied at New town?s Artist proof Studio (2007), since for the past 13 years I have been involved with art. I am the winner of the Reinhold Cassirer Award (2012) and had my first solo exhibition show at gallery Momo (2012), Currently nominated and short listed by the Mail and Guardian 200 young South Africans and am very pleased to be part of Site Specific workshop. I worked for David Krut Publishing at the Johannesburg Art Gallery,? I was also a Facilitator teaching the youth at Michaelis Art Library. I worked as free lancer for Red-Pepper Pictures and I exhibited in several group shows around Johannesburg,

Sam Nhlengethwa

In 1978 Sam Nhlengethwa received a fine art diploma from Rorke?s Drift Art Centre in Natal. After graduating he taught part-time at the Federative Union of Black Artists (FUBA) in Johannesburg. At first, FUBA was an agency for black artists who wanted to make their work known in South Africa and internationally. Currently FUBA provides instruction in music, singing, fine arts and theater for more than 3,000 children every month.

Once seen as one of South Africa?s leading resistance artists, Nhlengethwa?s grown from this and adjusted the style and content of his works to explore other themes such as music, specifically jazz and the mechanics of everyday living. He works with found printed images from posters and magazines, including his recollections of township life in his imagery.

Nhlengethwa was urban born and raised and therefore relates intimately to township existence, not only in his collages but also in his prints. Nhlengethwha received various prestigious awards throughout his career and has attended workshops in New York, Senegal and Cuba. He has participated in group exhibitions since the early 1980s in Germany, France, the United States and Botswana.?He has held many solo exhibitions at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, as well as several two-person shows. His work is represented in major public and corporate art collections in South African and abroad.

Walter Oltmann

I live and work in Johannesburg as an artist and teach in the Fine Arts division at the University of the Witwatersrand. My main area of creative focus is in sculpture, and more particularly in fabricating woven wire forms. I use the linear qualities of wire to create forms and surfaces through techniques that parallel handcrafts. ?My drawings and prints are also closely related to my sculptural works.

Plettenberg Bay Artists

Stephen Rosin

Stephen Rosin was born in Rhodesia in 1975. He has a B.tech degree from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University School of Art and Design, graduating in 1999. He is the winner of the prestigious Absa l?Atelier competition in 2009 and recently received a nomination for best visual arts exhibition at the 2013 KKNK festival.

Malcolm Solomon

Malcolm is a native of Plettenberg Bay. His sculptures range from classical to abstract modern art, and he has worked in a wide range of media ??including bronze, wood, stone and sand, as well as working with furniture, paint finishes, sign-writing, murals, sketching and painting. Solomon?spent four years in America making customised hand-carved furniture and front doors, and experimenting with mould-making and a wide range of casting methods.

In 2002 he discovered bronze which is now his favourite material to work with. Solomon is deeply influenced by the?energies and patterns of the nature and life that surrounds him, and feels compelled to bring awareness to it?s beauty. In 2006 he opened his studio gallery THE KEYHOLE on Main St in Plettenberg Bay which launched his sculpting career. His more recent work is stylised, abstract and organic where attention is given to contrasting textures and planes and the effect of light on moving surfaces. The use of negative spaces and implied shapes complete his forms. Solomon explores his personal experiences and observations of life, and his acute awareness of our vulnerable presence on Earth

Janet Botes

Janet Botes (1984) is a visual artist from Cape Town. She studied Graphic Design (BTech, Cum Laude) at the Vaal University of Technology, Vanderbijlpark, before getting involved in various projects in the Western Cape and Gauteng, which includes participation in the Human Earth?exhibitions, curating the 2012 Green Art exhibition at the Green Expo, and performing at the Arts Lounge during the National Arts Festival. Janet?s work is predominantly inspired by the natural world and personal experiences. Through her work she hopes to help inspire a reconnection between people, nature and the creativity inherent in everyone. Genres and media of her artworks include Land Art, Drawing, Mixed Media, Painting, Photography and assemblage sculpture.

Erica L?ttich

Erica L?ttich trained as a film editor, and is an acclaimed photographer. Erica?s art making process means that she gets involved and explores, investigates and teaches new techniques and craft ideas together with crafters. She has recently created ?FENCES? at the Site_Specific Ebenezer residency in Plettenberg Bay. This artwork will be installed during the Site_Specific biennale in August. She has made major contributions to the outreach component of Site_Specific. In her own words: ?The ability to collaborate on an artwork only has validity if it challenges the crafter and the viewer, thus the ideas of each project must be sufficiently researched. Through the creative process of making, the artwork becomes defined and the working together of many hands and hearts makes a clear path that can be expressed by each individual and the intentions can then be communicated to the public.?

Anni Snyman & PC Janse van Rensburg

Anni Snyman & PC Janse van Rensburg are a brother and sister team who have been exploring site specific works in various landscapes in South Africa and abroad since 2009. PC Janse van Rensburg brings his experience as a professional architect and visual artist to their land art collaborations. Anni Snyman works in various media ranging from traditional prints, photography, digitally manipulated images and animations, to three dimensional installations and sculptures. She actively seeks collaborations with other artists, and has organised several ?Kunstellasies? ? juxtapositions of different creative disciplines in public spaces (annisnyman.co.za). In 2011 she founded Site_Specific with Strijdom van der Merwe and Heather Greig (sitespecific.org.za).

Strijdom van der Merwe

Uses the materials provided by the chosen site. He explains that it is a process of working with the natural world ? using sand, water, wood, rocks and so forth. His sculptural forms take shape in relation to the landscape. Exhibitions and commissions on invitation?were done in South Korea, Turkey, Belgium, France, Sweden, Lithuania, Japan, USA, Australia, Germany, Kenya, England the Netherlands, USA and Italy. He held many personal exhibitions in various art galleries in the past years and his work has been bought by numerous private and public collectors locally and abroad.

Recipient of the Jackson Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

Medal of Honor from the South African Academy of Arts and Science.

Winner of the It?s LIQUID International Contest ? First Edition 2012. Italia, for Sculpture and Installation

Member of the curatorial panel for World Design Capital Cape Town 2014.

Recipient of the Prince Claus Grant Amsterdam The Netherlands

Nominated for the Daimler Chrysler award for sculpture in Public Spaces 2008

Young Artist from Eden Award

Lungiswa Gqunta

Lungiswa is an intern at Nmb-city, a design/events/project management company who manage the Port Elizabeth Athenaeum. She has worked on public sculptures for the city (conversations with the queen), and is currently working with carved and burned totems. Her interests are the intersection between the traditional and the urban contemporary, and what this means in terms of finding her niche as a young female artist. Lungiswa is a hard-working, passionate, curious and skilled young artist from Port Elizabeth and belongs to the born free generation!

View Event

For further information please visit: www.sitespecific.org.za/

Source: http://showme.co.za/plett/events-entertainment/site_specific-international-land-art-biennale-is-happening/

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Floobits Debuts Remote Pair Programming Tool Where You Can Collaborate In Your Favorite Native Editor

Y Combinator-backed Floobits, a new startup allowing two people to write software at the same time on the same codebase - an activity known as pair programming - is officially launching today to help better connect remote developers and distributed teams. What makes this company's implementation interesting, however, is that instead of requiring developers to use a web-based editor as many pair programming solutions today do, Floobits' users can pair program directly within the text editors they're already comfortable using, through the installation of plugins.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/hFrDgF0_V4Q/

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Lux Automatically Adjusts Your Screen Brightness, Gets Incredibly Dim

If you aren't satisfied with how Android controls your device's screen brightness (is anyone?), Lux is a simple alternative that is easy to configure, while still offering a ton of options.

The concept is a lot like previously-mentioned Velis Auto Brightness, but it's a lot less complicated to figure out. The app launches as a small popover that lets you drag a slider to adjust your screen brightness. Once you're satisfied, you can lock it in as your default setting for that specific amount of ambient light. From then on, Lux will work in the background to adjust the screen to your specifications as lighting conditions change. And as you might have guessed, the data points you give it manually, the smarter it becomes.

You get all of this in the free version of Lux, but the full app includes a ton of extra features. First and foremost, it will let you set brightness levels below Android's default minimum brightness, which is great for reading in a dark room before you go to bed. You can also tell it to change your screen's temperature at certain points of the day to help you avoid eye strain. To put it simply, Lux kicks the pants off of Android's stock brightness manager, and it's worth every penny.

Lux Auto Brightness ($2.98) | Google Play via How-To Geek

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/PJ10mdsgEkE/lux-automatically-adjusts-your-screen-brightness-gets-934245674

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Twitter Talk: Trade for relief pitcher Jose Veras leads to several solid questions about Detroit Tigers

The trade the Detroit Tigers made Monday for relief pitcher Jose Veras led to some very good questions about the move on Twitter.

So here's another edition of Twitter Talk, minus the fifth non-baseball question. (I won't waste your time with vague pop culture references and restaurant reviews today.)

Let's get started.

The Tigers have had an opening on their 40-man roster since they designated Jose Valverde for assignment last month. Therefore, the Tigers don't need to open up a spot. Now, if Octavio Dotel (60-day disabled list) comes back or the Tigers want to promote a player not on the 40-man roster (Nick Castellanos or Jeremy Bonderman, for example), they will have to make a move. But no move is necessary now.

I would assume Evan Reed will head back to Triple-A Toledo when the Tigers officially add Veras prior to their game Tuesday night.

Dang. That's a good one. The Tigers could add Downs and send Luke Putkonen to Toledo when Downs is ready, especially now that they are working toward having Al Alburquerque pitch multiple innings. Or they could send Downs to Toledo. That's a good question. Maybe I should have posted an easier one here instead.

Dave Dombrowski will be active. He won't be sitting around the next two days with his feet on his desk playing Candy Crush. But will he make another move? He could, but the Veras trade seems like the one he absolutely needed to get done. I wouldn't be surprised if the Tigers make another move. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't.

That's tough to tell. There are two scenarios: The Astros have a list of more than one player to choose from and haven't settled on which one they want or the player to be named is unable to be traded at this point.

Players cannot be traded for at least one year after signing their first professional contract. Therefore, it's likely that the player to be named later is a 2012 draft pick of the Tigers who cannot be traded yet. It's a similar reason why Chance Ruffin was the player to be named later in the trade that brought Doug Fister to the Tigers in 2011.

He certainly will get more expensive if he finishes the season strong as a closer. Will he price himself out of the Tigers' reach next season? That depends on a lot of things. But the Tigers have several options.

They could re-sign Benoit to close if his contract demands are reasonable. They could sign another closer. They could head to spring training with the idea that Bruce Rondon could be ready. They would have Veras as a backup plan, just like they had Benoit as a backup plan this season. It will be an interesting offseason for the Tigers, who still have work to do in the bullpen and in the middle infield spots.

Never saw any scenario for Valverde's return to the Tigers in any other role but closer. As long as Benoit is pitching well in that role and the Tigers have Veras and Drew Smyly to fill in when needed, I wouldn't expect to see Valverde anytime soon.

Whether or not that signals the end in Toledo, well, that depends on whether the Tigers feel the need to free up that spot. Or whether Valverde has opportunities elsewhere. The Tigers certainly would allow him to pursue opportunities elsewhere if he had them.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/detroit-tigers/~3/gjbCJ1W7th4/twitter_talk_detroit_tigers_do.html

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Stocks decline as a busy week for markets begins

Specialist Douglas Johnson is reflected in a screen at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, July 22, 2013. Rising commodity prices made up for a disappointing quarterly performance at McDonalds, lifting the stock market Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Specialist Douglas Johnson is reflected in a screen at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, July 22, 2013. Rising commodity prices made up for a disappointing quarterly performance at McDonalds, lifting the stock market Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK (AP) ? A blistering July rally on the stock market appears to be fading.

Stocks edged lower Monday as investors waited for a series of major economic reports due out this week. A string of big-name merger deals wasn't enough to push indexes higher.

On Wednesday the government will report its first estimate of U.S. economic growth for the second quarter, and on Friday it will publish its monthly jobs survey.

Both reports will give investors a better idea about the strength of the economy and what's next for the Federal Reserve's stimulus program. Investors will hear from the Fed on Wednesday after the central bank winds up a two-day policy meeting. The Fed's stimulus has been a major factor supporting a four-year rally in stocks.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 6.32 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,685.33.

Seven of the 10 sectors in the index fell. The declines were led by energy companies and banks.

The benchmark index is still up 4.9 percent in July, and the S&P 500 is on track to have its best month since January. The index jumped this month, climbing to an all-time high July 22, after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke assured investors that the Fed wouldn't cut its stimulus before the economy was ready. The central bank is buying $85 billion a month to help keep interest rates low and encourage borrowing and hiring.

Stocks may struggle to add to their gains, given that expectations for the economy remain modest, said Scott Wren, a senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors.

The U.S. economy is forecast to have grown just 0.5 percent in the second quarter, according to data provider FactSet. That would be slower than the 1.8 percent annual rate the economy expanded at in the first three months of the year.

"I don't think you're going to see the market sustain much higher levels than this," said Wren. "All this data is going to show that we are slowly improving, but it's a slow process and there's not much to get excited about."

A trio of corporate deals caught investors' attention Monday but failed to ignite the broader market.

Saks jumped after Canadian retailer Hudson's Bay, the parent company of Lord & Taylor, agreed to buy the luxury store operator for $2.4 billion, or $16 a share. Saks rose 64 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $15.95.

Interpublic Group, a big advertising company, gained after Omnicom Group, another big advertiser, agreed to combine with France's Publicis Groupe to create the world's largest advertising company. Interpublic rose 74 cents, or 4.7 percent, to $16.61.

The stock closed higher even after Interpublic CEO Michael Roth said that he saw no need for a major merger to keep the company moving forward.

Omnicom jumped in early trading, climbing as high as $70.50, but ended the day down 45 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $64.75.

Perrigo also featured in the mergers and acquisitions news. The drugmaker agreed to buy Ireland's Elan for $8.6 billion. Perrigo fell $9.06, or 6.7 percent, to $125.17.

The deals should be positive for the stock market in the long run, and should be followed by more merger activity, said Dan Veru, chief investment officer at Palisade Capital Management. Companies are sitting on record cash balances and borrowing costs, though rising, are still close to record lows.

"Companies are struggling to grow organically," said Veru. "So, how do they grow? They grow by buying other businesses."

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 36.86 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,521.97. The Nasdaq composite dropped 14.02 points, or 0.4 percent, to 3,599.14.

Investors will also be focusing on corporate earnings this week.

Just over half of the companies in the S&P 500 index have reported earnings for the second quarter. Analysts are currently forecasting earnings growth of 4 percent for the April-through-June period, according to S&P Capital IQ. That's the slowest rate of growth in three quarters.

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.59 percent from 2.56 percent Friday. The note's yield, which moves inversely to its price, has climbed almost 1 percentage point since the start of May, when it hit its low point of the year, 1.63 percent.

Higher government bond rates push up mortgage rates, which could threaten the housing recovery.

The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes dipped in June from a six-year high in May, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. The slight decline suggests higher mortgage rates may be starting to slow sales.

Should rates rise too quickly the Fed will likely keep up with its stimulus for longer, said Colleen Supran, a principle at Bingham, Osborn and Scarborough, a wealth management firm.

"We really need the housing market to stay on track to keep economic growth on track," said Supran.

In commodities trading, crude oil fell 15 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $104.55 a barrel. Gold climbed $6.90, or 0.5 percent, to $1,328.70 an ounce.

The dollar gained against the euro, but fell against the Japanese yen.

Among other stocks making big moves:

? CF Industries rose $21.30, or 12 percent, to $202.30 after reports that Third Point, the hedge fund of the activist investor Daniel Loeb, had bought a stake in the company. Loeb disclosed the purchase in a quarterly letter to investors.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-07-29-Wall%20Street/id-887e44ba1d984978b5ea62da73a4a32c

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Witness: Spain train driver said he couldn't brake

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (AP) ? The driver of a speeding Spanish train that derailed, killing 78 people, said minutes after the crash that he had been going fast and couldn't brake, a local resident who rushed to the scene of the accident said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Evaristo Iglesias said that he and another person accompanied the blood-soaked Francisco Jose Garzon Amo to a stretch of flat ground where other injured people were being laid out, waiting for emergency services to arrive.

"He told us that he wanted to die," Iglesias told Antena 3 television.

"He said he had needed to brake but couldn't," Iglesias said. He added that Garzon said "he had been going fast."

The station showed a photograph of Iglesias in a pink shirt and cap helping carry the driver after the Wednesday accident in the northwestern Spanish town of Santiago De Compostela. It also aired television footage of Iglesias working beside the wrecked train to help other survivors.

Garzon has been released from the hospital and is in police custody on suspicion of negligent homicide.

The train carrying 218 passenger in eight cars hurtled far over the 80-kph (50-mph) speed limit into a high-risk curve, tumbling off the tracks and slamming into a concrete wall, with some of the cars catching fire.

The Spanish rail agency has said the brakes should have been applied four kilometers (2.5 miles) before the train hit the curve.

In the interview, Iglesias recalled Garzon's words, "'I don't want to see this, I want to die,' that's what he said repeatedly," said Iglesias. "'I had to brake down to 80 and couldn't,'" Iglesias said he said.

Spain's state-run train company has described Garzon as an experience driver who knew the route well. He is expected to give testimony to an investigating judge later Sunday, though he exercised his right to remain silent when police tried to interview him.

The judge will also have access to information contained in the train's "black box," which is similar to those found on aircraft.

Iglesias was among survivors and witnesses who began to give evidence to police on Sunday. Investigators must determine if Garzon failed to apply the brakes or whether it was a technical failure.

Meanwhile, authorities said forensic experts have identified the last three bodies among the 78 dead. They did not reveal the names, but said Sunday that all of the families had been notified.

Victims have been reported from France, Algeria, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Mexico and the United States.

Mourning continued throughout Spain, with Sunday church services being held in remembrance of the dead.

A large funeral mass is planned for Monday afternoon in Santiago de Compostela, and the prime minister and royal family are expected to attend.

The crash has cast a pall over the town, a Catholic pilgrimage site. Santiago officials had been preparing for the religious feast of St. James of Compostela, Spain's patron saint, but canceled it after the crash and turned a local sporting arena into a morgue.

___

Heckle contributed from Madrid.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/witness-spain-train-driver-said-couldnt-brake-142351715.html

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Switched On: Played out

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

At the launch of the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 -- the first hardware devices to run on the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 operating system -- there seemed to be a silver lining for the renamed company's struggling PlayBook tablet. Confirming speculation, CEO Thorsten Heins promised a cheering crowd that the PlayBook would receive an update to a new OS. This would open the door to signature features, a more polished user interface and a vastly expanded app library.

But something was amiss. The company had also announced that, to simplify app development, BlackBerry 10 would support two screen resolutions: the Z10's 1,280 x 768 and the Q10's 720 x 720. In contrast, the PlayBook resolution is 1,024 x 600. Late last month, the other shoe dropped as BlackBerry confirmed that the PlayBook would not receive the promised update, leaving it with an abandoned OS and marking the effective exit of BlackBerry from the tablet market.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Blackberry

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/JXrjefQ4bPc/

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