Amped Wireless Wi-Fi Analytics Tool (for Android)

Amped Wireless has an impressive Wi-Fi analysis tool for Android devices available in Google Play. It's probably one of the sharpest in terms of graphics I've tested?it looks good, visually? and it provides visualization of the strongest wireless networks in a specific area. Plus, it's a free app developed by a company that knows Wi-Fi.

Download and Requirements
I downloaded the Wi-Fi Analytics tool to a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 running Android 4.1.2. The app requires permissions that include phone calls, network communication, system tools, and location. It can be installed on Android 2.0 and up.? It's a quick, light install and caused no issues on my tablet when I was using it.

Features
When the app opens up it displays the SSID of the network to which your device is connected. The home screen also shows bar graphs for that network and other networks in range. These bold, green bars represent signal strength.

To the far right of each bar is the actual numerical signal strength level in dBm. Every network's SSID, signal strength (in percentage), and security type, plus encryptions, is displayed as well. The graphics are very crisp and pleasant and look wonderful on the Galaxy Note.

In this screen, you can set how often you want the app to scan for wireless networks. I left the default of five seconds and even with the app running I did not notice any slowness or interference with the tablet's performance. I was able to even simultaneously perform a Samsung software update with Wi-Fi Analytics Tool running. Additionally, the app is very responsive to touch.

If you tap on any network, app will ask if you want to connect to that network.? Across the bottom of the screen are five tabs: WiFi Scanner, Channel Interference, Channel Graph, Signal Graph, and Signal Meter.? There's also an ad at the bottom for Amped Wireless networking products ? but, hey, it's their app; I have no problem with that. Clicking the ad takes you to Amped Wireless' website.

The Wi-Fi Scanner tab is actually the default view to which the app opens. Channel Interference is really neat. Tappping on this tab will present a list of every channel, with respect to the wireless network you're on, and displays if the channel clarity is "great," "good," or "poor." It will also advise which channels you should be operating that network's access point for a better signal.

Channel Graph tab, displays vertical bars providing further visualization into each Wi-Fi channel and corresponding signal strength. What I really like is that all SSIDs in range are superimposed on the channel bar on which they are operating; however, it's a little hard to read the network names when many are on the same channel.

The Signal Graph tab opens to a screen with line graph for each network and looks like it renders pretty much in real-time.

Signal Meter tab opens up yet another visual of signal strength in a single vertical bar graph. Amped Wireless not too long ago added a "Signal Strength" widget to this feature. This widget has a button "Select a Network" that when you click, you select a network and that network's signal strength in dBm is displayed and a left-facing arrow indicator will go up and down the bar graph to show how strong or poor the signal is: the higher the indicator goes, the better the signal. When you select a network a beep goes off, the stronger the signal (or closer you are to the network's access point) the louder the beep. It reminds me of the tone of a fox/hound set you use to trace data cable. There is also a toggle button on this screen that allows you to turn the sound off.

An App from Those Who Know Networking
I really like this app as a quick, lightweight tool. It's useful for professionals to get insight into the signal quality of a wireless environment, but it's easy enough for home users and novices. Amped Wireless' app is a little behind inSSIDer which displays the manufacturer of an access points, calculates a link score based on several parameters to tell you how strong a wireless network' signal is (or not), and the paid version, inSSIDer for Office does even more. However, Amped Wireless's app is a good tool in its own right.

I would like to see the company expand the app even more?maybe a paid version that allows for surveying, uploading floormaps, and spectrum analysis. While inSSIDer remains the Editors' Choice for networking and communication tools, Amped Wireless's Wi-Fi Analytics Tool is an easy four out of five stars and a good tool for the networking admin's toolbox.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/aUGzqKu5lMI/0,2817,2419690,00.asp

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Beyonce Drinks Wine, Probably Isn't Pregnant

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/beyonce-drinks-wine-shoots-down-pregnancy-rumor/

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13-year-old New Yorker wins National Spelling Bee

By Tim Kenneally LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Madea goes bye-bye? A new petition published on Change.org is demanding that Oprah Winfrey's network remove Winfrey's friend and business partner Tyler Perry from OWN's airwaves, claiming that Perry "perpetuates stereotypes" about the black community. Or, as the petition puts it more whimsically, Perry "is 'malt liquor' for the community!" Perry's new series, "The Haves and the Have Nots," premiered Tuesday night on OWN to record breaking ratings. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arvind-mahankali-13-york-wins-national-spelling-bee-022525181.html

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Bret "Hit Man" Hart speaks on Curtis Axel

All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of WWE, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. ? 2013 WWE, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This website is based in the United States. By submitting personal information to this website you consent to your information being maintained in the U.S., subject to applicable U.S. laws. U.S. law may be different than the law of your home country. WrestleMania XXIX (NY/NJ) logo TM & ? 2013 WWE. All Rights Reserved. The Empire State Building design is a registered trademark and used with permission by ESBC.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-05-27/bret-hart-speaks-on-curtis-axel

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Tips for selling niche hosting packages - Web Hosting Blog

One of the best ways you can stand out as a reseller is by creating themed niche hosting packages, such as a WordPress hosting plan or a Small Business hosting plan. In addition to helping to attract particular types of customer to your website, it?s also an easy way to target less competitive keywords and phrases in the search engines, saving you time and money and increasing your success rate.

Niche hosting packages can be aimed at a select group of people, based around a particular application, or targeted at a certain type of website or industry. It?s up to you how you choose to approach it, but remember that the web is always in flux (a ?Responsive Design? themed hosting package may sell well now but isn?t necessarily future proof, for example) and it?s a good idea to think ahead as much as possible.

Ideas for niche hosting packages

Popular types of niche hosting plans include:

? Ecommerce
? SEO
? Small Business (particularly local websites not selling online, for example restaurants)
? Blogging (adaptable to a wide range of CMS)
? WordPress (specific and frequently searched)

When brainstorming niche hosting packages, your end result should:

? Solve a problem for your customer (e.g. remove the need for them to figure out the various products and services they need on their own by bundling complementary ones for them).

? Target an area you?re comfortable with and understand ? play to your strengths.

? Find the balance between being too broad (diluting the effectiveness of your approach) and too narrow (not appealing to enough people to be worthwhile). You can always adapt to narrow your approach if you find you?re attracting a particular type of customer or business, e.g. florists.

? Offer something different (two key areas to consider here are convenience for your customer and discounting bundled services).

? Clearly display to your target customer that you understand their market and needs.

Back up your ideas with numbers ? use the Google Keyword Tool or a similar service to look up the exact number of searches for the type of web hosting you?ve decided to specialise in. You?ll want to target terms related to building websites as well as specific hosting phrases.

Developing your hosting plans

Make sure you know what your customers want from their niche hosting package. If you get a chance for input or feedback always jot down any ideas spawned from their questions. For example, if customers enquiring about small business hosting always ask about email hosting as well, that?s something to prioritise and market heavily in your ?Small Business? package. Feedback will also help you make key decisions when you?re determining quantities; for example the amount of web space you provide is likely to be much more important to wedding photographers than it is to domainers.

Working directly from people?s requirements is the most effective route. If you?re just starting out or moving into a new niche, avoid guessing. Find some key forums in the niche you?re targeting to find out what?s important to your target customers, or if you work locally then head to a few businesses in person. Bear in mind that people won?t always know what they want, particularly if they?re coming from non-technical backgrounds, so some common sense and creativity can go a long way towards helping them achieve their goals through your services.

Don?t forget to also have a look at what your competitors are doing with niche packages. What do they do well, and what can you do better?

Once you?ve got some ideas, make a big list of all the things you can offer your customers, including any periphery skills or services such as SEO or business cards, and then group them into logical packages.

Example features and selling points of a niche hosting package

Continuing with the wedding photography theme, here?s an example of how you might want to develop and market a niche hosting package aimed at photographers:

Services to bundle together:

? Domain name & personalised email (key selling point: personal branding and professionalism).
? Unlimited web space (key selling point: store as many photos as you like).
? Unlimited bandwidth (key selling point: allow your visitors to view as many photos as they like as many times as they like).
? Website back up service (key selling point: added security for irreplaceable photos).
? SSL certificate (key selling point: offer clients a secure login to preview, select and even buy photos).

Extra points that set you apart:

? Smartphone control panel (key selling point: even when you?re away on shoots you can still manage your website and files).
? One-click installs of photo gallery software and ecommerce software (key selling point: it?s really easy to create your own website to showcase your photos, and your clients can pay online).
? UK servers (key selling point: better rankings in Google UK and other national search engines, essential for local photographers).

From this starting point you can then add in your own products and services.

Incorporating your own services

Whether you include them as part of your niche hosting package, suggest them as an upsell, or bundle them with a discount is entirely up to you and will depend on how central selling hosting is to your business. If your main focus is on designing websites for customers, you?ll need to alter your package accordingly and focus on the overall vision of what you can provide.

Take a look at our tips on cross-selling and upselling and how to get your customers to buy more.

If you?re a freelancer or run an agency, try incorporating a certain amount of work into each package (e.g. your cheapest package might include a free custom logo, but your most expensive might include a full website design). Allow customers to mix and match and provide prices for hosting and other services separately as well as a joint deal at a discount.

Don?t forget to go beyond the web to offer your customers a broader service: business cards, local advertising and promotional materials can all be useful. Negotiating deals with offline companies or third party resellers can help drive more business.

Important considerations

? The key to success is building a package based on useful complementary products.that your customers will appreciate, so keep experimenting and brainstorming until you?re sure you?ve got it right.

? Make sure you don?t overpromise ? there?s no point offering a great deal if it?s not sustainable or you can?t keep on top of demand. Ensure prices are realistic and you have enough time/resources to complete additional services such as web design projects.

? Don?t overcomplicate it ? Only offer your customers logical products and services that they?re likely to need. Any extras you?re unsure of or testing can be listed as smaller secondary selling points or upsold or cross-sold later on.

? Try to avoid removing anything from your web hosting packages. People are affected much more by loss than by gain, so if something isn?t working, reposition the package, add new features and focus on that rather than simply taking a feature away.

? Make sure your packages and web copy match your audience?s technical ability and understanding. There?s no point creating a ?Professional SEO? package if the customers know more about it than you do.

? Monitor, track and test ? track conversions and experiment with limited-time deals to see which combinations attract the most interest.

? Offer different pricing tiers within each niche package to account for all budgets.

? Try to make packages sustainable and plan for the future ? it?s easier for you to manage if you don?t have to keep changing the names/types of packages you offer to your customers, and prevents them being confused too.

? Focus your business around a logical theme ? don?t try to be all things to all people. Having a photography hosting package, an SEO package and a parent blogger package doesn?t really make sense. Focusing on one area and developing your reputation around that helps you establish your authority in that field.

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Tips for selling niche hosting packages, 10.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's Senior SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive and is responsible for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ activity. Jenni also manages various projects and campaigns for the Marketing department as well as organic SEO.

Source: http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/blog/2013/05/tips-for-selling-niche-hosting-packages/

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Why I Hate the National

Matt Berninger of the National performs during the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival on April 17, 2013 in New York City

Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

I hate that goddamn band. For about five years those words have popped to mind or spit out of my lips whenever someone mentions the National, the Brooklyn-based rock group whose sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, came out last week.

It dates to the first time I heard ?Fake Empire,? the breakout single from 2007?s Boxer, which led to 2010?s half-million-selling, critically beloved album, High Violet.* As far as tens of thousands of fans are concerned, this cerebral, downbeat but expansive, musically adept ensemble?s new record makes its entrance on a red carpet strewn with rose petals.

But I hate that goddamn band. If someone doesn?t stop me I?ll go on to call them portentous, monotonous, self-conscious, and deficient in character and eccentricity. In an admiring Under the Radar review of the new album, Ryan E.C. Hamm wrote, ?Overall, Trouble Will Find Me is another accomplished entry for a band that doesn't seem to know how to do anything else.? To which I?d reply: exactly.

The National makes me feel that rock music, like much of American literature and visual art before it, has died and gone to graduate school. The band delivers certifiable Quality-with-a-capital-Q, a perfect product of the English and music departments?the way that Lady Gaga is a perfect product of the semiotics department and an MBA program, though I definitely prefer Lady Gaga. At my most extreme, I?d even claim that the National reflects the way social and economic stratification are narrowing the space for cultural free agency and rewarding artists who straightforwardly serve either the libido of the mass market or the neurotic narcissism of the privileged classes.

I know that?s an unfair load to pile on a fine band that many people enjoy. It?s also probably a rationalization for a more gut-level dislike. Which catches me in an ideological contradiction.

In recent years, most people, and critics in particular, have become more live-and-let-live about one another?s varying musical tastes. Teen-pop, dance music, metal, and even Phil Collins, to name a few frequent targets of scorn, are all accorded their place. Dump on Kanye or Ke$ha or Justin Bieber and watch how quickly we critics will come back at you. This may represent a swing of the pendulum back to pop writing?s roots in questioning the divide between high art and supposed trash. Or it may be because of MP3s and YouTube exposing us all to more material, or something more socially complex.

Whatever the cause, I have been a cheerleader for this shift to ?poptimism.? I?ve even written a whole book about why it matters not to be contemptuous of, say, Celine Dion. So I?m well aware that if you engage with almost any segment of culture that other people hold dear you?ll find meaning and value there.

That?s what the National?s very reasonable fans say to me when I sneer??Yeah, I know a lot of people think they?re dull, but if you really listen you?ll hear how much is going on ?? The version that gave me most pause came from Owen Pallett, the brilliant solo performer (formerly under the sobriquet Final Fantasy) and close collaborator with Arcade Fire, the Mountain Goats, Grizzly Bear, Beirut, and others. In a Facebook thread where a few of us were disparaging the band, he piped in: ?The National is the ultimate ?They suck! except for that one song? band, and that song is different for everyone. I?m pretty sure I could put together a mix tape of National songs that would convince any hater.?

My first impulse was to ask him to send me that mix tape. My second was to say, ?Shut up! I hate that goddamn band!? I went with the latter.

In the end, it simply seems too repressive and stultifying to demand that we give up entirely on the fundamental pop pleasure of taking a side. Too often that instinct has manifested itself in discarding important genres, or valid modes such as sentimental or aggressive music, and especially in masking a social prejudice as an aesthetic one?hating artist x as a stand-in for hating ?the kind of people who listen to x.? In this case, though, I?m the kind of person who listens to the National?adult, white, middle-class, liberal-artsy. If the competition is merely intramural, merely Beatles-versus-Stones, I get to choose my colors.

Owen was right: If I repeatedly listened to the Best of the National I would grow to appreciate the ways the rhythmic and melodic sides of the band circle each other like bull and matador to produce a dramatic tension, or the dialectic between pained sincerity and sardonic self-deprecation in singer Matt Berninger?s crafty lyrics. Going back and playing the past few albums I felt it happening: I noticed how deeply Berninger has absorbed Leonard Cohen, for instance, in the way that he flips from grand symbolism to mundane detail and confessions of ineptitude. Which is, as a rule, like crack to me.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=cbd2534b47365b284f2483e12af13e8a

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New on DVD, Blu-ray: May 28 - Montreal Gazette

The Magic Christian

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Despite an all-star cast headlined by Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, this black comedy bombed on release in theatres in 1969, and now it bombs again on Blu-ray and DVD. Sellers plays Sir Guy Grand, a filthy rich Londoner who adopts a homeless young man (Starr) and takes him on all sorts of outings to show how everyone can be bought off with wads of cash. To the tune of Badfinger's "Come and Get It" (written and produced by Paul McCartney) and Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air," the duo crash Sir Guy's company board meeting, go out on a grouse hunt, take a train ride, bid wildly at an art auction, and finally steam off to New York on a luxury ocean liner, The Magic Christian. Curiosity at all the celebrity cameos is the only reason to screen this unfunny exercise in sketch satire written by Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider). There's Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough, Roman Polanski, Yul Brynner, Spike Milligan, Wilfrid Hyde-White, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Laurence Harvey, who subverts a performance of Hamlet by turning it into a striptease. Ha-ha. The outdoor scenes are marred by amateurish studio post-dubs of dialogue, adding to the unreality. No extras or subtitles on the Olive discs. Jeff Heinrich

Life is Sweet

Rating: 4 out of 5

This third feature film by Mike Leigh (Topsy-Turvy, Naked, Secrets & Lies) marked the British writer-director's big international breakthrough with the critics. Released in 1990, it's a family dramedy about wildly different 22-year-old twin sisters in a working-class suburb of London: Natalie (Claire Skinner) is the good but rather boring old soul, Nicola (Jane Horrocks) is the screwed-up one with a bulimia problem. Jim Broadbent and Alison Steadman play their well-meaning parents, Andy and Wendy, who struggle to get into food-vending and the restaurant business but don't have much luck. The acting is first-rate and true, the story having been sketched out Leigh-style through improvisation and long rehearsals prior to filming, lending an authenticity to the high and lows of "normal" family life that makes this movie instantly accessible and memorable. Roger Ebert, may he rest in peace, called it "funny, spontaneous and free" and "close to the stuff of life itself," and said watching it "made me realize how boring and thin many movies are." See for yourself with this fine-looking Criterion Blu-ray (also available on DVD), whose extras include a director's commentary, an-hour long audio interview with Leigh from 1991, five short films by the director totalling 28 minutes, and an illustrated booklet. JH

Dark Skies

Rating: 2.5 stars

Is it the house? Is it the people? Or is it an alien presence that's haunting the nice family down the street? In the end, it doesn't really matter what plasma force is circulating through the frames in Dark Skies because the movie handles the horror in a completely generic fashion. From strange noises and bizarre stunts with canned food, the paranormal symptoms are ramped up over the course of the film until someone starts levitating. Because the movie handles a great deal of the weirdness in broad daylight, and offers two grown-ups (Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton) who recognize how psychotic they appear to the rest of the world, the audience has a pretty sympathetic touchstone, and enough intellectual distance, to make this camp trip worth the deja-vu view. Special features include commentary with director Scott Stewart, deleted scenes and more. Katherine Monk

Becoming Redwood

Rating: 3 stars

Vancouver director Jesse James Miller brings a long-gestating script to the big screen with the bittersweet Becoming Redwood, a coming of age story set against the neon-green world of golf. Young Redwood (Ryan Grantham) is having a hard time accepting the separation of his parents, not to mention the recent incarceration of his hippie dad on drug charges, so he imagines a fantasy golf showdown that pits his nascent skills on the links with the Golden Bear himself, Jack Nicklaus. Though heavily contrived and frequently sappy, Becoming Redwood still boils the heartbreak of youth down to a tasty syrup. Special features include cast and crew interviews, behind the scenes footage. KM

Hellbound

Rating: 3.5 stars

Is there a Hell or isn't there? Thank goodness none of us knows the answer for sure, but eternal damnation is still a surprisingly fun topic to chew on all the same. Writer-director Kevin Miller takes a look at the whole burning ball of wax in this ambitious, fragmented but perpetually fascinating discussion that explores the religious fundamentals, and why we're so focused on an abstract version of retribution instead of figuring out the pragmatics of justice in the here and now. It all boils down to personal responsibility, but also our understanding of the basic mechanics of storytelling. One of the more interesting sources quoted in the film is screenwriting "guru" Robert McKee, who happily describes himself as an atheist. McKee says dealing with the consequences of one's actions is the basis of good storytelling; it keeps suspense in the picture. Hell is an example of what he calls "junkie logic" - and the urge to deal with things later instead of now. Thoughtful and provocative, if entirely too broad to say anything specific, Hellbound still has plenty of sizzle. Special features include outtakes, featurette and commentary. KM

Open Road

Rating: 2 stars

Put on your travelling pants, sisterhood! A politically correct estrogen-fuelled vehicle just pulled up to the DVD drive, and it's looking for some company. Granted, it's not going anywhere too fast. And it's not exactly a turbo-charged dream machine with plenty of curb value. Open Road is a sensible sedan of a movie starring Camilla Belle as a young painter who takes to the road in a quest to find her long lost father. She meets an interesting cast of predictable characters, including a wise old man named Chuck (Andy Garcia) - whom she paints in various poses. The two form a tender bond, but the outside world has a habit of intruding on such pastoral, campfire moments among the homeless. Quaint but completely clich?d - right down to the art show climax - the only thing that redeems this oddly shot feature is the supporting cast. Garcia does wonders with the throat-closing lines and Juliette Lewis hands in yet another little gem of a turn as a diner waitress diva. Belle is watchable, but a little too mushy when it really matters. Special features include digital copy, the making-of and trailer. KM

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/New+on+DVD+Blu+-+ray+May+28/8443463/story.html

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Klein tunneling: Coupled particles cross energy wall

May 29, 2013 ? Model demonstrates that it is possible for two particles to cross an energy barrier together, where a single particle could not

For the first time, a new kind of so-called Klein tunnelling-representing the quantum equivalent of crossing an energy wall- has been presented in a model of two interacting particles. This work by Stefano Longhi and Giuseppe Della Valle from the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology in Milan, Italy, is about to be published in The European Physical Journal B.

Klein tunnelling is a quantum phenomenon referring to the fact that a high-potential barrier can be transparent to a particle moving at a speed nearing that of light, referred to as relativistic. Most of the previous Klein tunnelling models describe the phenomenon for a single particle. However, when two particles are involved, tunnelling can be modified as a result of their mutual interaction. This means, for example, that two electrons hopping on a lattice, or two ultra-cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice can exchange energy when they occupy the same lattice site.

The authors relied on an analytical and numerical study of a landmark model of interacting particles, called the Hubbard model. It is typically used to describe particle pairs in condensed matter such as in semi-conductors and in so-called matter wave physics, used for instance to describe microscopic particles oscillating between their material and wave-like characteristics. Longhi and Della Valle predict a new type of Klein tunnelling for a couple of interacting particles confronted by an energy barrier. Even though the barrier is impenetrable for single particles, it becomes transparent when the two particles cross the energy barrier together.

They expect these predictions to be confirmed experimentally in ultra-cold atoms trapped in optical lattices. If this is the case, similar quantum simulation could be a tool for emulating multiple-particle systems that cannot be modelled using classical computations.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/hEGnv3-c8g0/130529092204.htm

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Money laundering distorts Colombia's economic comeback

By Helen Murphy and Nelson Bocanegra

PUERTO NUEVO, Colombia (Reuters) - Rotting wooden planks heave as dozens of barefoot Wayuu Indians carry washing machines, fans and stereos on their backs from the hull of a cargo ship docked on the tip of northern Colombia.

Throughout the night, they unload thousands of boxes piled 30 feet high and haul them down the battered ramp to waiting trucks.

By torchlight, customs director Claudia Gaviria rips open a box at the makeshift wharf at Puerto Nuevo on the La Guajira peninsula. She counts the number of fans against documents supplied by the ship.

"If there's more than the paperwork says, we will seize the merchandise and investigate because it could be contraband or even money laundering," said Gaviria, taping the box up and reaching for another. "We found some doctored papers on this ship."

Contraband smuggled into Colombia is part of multi-billion-dollar money laundering operations that damage legitimate businesses, undermining Colombia's bid to reinvent itself as a thriving economy after decades of political and drugs violence.

In complicated schemes, Colombian traffickers receive drug money from overseas dealers in the form of goods, often shipped along with legitimate merchandise. Once the goods are sold and a sales receipt given, the drug money is clean.

The amount of money laundered from the trafficking of drugs, arms and human beings in Colombia is estimated by experts to be as much as $17 billion a year - more than 5 percent of the economy's total value and more than total foreign direct investment last year.

Much of the merchandise unloaded by the Wayuu - the bulk of it legitimate - will make its way to the desert town of Maicao, a Wild West type of place that sells cheap designer perfumes and whiskey at half the retail price, alongside knock offs of Prada and Giorgio Armani label goods.

"That goods are sold at lower prices than they are produced in the factory says it all," said national tax agency head Juan Ricardo Ortega.

Last year, as much as $128 million worth of contraband was seized by authorities, less than 10 percent of the amount estimated to come into Colombia, according to government data.

"It's an impossible task," said Luis Carlos Canas, head of the tax office in northern Maicao, as he inspects ingots of aluminum on an 18-wheeler crossing the border from Venezuela. "We just don't have the human resources to check everything."

Exports also are part of the laundering business. Fake paperwork is created for overseas sales that do not exist. Once the paperwork is filed at the customs office, cash from international drug deals can enter without raising suspicion.

Colombia's official annual gold exports are reported to be as much as 70 tons, Ortega said, although the industry only produces 15 tons. While there is a considerable amount of artisanal gold that could account for some of the extra, Ortega suspects the bulk is fictitious sales.

DISTORTIONS

So while Colombia continues to transform its image from a violence-plagued nation to an investment magnet with booming oil and mining industries, the economy is skewed by the money laundering of traffickers' cocaine sales abroad.

Colombia has for decades struggled to reduce crime linked to the drug trade, waging a U.S.-backed war against Marxist rebels, right-wing paramilitary groups and cocaine cartels. But crime gangs have become more wily in duping authorities.

Back in the days of Colombia's best-known drug lord, Pablo Escobar, in the 1980s, so much laundered cash simply came in by plane from the United States that dealers just buried it around their homes. Now things are far more sophisticated.

There are three main ways the gangs clean their money: smuggling undeclared physical cash across the border; through the financial system; and via contraband.

It is not just the proceeds from drug trafficking - about $8.8 billion a year - that gets laundered. Money earned from corruption, gun running, prostitution, and illegal gold mining also needs to be cleaned.

Once it makes it into Colombia's $330 billion economy, it can inflate economic growth numbers by several basis points, said Luis Edmundo Suarez, head of the UIAF, a government body that looks into suspicious money movements and sends them for investigation.

"The launderer is only interested in injecting the money into the system," Suarez said at his Bogota office. "It creates suffering, distorts the economy and alters reference prices as he doesn't care if he loses money, just that it's cleaned."

Ortega reckons a large range of official data from inflation to real estate, retail, exports, imports and agricultural output may be different than reported due to fake or overstated sales from laundering.

The problem for ordinary Colombians, Ortega says, is that laundered goods are mostly sold at below-market prices, which elbows out and often shutters competitors.

Conversely, it can create price bubbles in certain sectors when criminals pay excessive amounts for goods like farms or bill extra through restaurants and stores.

"For a poor country, the social impact is brutal," Ortega said. "It limits growth and destroys opportunity for legitimate business."

Cattle ranching, for example, is a common financing vehicle along with drugs for left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, as well as other drug cartels.

CUTTING CATTLE PRICES

They often pay above value for cattle farms and that in turn pushes up prices for neighboring property. Then they liquidate assets, the cattle, to receive quick cash, cutting the price of livestock in the area.

Many agriculture businesses in central Meta province, for example, are looking to sell off and get out because they cannot compete with the low livestock prices on offer.

"You can tell from the price of beef in some rural areas when a crime gang is selling its stock of cattle," Suarez said.

Farmers are intimidated into selling their land and offered cash sums they can't refuse, according to a cattle rancher with land in Meta who requested anonymity for security reasons.

"It's hard to refuse the drug dealers," the rancher said. "And we also face herds of cattle coming in illegally from Venezuela as contraband that slashes the price of the beef."

The government says the FARC is among the biggest owners of cattle - assets that are easy to turn into cash to buy weapons or food and clothing for their 8,000-strong fighting force.

Colombia's financial system, surprisingly, is among the most rigid and successful in protecting against money launderers. Red flags go up with any unusual movement of cash.

Banking clients complain about the charges levied each month and the mountain of paperwork needed to open an account, but Maria Mercedes Cuellar, head of the Asobancaria banking union, says that is what keeps the system safe. "Colombia has more controls in its system than most places in the world, even more than in the U.S," she said.

But that also causes its own set of problems, she says, since it facilitates a cash-based economy that enables launderers. They simply work outside the system, she said.

Even so, Interbolsa, one of Colombia's biggest financial institutions until it was seized by authorities late last year, is being investigated for alleged money laundering.

While detecting smuggled goods has proved tough, authorities have turned to accountants to catch the smugglers, just as U.S. authorities did with legendary gangster Al Capone in the 1930s.

"If we can't pursue them for contraband or laundering, we'll pursue them for tax evasion," Claudia Rincon, head of the tax office's legal department, said of the uphill task. One of her agents was assassinated just weeks ago in connection with her work as a tax investigator.

The attorney general's office says that as the government gets tougher on launderers, the cases are piling up and the judiciary needs more personnel to take them to trial.

"Indisputably we need triple the number of lawyers and investigators dedicated to this crime of money laundering," Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre told Reuters.

ECONOMIC MORPHINE

It might seem that huge amounts of cash entering the economy - into luxury cars, real estate, and clothing - would cause the economy to boom but experts disagree.

"It's like when you inject morphine into a cancer victim," Suarez said. "At first you feel good and you have less pain but then you die. There's absolutely no way that you can consider money laundering as positive for the economy."

The lowly smugglers who do the leg work certainly do not see much of the profit but they say there are few other ways to make a living.

"How else can we feed our families?" Juancho said after being pulled from his car by police on a highway in La Guajira province. The police confiscated plastic jerry cans of fuel, part of a multi-million-dollar gasoline running business that thrives along the porous border with Venezuela.

Cheap fuel, at 2 cents a gallon, is smuggled over the border from Venezuela in cars outfitted with fake tanks, hollowed-out seats and double paneled doors, and sold at $5 at lucrative pumping stations in Colombia.

As Juancho was being questioned by police outside the car, his partner sped off in their red souped-up Renault 18, screeching over spiked barricades as police trained their rifles at it.

Juancho was later released. He says he earns just $13 for risking the four-hour race south with the gasoline but he has no intention of giving up.

"We'll be back tomorrow," he said. "They won't stop us."

(Editing by Kieran Murray, Claudia Parsons and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/money-laundering-distorts-colombias-economic-comeback-054741514.html

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Cancer patient missing, presumed dead after NY plane crash - U.S. ...

EPHRATAH, N.Y. -- The search for a brain cancer patient who was on the volunteer medical flight that crashed in a wooded area of central New York stretched into a third day Monday.

Frank and Evelyn Amerosa of Utica, N.Y., were aboard an Angel Flight on Friday night when the twin-engine aircraft went down in Ephratah, a small town about an hour west of Albany, according to police and family members.

Officials and family said John Campbell, 70, of Stamford, Conn., was flying the couple back from the Boston area, where Frank Amerosa was being treated for brain cancer.

The bodies of Campbell and Evelyn Amerosa have been recovered from the rural crash site. Dozens of searchers, including a helicopter crew, continued searching the woods and water Sunday for 64-year-old Frank Amerosa, who was presumed dead, said Sgt. Brian Van Nostrand of the Fulton County Sheriff's Department.

Frank Amerosa, a retired trucker, had been diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago. Evelyn Amerosa, 58, worked at an area nursing home, directing residents in activities such as bingo and trips ? a job she loved, said her daughter Heather Theobald. She said her mother had been with her stepfather for at least 16 years. The couple loved to travel and had recently returned from the Bahamas.

"Very happy, very much love, very optimistic, they did everything for anybody," Theobald told The Associated Press. "They were just very good people. They were loved by a lot of people."

Campbell was a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight, a nonprofit group that arranges free air transportation for the sick.

"John loved to fly and truly believed in the mission of Angel Flight. He loved volunteering his time and we take some solace in the fact he died doing something he loved while trying to help others," according to a family statement read to the AP by his daughter Kimberly Conti, of Rutherford, N.J.

Rescue workers on Sunday scoured the woods and searched a murky pond where the bulk of the aircraft was submerged. Wreckage from the crash was dispersed over a large area, with pieces of the plane found as far as five miles away.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators who returned to the crash site Sunday aim to retrieve the bulk of the wreckage from the water over the next few days, said agency spokesman Eric Weiss. They are looking for smartphones, GPS devices, computer tablets or other items that could "give the investigators some electronic evidence of what happened in the last minutes of flight," he said.

The Piper PA 34 had departed from Hanscom Field in Bedford, Mass., and was headed to Rome, N.Y., before it crashed just after 5 p.m. Friday, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. The plane did not issue a distress call before losing radar and radio contact, the NTSB said.

Witnesses described the destruction that started in the air above Ephratah.

Joan Dudley, owner of Granny's Ice Cream Shanty, which is less than a mile from the crash site, said she and her employees saw the plane flip, then fall apart Friday night.

"Parts and pieces of it were flying through the sky, and a body fell out," Dudley said.

The Associated Press

Related:

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/27/18526102-cancer-patient-missing-presumed-dead-after-ny-plane-crash?lite

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President Serzh Sargsyan?s address on Republic Day

President Serzh Sargsyan visited today Sardarapat Memorial Complex to attend a Republic Day-dated festive event and deliver congratulatory remarks on the Republic Day.

Address by President Serzh Sargsyan on Republic Day

Your Holiness!
Generals, officers and soldiers!
Dear brothers and sisters!
I cordially congratulate you on the occasion of the Republic Day!
95 years ago at Gharakilisa, Bash-Aparan and particularly here, in Sardarapat, we were put to a fatal test. It was a nationwide test for old and young, clergy and military, Dashnaks and Communists, officials and peasantry. All of us. In the last patch of historic Armenia, the last handful of Armenians living in their Fatherland were combating.

Here we stopped and forced back the enemy; and the world had neither illusions nor doubts about the adversary?s racist and anti-Armenian intentions. Here the Armenians of Eastern Armenia averted the impending calamity. The Genocide that originated in the Ottoman Turkey and was consistently perpetrated and proliferated was stopped here owing to our spirit of unity.

For many nations declaration of independence was a political act and even a grand ceremony whereas for us it was an ordeal. We did not even know that one or two days after the courageous May battles we would declare independece. We created Armenia?s statehood right in the battle field at the expense of enormous casualties and losses, thanks to blood and faith, standing behind each other, looking forward. United!

May 28, 1918 heralded our physical deliverance and political rebirth; consequently, our people?s valor and vigor were superbly manifested during the Great Patriotic War and in the battle of Artsakh. Today, here at Sardarapat, the Armenian soldier?s firm tread and victorious spirit testify in the best possible way that we know the formula of survival and victory.

Dear compatriots!
Why did we erect this monument and regularly come here? As the poet Paruyr Sevak said: ?You, generations, get to know yourself through Sardarapat.? We need to remember and remind and convey to the younger generations the important message left by the ones who prepared and made May 28 a reality.

Be united!
Be consolidated by statehood!
Rely on your own strength!

Thus we are capable not only to restore our statehood and independence disrupted for centuries but make considerable achievements. Their foundations were laid here and today we are standing here proudly as citizens of a free and independent country, the heirs of heroic grandfathers.
Dear compatriots!

Once again, I congratulate all of us on the occasion of this magnificent holiday. I wish happiness and success to our people, and peace and progress to our nation.

Glory to the Armenian people who fought the heroic May 28 battle!
Glory to the Republic of Armenia!
Glory to the armed forces of the Republic Armenia!
Hurrah!
?

In case you have found a mistake in the text, please send a message to the editor by selecting the mistake and pressing Ctrl-Enter.

Source: http://www.panorama.am/en/society/2013/05/28/president-address/

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Advice That Can Make Real Estate Buying Stress Free ? Hot Article ...

It can be quite daunting to buy real estate, particularly for first time buyers. But, the process can prove profitable, and if done well, can cause your lifestyle to drastically and quickly improve. This article has some information to help you get started buying real estate whether you are a first-time buyer, or a veteran.

Get a home guarantee by way of a warranty. Ask for warranty coverage when buying directly from a builder or from a seller. Builders usually offer a warranty on the work they do for a designated amount of time. Prior owners of your newly-purchased home should have no problem providing a home warranty of some duration as a way of compensating you for repairs that may need to be made.

Before you go house hunting, check out your credit report. When you get a copy of your credit history, look through the report the issues you might have. You will need to have your credit in good shape when starting the process of buying a home as this is what helps you secure a loan.

When you are looking to make a great investment on your real estate, you should consider doing some repair and remodel work. Your property?s value will increase quickly if you do this. Sometimes it will rise more than you have invested.

Have a moderate approach when you negotiate while buying real estate. Many times people are too aggressive because they are trying to get the best price, and they end up losing out entirely. It?s best to tell your real estate agent what you want, and let them handle the negotiations themselves. They have experience.

If you want to buy a home that has a nice view, you do not have to pay more for the view. Even though you value the view highly, when it comes time for you to resell the house, your buyer might not think so. Therefore, do not over pay for a home simply because you are entranced with the view.

Take a moderate approach to negotiating a real estate purchase. Often, people who are too aggressive about trying to make the best possible deal work against their own best interests. Instead, offer a fair market price and let your Realtor do the negotiating.

Educate yourself on mortgage loan terms before you look into purchasing real estate. Make sure you have a solid grasp of how the terms of a mortgage can affect your mortgage payment and the total price you are going to pay for the home. If these things make sense to you now, it will prevent confusion later.

When you are considering purchasing a building for business use, do your research on the surrounding neighborhood to ensure it is a safe and stable area. If you open your business in a down trodden community, a large base of clientele is unlikely to happen. Real estate agents will be able to advise you as to the best places to open a business.

There is no question, anyone who doesn?t procure the services of a professional inspector when they prepare to buy a house is in deep trouble. Although you will have to pay someone to perform this service, do not engage the services of a friend or relative, as you will be at a disadvantage if they happen to miss something during the inspection.

Try asking the seller to aid you in closing costs or giving financial incentives. Many people ask sellers to buy down interest rates for a couple of years. If adding financial incentives to an offer, the seller may not negotiate your selling price, though.

For the first time real estate buyer it can be similar to a nightmare. But with a little effort, and a pinch of smarts, you?ll do just fine. Follow our tips and you?re sure to become wise to the ways of the real estate market.

The above guide has been written by the owner of Prudential Real Estate Greensboro.See his blog to get more on this.

Source: http://hotarticledepot.com/advice-that-can-make-real-estate-buying-stress-free/

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New gene discovery for babies born with hole in the heart

May 27, 2013 ? New gene discovery for babies born with hole in the heart A new gene associated with a form of congenital heart disease in newborn babies -- known as "a hole in the heart" has been discovered by researchers. British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor Bernard Keavney, from The University of Manchester and Newcastle University, led the research which saw investigators from Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford and Leicester universities in the UK, together with colleagues in Europe, Australia and Canada pool resources.

The discovery, published in Nature Genetics today, will help lead to better understanding of why some patients are born with the disorder. Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common form of congenital malformation, occurring in seven in 1000 babies born and is one of the major causes of childhood death and illness. Most patients born with CHD now survive to adulthood, so identifying the responsible genes is important as experts attempt to provide individual-specific genetic counselling for these people.

In about 20% of cases, a predisposing cause can be identified, for example Down's Syndrome, but in the remainder of patients, although genes are recognised to be important, scientists do not know the identity of these genes. The study, funded by the BHF and the Wellcome Trust, looked at over 2,000 CHD patients and measured over 500,000 genetic markers which vary in the general population. The genetic markers in the patients were compared to the markers of over 5,600 people in good health who acted as a control group.

The researchers found a relationship between a particular region of the human genome and risk of atrial septal defect (ASD) -- a "hole" between the heart's blood-collecting chambers, which they went on to confirm in additional cases of atrial septal defect and healthy controls. BHF Professor Keavney, Director of the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences at The University of Manchester, said identifying a gene associated with one type of CHD was an important step forward. "We found that a common genetic variation near a gene called Msx1 was strongly associated with the risk of a particular type of CHD called atrial septal defect or hole in the heart," he said. "ASD is one of the most common forms of congenital heart disease, and it carries a risk of heart failure and stroke. We estimated that around 10% of ASDs may be due to the gene we found. We can now work to find out how Msx1 and/or its neighbour genes affect the risk of ASD."

Researchers looked at all the major types of congenial heart disease (CHD), but they did not find a genetic marker common in all types of CHD. Professor Keavney added: "Our work also suggests that if we conduct larger studies we will be able to find genes that cause other types of CHD. Although we are not there yet, further studies may enable us to give better genetic counselling to high risk families. Also, when we identify genes important in the development of the heart because they have gone wrong, it helps us understand normal development better. Such an understanding is fundamental to any attempt to treat people with heart disease at any age -- for example those suffering from heart failure -- using regenerative medicine." Dr Shannon Amoils, Senior Research Advisor at the BHF, which part-funded the study, said: "We've made great strides in treating congenital heart disease; most babies born with a heart defect have a much brighter future now than they would have had in the 1960s when the BHF was founded. But we still need to fund much more research like this, to better understand the fundamental causes of congenital heart defects. "These important results show how large collaborative studies are incredibly useful for uncovering the influence of our genes on congenital heart disease.

As researchers continue to identify other associated genes, we will be able to better predict the chances of children being born with heart problems, and will also learn more about the underlying processes that can go wrong in the developing heart."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/HrEb32Btxbo/130527100532.htm

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John Hammons dies: 'I swore I would never be poor'

John Hammons, who grew up during the Depression, built some 200 hotels and donated millions of dollars to hospitals, colleges, and public television, mostly in and around Springfield, Mo. Most have 'John Q. Hammons' in their name, prompting jokes that Springfield should be renamed 'Hammonsville.'

By Alan Scher Zagier,?Associated Press / May 27, 2013

John Q. Hammons, a prominent hotel developer and philanthropist, died May 26 at a nursing home in Springfield, Mo., said Sheri Davidson Smith, a spokeswoman for John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts.

Courtesy of John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts / AP

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John Q.?Hammons, a prominent hotel developer and southwest Missouri philanthropist who rose from a poor Depression-era childhood to build a national real estate empire, has died. He was 94.

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Hammons, who actively led his company well into his 80s, died peacefully Sunday at a nursing home in Springfield, said Sheri Davidson Smith, a spokeswoman for John Q.?Hammons?Hotels & Resorts.

Hammons' first business ? a company that sold mortar-less bricks ? went bust in the late 1940s, saddling him with debt. He paid off that debt after two years and recovered to build housing subdivisions in southwest Missouri over the next decade before purchasing 10 Holiday Inn franchises with a partner in 1958 from the company's founder.

He went on to build 200 hotels nationwide, including Embassy Suites, Marriotts, Radissons, and Holiday Inns. Hammons?also developed an expansive real estate portfolio associated with those hotels of golf courses, restaurants, convention centers, a casino, and riverboat gambling. He avoided big-city locations in favor of properties in college towns and state capitals.

"He would say, 'The kids will always go to school, and you can't fire the damn politicians,'" former company executive Scott Tarwater said in a March 2011 interview.

Along the way, he donated millions of dollars to local hospitals, colleges, and public television. His name graces so many buildings and streets in Springfield ? from the basketball arena at Missouri State University to the city's tallest building ? that comedian Bob Hope once joked that the city should change its name to "Hammonsville."

He regularly appeared on Forbes magazine's list of the wealthiest Americans and estimated his personal wealth several years ago at $1 billion. He took his company public in 1994 before returning it to private ownership a decade later. During his career, according to the company,?Hammons?developed 210 hotel properties in 40 states.

"He has made such a major, significant difference to this community," Jim Anderson, president of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, said in a 2007 interview. "Some people may not see the way he has put us on the map."

But?Hammons's recent years were shrouded in secrecy and controversy. In March 2011, a group of friends asked Greene County probate court to appoint?Hammons?a public guardian.

The friends' lawsuit said they weren't being allowed to visit him at a Springfield nursing home or even talk to him on the phone after Jacqueline Dowdy, whom?Hammons?gave power of attorney several years ago, took control of the John Q.?Hammons?Hotels & Resorts in October 2010, purged most of its top officials and placed Hammons?in "involuntary seclusion."

The court appointed a Springfield doctor in May 2011 to serve as?Hammons's temporary guardian. The doctor allowed supervised visits with?Hammons, though that didn't alleviate the feud. Dowdy, a former administrative assistant and accountant, became CEO after nearly 40 years of working alongside?Hammons.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/A86t0997rOE/John-Hammons-dies-I-swore-I-would-never-be-poor

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British police arrest three more over killing of soldier

LONDON (Reuters) - British counter-terrorism police arrested three men on Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy to murder over the killing of a soldier near a barracks in London.

Police arrested two men, aged 24 and 28, at a house in the south of the capital, the city's police force said. A third man, aged 21, was detained in southeast London.

Two men are recovering in hospital after being shot and arrested by police on suspicion of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in London on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/british-police-arrest-man-spy-claim-soldier-case-111627204.html

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Mo. highway buckles after rail cars hit overpass

Damaged railcars lie on the ground near Rockview, Mo. on Saturday, May 25, 2013. Authorities said a highway overpass collapsed when rail cars slammed into one of the bridge's pillars after a cargo train collision. Seven people were injured, though none seriously. (AP Photo/KFVS, Michael Mohundro)

Damaged railcars lie on the ground near Rockview, Mo. on Saturday, May 25, 2013. Authorities said a highway overpass collapsed when rail cars slammed into one of the bridge's pillars after a cargo train collision. Seven people were injured, though none seriously. (AP Photo/KFVS, Michael Mohundro)

Emergency personnel respond to the scene where of a train derailment near Rockview, Mo. Saturday, May 25, 2013. The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into the cause of a cargo train collision that partially collapsed a highway overpass in southeast Missouri, injuring seven people. (AP Photo/Southeast Missourian, Fred Lynch)

A car lies in-between damaged sections of a highway overpass near Rockview, Mo. on Saturday, May 25, 2013. Authorities said the roadway collapsed when rail cars slammed into one of the bridge's pillars after a cargo train collision. Seven people were injured, though none seriously. (AP Photo/KFVS, Michael Mohundro)

Emergency personnel investigate the Route M overpass at Rockview, Mo., about 10 miles south of Cape Girardeau, Mo., after it collapsed onto the railroad tracks, Saturday, May 25, 2013. The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into the cause of a cargo train collision that partially collapsed a highway overpass in southeast Missouri, injuring seven people. (AP Photo/Southeast Missourian, Fred Lynch)

Officials survey the scene just east of the Route M overpass where several train cars derailed on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train near Rockview, Mo. Saturday, May 25, 2013. The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into the cause of a cargo train collision that partially collapsed a highway overpass in southeast Missouri, injuring seven people. (AP Photo/Southeast Missourian, Fred Lynch)

CHAFFEE, Mo. (AP) ? A Missouri highway overpass that partially collapsed when rail cars smashed into one of its support pillars after a cargo train collision was about 15 years old and in good condition but just couldn't withstand the impact, a sheriff said.

Seven people in two cars on the overpass were injured, none seriously, when two 40-foot sections of the overpass crumpled early Saturday.

"You're driving down the road and the next thing you know the bridge is not there. ... It could have been really bad," Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter said. He said the bridge, though in good condition, couldn't withstand the impact of the rail cars.

The collapse occurred after a Union Pacific train struck the side of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train at a rail intersection, Walter said. Derailed rail cars then struck columns supporting the Highway M overpass, causing it to buckle and partially collapse.

The derailed rail cars were loaded with scrap metal, automobiles and auto parts.

The National Transportation Safety Board has begun an investigation into the cause of the cargo train collision near Chaffee, a small town southwest of Cape Girardeau.

The two cars were the only ones on the overpass at the time, authorities said.

Five people in the two cars were taken to Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, as were a Union Pacific train conductor and an engineer. All seven were released later Saturday, hospital spokeswoman Felecia Blanton said.

Blanton said she was bracing for the worst, given the dramatic footage posted online from the early news coverage. She said it was "a real blessing" that the injuries were relatively minor, the most serious being a fracture.

A diesel fire also broke out in one of the locomotives after the collision, but was quickly put out, Walter said. He said a deputy arriving early on the scene pulled the two Union Pacific employees out of the wrecked engine, which became lodged next to the train's second engine.

The accident came more than a week after a commuter train derailment in Connecticut that injured 70 people and disrupted service for days. That accident involved a railroad corridor used by tens of thousands of commuters north of New York City.

In Washington state this past week, a bridge collapsed when a truck driver's load bumped against the steel framework.

NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said while the investigations into both collapses are in the early stages "there is no similarity" between the Missouri accident and the bridge collapse in Washington, which sent two vehicles and three people falling into the chilly water.

He noted that the Missouri bridge was rated "good" after its last inspection in February.

"This was not because of any lack of integrity of the bridge in southeast Missouri, but because of a train that derailed and had a bunch of rail cars slamming around," he said.

The Union Pacific train was carrying primarily automobiles or auto parts from Illinois to Texas, said UP spokeswoman Calli Hite. She said about a dozen UP railcars derailed but there was no immediate estimate on the damages.

BNSF spokesman Andy Williams said about 12 cars on the 75-car BNSF train derailed. The BNSF crew was not hurt.

Sumwalt said the NTSB investigation to determine a likely cause will include routine testing of railroad employees for drugs and alcohol, testing of the track and rail signals and examinationof the video footage from the front of the train.

Investigators also are expected to scrutinize the bridge's design, Sumwalt said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-26-Train%20Derailment-Missouri/id-6208be224353413ab8b9436ce7c03c96

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PRESS DIGEST - Sunday British business - May 26

LONDON, May 26 (Reuters) - British newspapers reported the

following business stories on Sunday:

The Sunday Times:

FOUNDERS TO GRAB ENRC ON THE CHEAP

Kazakhmys, the largest investor in ENRC,

has fallen in behind a 3.3 billion pound ($5 billion) takeover

bid for the FTSE 100-listed miner, all but ensuring its success

despite protests from independent directors.

VULTURE FUNDS SWOOP ON AILING YELLOW PAGES

Wall Street vulture funds are homing in on a debt-for-equity

takeover of Hibu, the struggling owner of Britain's

Yellow Pages, according to the Sunday Times.

MCDONALD'S IN BID TO SWALLOW LITTLE CHEF

Fast food firms McDonald's and KFC have

tabled bids to take over Britain's roadside dining chain Little

Chef, according to the Sunday Times.

Whitbread's Costa Coffee is also in the hunt for the

group put up for sale by turnaround specialists R Capital last

month, according to the newspaper. None of the bidders are

expected to keep the Little Chef name.

CENTRICA THREATENS TO DITCH WIND FARM

British Gas owner Centrica has threatened to ditch

plans for a 2 billion pound ($3 billion) wind farm off Britain's

east coast unless the government meets its demands for hundreds

of millions of pounds in subsidies, the Sunday Times said.

SERCO TILTS AT LEGAL AID BONANZA

British outsourcing firm Serco could bid for

government contracts to arrange legal representation for

defendants in criminal trials, according to the Sunday Times.

LOSS-MAKING GUARDIAN TO RAISE CASH FROM TECH SALE

Guardian Media Group, the owner of The Guardian

newspaper, is sounding out potential buyers for a 20 million

pound ($30.28 million) sale of its property software arm, GMG

Property Services, according to the Sunday Times.

DIAGEO BOSS CALLS TIME WITH 50 MLN STG

Outgoing Diageo chief executive Paul Walsh will

leave the world's biggest spirits producer with a package that

could be worth close to 50 million pounds ($75.69 million),

according to the Sunday Times.

CO-OP ON RACK OVER BANK ASSETS

The future of the Co-operative Bank may not be

resolved for more than a month as talks about filling a black

hole in its finances drag on, according to the Sunday Times.

The Sunday Telegraph:

FUNDS LINE UP 5 BLN STG BID FOR SEVERN TRENT

A consortium led by Canadian investor Borealis

Infrastructure is planning a second bid for Severn Trent

before the June 11 "put up or shut up" deadline, The Sunday

Telegraph said, citing senior figures close to the consortium.

The revised offer for the British water company is likely to

be in the region of 20 to 21 pounds, valuing it just shy of 5

billion pounds ($7.57 billion).

NEW CO-OP CHIEF TO TACKLE BANKING ISSUES WITH BOARD

Euan Sutherland, the new chief executive of the Co-Operative

Group, is to brief his board on the full extent of

the problems at its banking arm for the first time on Friday,

after holding "reassuring" talks with the banking regulator.

Sutherland will indicate that a plan to reduce the bank's

capital shortfall will be in place by the end of June, the

Sunday Telegraph understands.

FIRSTGROUP CEO OFFERED TO QUIT OVER SURPRISE RIGHTS ISSUE

FirstGroup chief executive Tim O'Toole offered to

resign from the rail and bus company before it announced its

controversial 615 million pound ($931 million) rights issue last

Monday, according to sources close to the firm.

O'Toole did not tender his resignation formally but did make

it clear that he would be prepared to take responsibility for

the rights issue which has led to a 43 percent slide in

FirstGroup's share price since Monday.

ENRC CALLS FOR VALUATION AS IT BRACES FOR SECOND BID

The chairman of ENRC's independent committee has

asked its advisers Lazard and Credit Suisse to individually

assess the value of the mining group ahead of an expected second

bid from a consortium led by the company's founders, according

to the Sunday Telegraph.

CITI TOWER CHANGES HANDS IN BLN STG DEAL

The Citi Tower, one of the largest buildings in London's

Canary Wharf, has been sold to Middle Eastern investment fund

AGC Equity Partners for 1 billion pounds ($1.51 billion), with

Ireland's "bad bank" NAMA receiving around 333 million pounds of

the proceeds, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

GOOGLE: UK MUST "FIX" TAX POLICIES IF IT WANTS MORE CASH

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has called on

the British government to "fix" its policies if it wants global

companies to pay more tax.

CVC PLANS $290 MLN PAYOUT AFTER FLOAT

CVC Capital, the private equity firm that controls

Formula One, is planning to pay a dividend of about $290 million

after the motorsport company lists its shares on the Singapore

stock exchange, according to a source close to the company.

Independent on Sunday:

RYANAIR'S DREAM TO BE GROUNDED

Ryanair will be told this week by a competition

watchdog to sell around half of its 30 percent stake in

Ireland's national flag carrier Aer Lingus, according

to the Independent on Sunday.

Sunday Express:

PENSIONS MERGER FOR PUBLIC SECTOR

More than 4 million public sector workers could find their

pension funds merged into one 150 billion pound ($227 billion)

super-scheme, according to the Sunday Express.

Local government minister Brandon Lewis is to launch a

consultation on merging the 89 local authority defined-benefit

pension schemes in England and Wales into a handful of schemes

or one super sized fund.

Mail on Sunday:

PUBS SET TO SUE COALITION OVER BEER SALES SHAKE-UP

British pub firms have threatened to sue the government in

European courts if it presses ahead with plans to reform the

industry by forcing companies to loosen their control over

tenants, the Mail on Sunday said, citing pub firm Enterprise

Inns and another source.

TREASURY STARTS HUNT FOR CHIEF TO SELL UK'S BANK STAKES

Britain's chancellor George Osborne has appointed headhunter

Spencer Stuart to find a banking expert to handle the sale of

taxpayers' stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds

.

BAILED-OUT BANKS 'FOUGHT REGULATOR OVER CRISIS FUNDS'

Royal Bank of Scotland was 'dragged kicking and

screaming' by the regulator to sell assets to help strengthen

its emergency reserves while Lloyds 'dragged its feet',

according to sources close to the talks.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/press-digest-sunday-british-business-may-26-120216784.html

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Uganda president ousts army boss amid dispute

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) ? Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni fired his top military commander Friday, the ouster apparently linked to turmoil over Museveni's alleged plan to have his son succeed him as head of state.

Sacked army chief Gen. Aronda Nyakairima was appointed minister of internal affairs, effectively cutting his links to the army's chain of command. Some other government officials were also moved around in a sudden shuffle of civilian and military officials.

Police, meanwhile, occupied for the fifth straight day the premises of a Kampala newspaper that had published details of a letter by another army general who asked for an investigation into reports that high-ranking officials opposed to the rise of Museveni's son could be assassinated. In letter late last month to the chief of the internal security service, Gen. David Sejusa Sejusa cited himself, Nyakairima and Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi as among those officials who are at risk of being murdered in the alleged plot.

Police on Monday disabled the Daily Monitor's printing press after forcibly entering its premises to look for evidence against Sejusa, nearly two weeks after the independent newspaper published details of the letter. They cordoned off the premises of with yellow tape Thursday, officially designating it a crime scene. Media watchdogs condemned the attack on press freedom.

Sejusa, who has postponed his journey back home from a trip to London, is wanted for questioning by Ugandan police who have searched his house and arrested four of his aides on unspecified charges.

After Sejusa's letter became public, Nyakairima dismissed it, saying it was divisive and full of opposition propaganda. Karoro Okurut, a spokeswoman for the government, has since said the Sejusa case is "a matter of national security."

Sejusa is a decorated hero of the bush war that brought Museveni to power in 1986, a four-star general with a seat on the army's high command. He is also in charge of the country's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, the reason some in this East African country say his concerns about a purported plot to assassinate people should be taken seriously. Some lawmakers have called for an inquiry.

Rumors that Museveni is grooming his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as a future president have been fueled in part by Kainerugaba's meteoric rise in the military. Kainerugaba was promoted to the rank of brigadier in changes last year that saw him take full charge of the country's special forces, an elite unit that protects the president and guards national assets such as oil fields. Analysts say Kainerugaba's powerful position in the army has alienated senior army officials including Sejusa and Nyakairima.

Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, a prominent Ugandan lawyer and political analyst, said the new changes by Museveni are clearly part of the ongoing fallout from discontent over the alleged succession plan.

"In my opinion it is true that the army leadership has been grumbling about its loss of power to the first son," he said.

Journalists at the Daily Monitor there insist they will not reveal who gave them a copy of Sejusa's letter or give a copy to the police. Details of the letter were published May 7. The Daily Monitor says on Twitter that "police have defied the court order directing them to vacate the Monitor Publications premises they seized since Monday. Instead of opening the gates to allow employees to access their offices, police deployed more officers."

Uganda's army code of conduct bars serving army officers from speaking to journalists without official authorization. If the police can prove that Sejusa himself leaked the letter, he could face a court martial. Frank Tumwebaze, a government minister who speaks for Museveni, says Sejusa has "clear presidential ambitions."

Museveni, who says he was born in 1944 but doesn't know the exact date, has held power for nearly three decades. His current term expires in 2016.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uganda-president-ousts-army-boss-amid-dispute-131730052.html

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Stocks barely budge; market ends week with loss

Trader Donato Cuttone works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange near the close of trading, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Stocks are ended the day slightly lower after recouping a big loss early on. U.S. markets fell immediately after the opening bell following a global slump prompted in part by an unexpectedly weak report on manufacturing in China.(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Donato Cuttone works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange near the close of trading, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Stocks are ended the day slightly lower after recouping a big loss early on. U.S. markets fell immediately after the opening bell following a global slump prompted in part by an unexpectedly weak report on manufacturing in China.(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Major stock indexes closed out their first weekly loss in a month in quiet trading Friday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 0.91 of a point to close at 1,649.60. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 8.60 points to 15,303, a gain of 0.1 percent. Procter & Gamble supported the Dow with an increase of 4 percent.

Both indexes had their first weekly losses since the week ending April 19. Concerns over the Federal Reserve curtailing its support for the economy and sharp falls in Asian markets rattled investors this week. Some investors are concerned that the Fed will scale back its effort to support the economy sooner than they expected.

The S&P 500, widely used by mutual funds as a proxy for the stock market, lost 1.1 percent for the week. It's still up 15.7 percent for the year.

Marty Leclerc, the managing partner of Barrack Yard Advisors, an investment firm in Bryn Mawr, Pa., said the weekly drop wasn't cause for concern. Even market rallies have to take the occasional break, he said.

"It's up like a rocket blast this year," Leclerc said of the stock market. "For there to be a little bit of a pullback is perfectly understandable."

The market headed sharply lower at the start of trading on Friday, then spent the rest of the day slowly recovering ground. By the closing bell, market indexes were roughly back to where they started.

Procter & Gamble announced late Thursday that it's bringing back its former CEO, A.G. Lafley, to run the company. The world's largest consumer-products maker, whose brands include Tide and Crest, is trying to increase sales in the face of tough competition. P&G rose $3.18 to $81.88.

Sears plunged 14 percent after the department-store chain reported a steep quarterly loss and slumping sales after the market closed Thursday. Sears lost $7.92 to $50.25.

The Nasdaq composite slipped 0.27 of a point to 3,459.14.

Eight of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 fell. Only financial stocks and consumer staples makers rose.

The stock market slipped Friday despite an encouraging report on U.S. manufacturing. The government said orders for long-lasting goods rebounded in April, helped by demand for aircraft and stronger business spending. The report suggests economic growth may hold steady this spring.

Until this week, signs of slow but steady economic growth and record profits for big companies had propelled stock-market indexes to all-time highs.

All but 11 companies in the S&P 500 have posted their first-quarter earnings, and the results have turned out much better than expected. Nearly seven of 10 have reported higher earnings than analysts had estimated. Overall profits in the first quarter are on track to climb 5 percent over the year before.

In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note dipped to 2.01 percent from 2.02 percent late Thursday.

The price of crude oil slipped 10 cents to settle at $94.15 a barrel, ending with a drop of $1.87 for the week. Gold lost $5.20 to $1,386.60 an ounce.

Trading was light ahead of the long weekend. U.S. financial markets will be closed Monday for Memorial Day.

Among other stocks in the news Friday:

? Intuitive Surgical gained 5 percent after a jury decided in favor of the maker of robotic medical equipment in the first of many lawsuits filed against the company. The plaintiffs argued that Intuitive was negligent in training doctors to use its equipment. Intuitive's stock rose $23.07 to $501.53.

? Titan Machinery plunged 9 percent. The company, which deals in agricultural and construction equipment, said late Thursday that weaker revenue will lead it to a wider quarterly loss than it had expected. Titan's stock lost $2.10 to $20.40.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-24-US-Wall-Street/id-7b9e4099cac14286b722a648e35a536b

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