Global stock markets fall ahead of Fed meeting

BANGKOK (AP) ? Global stock markets fell Monday, led by a sharp dive in Japan, as traders awaited a packed schedule of economic data releases this week in the U.S. and a key meeting of the Federal Reserve.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 sank 3.3 percent to 13,661.13, its first close below 14,000 since July 1, as the yen continued to reverse some its recent fall. Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong, said the Nikkei's sharp decline sparked jitters elsewhere in Asia. He added that slowing growth in China presented an additional reason for caution.

South Korea's Kospi fell 0.6 percent to 1,899.89, hurt by losses among technology shares. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.5 percent to 21,850.15. On the Chinese mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index shed 1.7 percent to 1,976.31 while the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index lost 1.9 percent to 941.33.

European stocks were mixed in early trading. Britain's FTSE 100 shed 0.4 percent to 6,563.21. But Germany's DAX rose 0.3 percent to 8,266 and France's CAC-40 gained 0.2 percent to 3,979.31. Wall Street appeared set for losses, with Dow Jones industrial futures falling 0.2 percent to 15,460 and S&P 500 futures shedding 0.3 percent to 1,681.80.

Analysts expect to see a drop in unemployment when the U.S. Labor Department releases employment figures for July at the end of the week, but some say it will not be enough to prompt an immediate scaling back of the Fed's bond-buying program, which has been helping to buoy the economy.

Traders have been cautious in recent days ahead of the Fed's two-day meeting, which begins Tuesday, for hints of when the central bank will start reducing its monetary stimulus.

"Our guess is that it won't happen until December and it could be delayed further yet," said analysts at DBS Bank Ltd. in a report.

Since late last year, the Fed has been buying $85 billion in Treasury and mortgage bonds a month in a move that has kept long-term rates near record lows and supported economic recovery.

Among individual stocks, Korean Air Lines Co. fell 6.5 percent while Australia-based uranium miner Paladin Energy Ltd. sank 10.1 percent.

Japanese vehicle makers were among the hardest hit stocks of the day. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. plunged 9.9 percent. Isuzu Motors Ltd. dropped 8 percent.

Global stocks mostly dropped Friday on concerns that a brusque overhaul of China's industry could slow down the world's second-largest economy. Beijing has ordered companies to close factories in 19 industries where overproduction has led to price-cutting wars. The industry ministry ordered more than 1,400 companies to cut excess capacity and even some companies to close outright.

In energy trading, benchmark crude was down 52 cents to $104.18 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 79 cents to close at $104.70 Friday in New York.

The dollar fell to 97.93 yen from 98.32 yen late Friday. The euro rose to $1.3284 from $1.3270.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-stock-markets-fall-ahead-fed-meeting-091907160.html

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Solar energy project teams four Triad universities

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GREENSBORO - Four Triad universities are looking beyond solar panels to a less expensive and more economic technology to harness the sun's energy for electricity. The joint effort is called the Four Universities Solar Consortium and includes North Carolina A&T State University, Winston-Salem State University, Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

Solar farms are fast becoming commonplace around the state, but researchers say the farms' photovoltaic panels are still relatively expensive and inefficient despite decades of development.

"To install thousands of those takes acres of land or you may see them on homes,? said Barry Burks, vice chancellor for research and economic development. ?Those panels are very expensive. The return on investment for a solar farm is years. "

The consortium is developing what's called a solar concentrator that would capture the sun's energy at a lower cost.

"Like a mirror that focuses the light,? said Burks. ?[It] concentrates it down to a small source and you only need then a small panel, say, one panel or even smaller of the very high efficiency solar collector."

Researchers envision the use of a large number of the mirrors optimized for capturing light, as opposed to reflecting it, and converting it into electricity. The system also would extract hydrogen from water to generate electricity and make use of the heat that solar panels waste.

"We're going to try to capture that heat that is there, it's just a waste, and also turn that into energy," said Burks.

Burks is certain the solar concentrator, its mirrors and waste heat conversion will be cheaper and more efficient than solar panels. The project will determine by how much.

"It's not that we're trying to create something that we don't know whether it's going to work or not,? said Burks. ?It's just how well will it work and how much will it cost. So, it's really not a leap of faith. It's more a matter of optimization."

Two local companies, 3A Composites of Colfax and Slane Marine in High Point, will fabricate some of the materials used in the system. The joint project was one of three finalists for a $100,000 dollar grant from the schools' Triad Interuniversity Planning Project.

Source: http://charlotte.news14.com/content/local_news/triad/696964/solar-energy-project-teams-four-triad-universities

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Mexico Nabs 3 Cartel Suspects in Officer's Killing

Authorities detained three alleged members of the Knights Templar drug cartel in the killing of one of Mexico's highest-ranking navy officers and a bodyguard, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said Monday.

President Enrique Pena Nieto vowed the attack wouldn't go unpunished. "We will work with all speed to arrest and bring to justice everyone responsible for the death of Vice Adm. Carlos Miguel Salazar," he said.

The killings of the admiral and another naval officer serving as his bodyguard marked a rare attack on Mexico's top military brass, but appeared to have been the result of a series of tragic coincidences rather than a planned, targeted assassination.

Still, the shooting on a rural road in the western state of Michoacan showed just how out of control the state has become as the government offensive against crime gangs runs up against resistance from the Knights Templar cartel.

Salazar, his wife, driver and bodyguard were returning from a visit to the admiral's family in the Mexico City area, when they ran into a protest that had closed the main highway leading back to the naval station he commanded on the Pacific coast, near the resort of Puerto Vallarta.

Seeing the protest, the admiral apparently made a tragic mistake. Rather than waiting for the road to reopen, as dozens of other vehicles did for about two more hours, or turning around and heading back to the nearest city to catch an airline flight, he had his driver head down a rural two-lane road in search of a shortcut.

"He decided to take an alternative route, to get back to his job on time, and he took a secondary road for that purpose," Murillo Karam said.

But Michoacan has become a hotbed of cartel violence, with at least a half dozen ambushes of federal police convoys last week. And the highway blockage wasn't just any protest.

A reporter for a Michoacan newspaper saw the protesters, mainly taxi and bus drivers, holding signs saying "Get out, Federales" and "We demand federal forces get out of Michoacan." Such protests have frequently been organized by the Knights Templar cartel, which has often forced or paid residents to take part.

Federal security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said it seemed unlikely the protest could have been organized just to interrupt the admiral's travel. Rather, it appeared a response to the two-month-old government buildup of army and federal police in Michoacan after a series of towns rose up in arms and formed self-defense groups to fight off pervasive abuses and extortion demands by the Knights Templar.

Salazar's SUV had navy logos, but inexplicably was not bulletproof. Neither he nor his bodyguard was in uniform.

Murillo Karam said one vehicle cut off Salazar's SUV, forcing his driver to stop. A second vehicle full of armed men then drove up and opened fire. Salazar pushed his wife to the floor of the SUV and she escaped with only minor injuries, but the driver was severely wounded.

Murillo Karam said that the three suspects were detained in one of the vehicles used in the attack and that they had admitted belonging to the Knights Templar and taking part in the attack. He quoted the suspects as saying the cartel paid them 7,500 pesos a month (about $600) to steal, kidnap and extort money from people.

The navy has not been as heavily involved in the anti-drug fight in Michoacan as it has been in other states.

Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/c/35229/f/654825/s/2f4fc027/sc/40/l/0Labcnews0Bgo0N0CInternational0CwireStory0Cmexico0Enabs0Ecartel0Esuspects0Eofficers0Ekilling0E1980A9457/story01.htm

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A primer on South Florida's hurricane history

Rees/ Redirect: Get the latest storm updates from Ken Kaye. SunSentinel.com/stormcenter

The heart of hurricane season is about two weeks away yet we've already felt the remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal earlier this month and for awhile Tropical Storm Dorian had us on edge.

It's widely known that we're one of the most storm-battered regions in the nation. But there are plenty of facts you may not be aware of.

Here are answers to questions you may have about South Florida's hurricane history, based on continuous records kept since 1851.

How many hurricanes have hit South Florida, including the Keys?

A total of 46, and of those 26 were Category 3 or higher. And those numbers might be low, said Jim Lushine, a weather history buff and retired National Weather Service meteorologist.

"Some hurricanes may have gone unreported during the 19th century, when?the population was?sparse," he said.?

The last hurricane to strike the region and the state was Wilma in October 2005.

What are the earliest/latest dates?a hurricane?has?affected South Florida?

The earliest was on June?17, 1906; the system angled northeast across the southern tip of the state as a Category 1. The latest was on Nov. 4, 1935, known as the Yankee Hurricane because after developing near Bermuda it approached South Florida from the northeast and struck Miami Beach.

What?are the earliest/latest dates a?major hurricane has struck here??

The earliest was on Aug 16 in both 1871 and 1888. In more recent times, Hurricane Andrew struck on Aug. 24 in 1992.?The latest was Category 3 Hurricane King, which struck the Keys and downtown Miami on Oct. 17, 1950, causing severe damage across the region. More recently, Hurricane Wilma hit southwest Florida as a Category 3 on Oct. 24, 2005, but weakened to Category 2 by the time it reached South Florida.

What?were the most/least number?in?one season to strike South Florida?

The most: In both 1935 and 1933, three hurricanes struck the region. Among the 1935 systems was the infamous Labor Day hurricane, one of only three Category 5 systems to strike the U.S. coast. It devastated the Middle Keys and caused damage as far north as Miami-Dade County.

Several years have seen two hurricanes have hit the region, with the most recent being 2005, when Katrina and Wilma struck South Florida. In 2004 Frances and Jeanne hit in nearly the same location, just north of Palm Beach County, three weeks apart. In 1948, two major hurricanes hit the area two weeks apart.

The least:?In 125 of the past 161 years, South Florida saw no hurricanes.

Which were the most/least deadliest?

The 1928 Lake Okeechobee hurricane was by far the deadliest, killing at least 2,500, mostly as a result of flooding.

"This was one of?greatest losses of life in any U.S. natural disaster, including?earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, floods and heat waves," Lushine said.

In terms of a South Florida metro area,?the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane left 220 dead, and killed 150?more near Lake Okeechobee.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Hurricane/~3/cJ3o587o9iM/fl-hurricane-questions-20130728,0,5877408.story

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From the Binghamton National Weather Service: EF1 tornado with top winds of 100...

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Why the mega merger of advertising giants Omnicom & Publicis ...

Earlier this year I wrote that we have entered an era where every company is a technology company and technology is every company. Not a day goes by when the idea isn?t reinforced by the headlines. Today, it is a mega-merger of ad-giants,?Publicis Groupe of Paris, France and Omnicom of New York.

A decade ago, a big ticket merger in advertising world wouldn?t merit any attention in Silicon Valley, but we are living in a new and exciting times ?? media, content and technology are now in a sailor?s knot. Today the idea of what is media is being transformed by the emergence of two new mediums ? the wired and wireless broadband. All our concepts of media containers ? television, newspaper, magazines are coming under question be changing demographic and consumer behaviors.

These are as much a challenge (and opportunity) for startups and new media leviathans like Facebook as they are for advertising companies and that is why I find the merger between two of the six biggest advertising giants Publicis and Omnicom interesting.

The deal

The two companies jointly announced their merger plans earlier today and said that the new company of which they will each own 50 percent will be called?Publicis Omnicom Group and will have revenue of $23 billion and market capitalization of $35.1 billion. It will trade under the ticket OMC on the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext. The holding company will be based in Netherlands.

The new company will zoom past current market leader WPP which has revenue of $5.6 billion and market capitalization of $20 billion. According to AgeAge, their US revenues will be $11.4 billion, twice as much as WPP. Needless to say, there is going to be?interesting antitrust implications. And needless to say, there are other issues. For instance,?PepsiCo is an Omnicom account while Coca Cola is with Leo Burnett. AT&T is with Omnicom and Verizon is a Publicis account. The list of conflicts is about as long as the press release itself.

Internet deflates

The aggregation of clients makes some sense, especially as we continue to see a shift to the digital. Since 1920, the US advertising industry revenues have hovered between 1 percent to 3 percent of the US gross domestic product. This pie is now shared between television, newspapers, magazines, radio, cable with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and thousands of other digital outlets. Of course, Internet often brings measurability, targeting and interactivity ? which leads to a sort of deflationary pressure on industries that have traditionally benefited from ambiguity. Stock brokerages and travel industry were the first two industry to be baffled by this new reality.

According to?Understanding the Economics?of Digital Compared to Traditional?Advertising and Media Services, a report authored by?Joe Burton for?4A?s, a New York-based trade association representing the advertising agency business, ?if traditional ad services require staffing and fees that imply an effective commission rate in the range of 12%?15%,? then the digital typically requires ?resources equating to an effective commission rate ranging from 25%?30%.? The only difference is that while the agencies are spending more money on digital, the media spend is going to be lower mostly as a result of better targeting, measurement and proven effectiveness increases.? So, the ad-indsutry?s on-going economic shuffle is one way to understand the imperative of this deal.

The Silicon Valley connection

That said, Publicis Omnicom Group will have a lot of say in Silicon Valley. eMarketer estimate that the digital advertising globally will be $116 billion this year, while North America alone will snag $45.12 billion of that. And spending on mobile advertising worldwide is expected to increase 79.7% to $15.8 billion this year, eMarketer estimates, up from just $8.8 billion last year.

Given the reliance of Google, Yahoo and Facebook on ad-dollars and (thus in turn their fiscal health, which leads to them acquiring startups.) The new company will have a bearing on the fortunes of upstarts such as Foursquare, Twitter, ?Snapchat and dozens of others who are experimenting with new advertising and marketing formats. The Publicis-Omincom combo controls a lot of dineros!

Of course, the giant company knows that it too has to think about the new digital future.While announcing the deal, Publicis CEO Maurice Levy hinted the need for advertising agencies to embrace the data culture. The new merged company plans to extensively invest in big data and essentially look for ways to narrow target audiences.

He acknowledged that like all traditional media companies, the challenge is Google, Facebook and Twitter. Levy has been snapping up digital ad agencies with rapid speed spending $575 million on Rosetta and earlier this year and about $1.3 billion on Digitas in 2007. Digital now accounts for 37 percent of Publicis? revenues, but Omnicom doesn?t share those numbers.

Source: http://gigaom.com/2013/07/28/why-the-mega-merger-of-advertising-giants-omnicom-publicis-impacts-tech-business/

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Kidd Kraddick dies at his charity golf event

Kidd Kraddick (real name David Cradick), host of "Kidd Kraddick in the Morning" radio show, died at a charity golf event in Louisiana Saturday (July 27) at the age of 53.

His network says in a statement:

"All of us with YEA Networks and the 'Kidd Kraddick in the Morning' crew are heartbroken over the loss of our dear friend and leader. Kidd devoted his life to making people smile every morning, and for 21 years his foundation has been dedicated to bringing joy to thousands of chronically and terminally ill children. He died doing what he loved and his final day was spent selflessly focused on those special children that meant the world to him."

The statement adds that a cause of death will be released at an appropriate time.

Kraddick leaves behind a daughter, Caroline, from a previous marriage. It would also seem, according to Dr. Phil's tweet about his passing, that Kraddick had recently become engaged, though we cannot confirm that information at this time.

Celebrities have been quick to express their dismay over the news on Twitter:

"Absolutely devastated to hear about the sad passing of Kidd Kraddick. He was always so nice and will be incredibly missed. Lovely man. RIP." -- Harry Styles

"The sad sad news about Kidd Kraddick is shocking. He will be missed greatly." -- Joe Jonas

"Oh man, I just heard Kidd Kraddick died! He's my childhood dj. What a sad day. His poor family. He was always nice 2 me from the beginning." -- Kelly Clarkson

"Just heard the news about Kidd Kraddick. I'm crushed. My prayers go out to his family & all who knew and loved him. Great human being." -- Gavin DeGraw

"R.I.P Kidd Kraddick you were a truly nice man, and I appreciate your kind words and support, very sad to hear" -- Jay Pharaoh

"Broken hearted, my dear friend @kiddkraddick has tragically died.Great father,great man.Just together,so happy, excited abt his engagement." -- Dr. Phil

"RIP Kidd Kraddick He was a really fun/smart radio DJ" -- Rainn Wilson

"I just heard about Kidd Kraddrick! such sad news! He was an awesome man and friend. So sad :(" -- Khloe Kardashian

Photo/Video credit: Clear Channel Media

Source: http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2013/07/kidd-kraddick-dies-at-his-charity-golf-event.html

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