What most people consider health "insurance"

What most people consider health "insurance" is actually genuine insurance combined with inefficient pre-paid medical care. Contrast that with standard car or homeowners insurance policies. Those plans protect us against unlikely but expensive events, such as a bad car accident or a house fire. But we don't use car insurance to cover routine predictable expenses such as oil changes.The current system of employer-based health "insurance" is an artifact of federal tax rules from World War II. When the U.S. government imposed wartime wage and price controls,alligator shear employers could no longer compete for workers by offering higher salaries. Instead, they competed by offering more generous fringe benefits such as health insurance. In 1943, the IRS ruled that employees did not have to pay taxes on health insurance paid for by employers; in 1954, the IRS made this rule permanent.

This law permanently distorted the health insurance market in favor of employer-based plans. If an employer pays $100 for health insurance with pre-tax dollars, the employee enjoys the full benefit. But if the employer pays that $100 as salary, the worker will only be able to purchase $50-70 of insurance after taxes. The law also created perverse incentives for insurers to shift as many services as possible into pre-tax plans. Gradually, they started covering not just major expenses but minor routine expenses alligator shear such as immunizations and well-baby checks.Think of what would happen to the market for car oil changes if they were offered as a tax-free benefit through your workplace.

Over time, this tax disparity helped employer-based health insurance dominate the private insurance market. Hence, most workers don't own their own health insurance in the same way that they own their auto or homeowners insurance. When workers change jobs, they almost always must also change health plans.Adding to this problem have been the many state and federal regulations mandating specific insurance benefits. At the federal level, ObamaCare requires all plans include a laundry list of "essential health benefits" such as maternity coverage, pediatric dental services,skin analyzer "free" HIV and syphilis testing, and obesity counseling. The states require an additional 2,271 mandatory benefits including acupuncture, in vitro fertilization (MA), and hair prostheses. These mandates inevitably drive up insurance costs.

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Tantalizing test results raise key issue: Who killed Arafat?

New test results on the remains of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "moderately support" the proposition that he died of polonium-210 poisoning but avoid the most tantalizing question of all: If it was murder, who did it?Arafat died in November 2004 in a French hospital. He had fallen ill with symptoms including vomiting and stomach pains after eating at his headquarters in Ramallah, on the West Bank. The official cause of death was a massive stroke, but no autopsy was done.The new tests were conducted by 10 experts at the Vaudois University Hospital Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, on remains extracted from Arafat's grave.The tests were triggered by a year-long Al Jazeera investigation,alligator shear which included a forensic examination of some of the Palestinian leader's clothing that suggested a suspicious cause of death.

The Swiss experts carefully hedged their findings, which included at least 18 times the normal levels of radioactive polonium in Arafat's remains.However, the degradation of polonium-210 over eight years and the quality of the forensic samples made a definitive conclusion difficult."Our observations are coherent with a hypothesis of poisoning, in any case more consistent than with the opposite hypothesis of no poisoning," Patrice Mangin,alligator shear director of the hospital's center of legal medicine, told reporters.Francois Bochud, who headed the Swiss team, said Thursday: "Was polonium the cause of the death for certain? The answer is no, we cannot show categorically that hypothesis that the poisoning caused was this or that."

Similar tests were also carried out by Russian and French experts. The Russian findings, Al Jazeera reported Friday, were "inconclusive," finding "radioactive background" on only one of four fragments. The French report is being withheld pending the outcome of its murder investigation.Arafat's widow, Suha,skin analyzer has little doubt that murder was involved, telling Reuters, "We are revealing a real crime, a political assassination."As leader of the Palestinian Authority, he had control over vast sums of money, particularly aid from foreign governments. Arafat's widow tells Reuters that the polonium must have been administered by someone "in his close circle" because experts had told her the poison would have been put in his coffee, tea or water. She did not accuse any country or person and noted that he had many enemies.

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2 admirals' classified access suspended in Navy probe

The U.S. Navy on Friday suspended two senior military intelligence officers' access to classified materials in connection with an investigation into alleged illegal and improper relations with a defense contractor.Classified access was suspended for Vice Adm.Ted Branch, director of Naval Intelligence,alligator shear and Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, director of Intelligence Operations, according to Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, Navy chief of information.Kirby said the decision to suspend their classified access was made based upon the nature of allegations against Branch and Loveless in connection with an ongoing Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation.

The NCIS is investigating possible illegal and improper relations with Navy contractor Leonard Francis, a Malaysian citizen and CEO of Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd.There is no indication,alligator shear nor do the allegations suggest that there was any breach of classified information, Kirby said. Neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged with any crime or violation. Both retain their ranks and security clearances. They are on temporary leave.Kirby said the suspension was deemed prudent given the sensitive nature of the admirals' current duties and to protect the integrity of the investigative process,The allegations against Branch and Loveless involve conduct prior to their current assignments and flag officer ranks, Kirby said.

NCIS initiated the investigation in 2010."We will continue to make public as much information as we can without prejudicing the conduct of this investigation," Kirby said in a statement.On Wednesday, Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez, 41, was arrested in Florida and faces charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, according to the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego.He was the third Navy official has been charged in a case accusing them of accepting prostitution and other services from Francis in exchange for business and favorable treatment,skin analyzer according to the attorney's office.Federal prosecutors allege Sanchez, as deputy logistics officer in the U.S. 7th Fleet and later as the Fleet Logistics Command's operations director, directed Navy business and sensitive information to Francis' company, which provides security, supplies and other services to U.S. Navy ships at various ports.

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Jobs Strength Puts Fed on Hot Seat

"Stores are hiring, but it's more muted than what we'd expect given the nature of the business being so strong," he said. Ace, which has 4,700 stores that are mostly independently owned, recorded strong sales growth during the past six months, including a 4% gain in October."We definitely saw some softening of the business when the politicians were making all the headlines" during the government shutdown, Mr. Venhuizen said. "And nothing was really resolved,alligator shear just put off. That creates more uncertainty, not less."But the improving stock market and broader gains in the economy appear to be giving wealthier Americans more confidence about opening their wallets.

When the economy went sour, affluent clients "still had plenty of money" but chose to put off renovations, said Kelly Conklin, owner of Foley Waite Associates, a woodworking firm in Kenilworth, N.J., that is seeing increased orders from luxury-home builders and renovators. "Now that the economy seems to be improving, they are getting more comfortable spending their money."Strengthening demand has allowed the firm to add four employees this fall,alligator shear bringing its head count to 14. That is the same size it was before the recession, which forced Foley Waite to cut back to as few as four workers.Overall, 11.3 million Americans remained unemployed in October, a number that has held steady for several months. A broader measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those working part time, but who want full-time employment, rose to 13.8% from 13.6% in September.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking at an International Monetary Fund conference Friday, commented broadly about slack in the labor market. The unemployment rate, he said,skin analyzer probably understates the softness in the labor market. It is an argument Fed officials have made before. Because so many Americans are leaving the labor force, they are also leaving the government's counts of unemployed workers and holding down the jobless rate.The slack is a reason why the Fed has continued pushing easy-money policies. Mr. Bernanke gave no indication Friday of whether he is more or less inclined to start pulling back on the bond-buying program.

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Asian shares wilt, Fed anxiety eclipses China optimism

"If the ISM report is better than expected, it could add to revived tapering expectations, and U.S. yields and the dollar could go up and stocks could go down," said Masashi Murata, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in Tokyo.Data on Thursday showed the pace of business activity in the U.S. Midwest jumped more than expected in October, while jobless claims decline in the latest week,alligator shear soothing some worries about sluggish fourth-quarter growth after last month's federal government shutdown.Still, not all investors or economists were convinced that the latest U.S. data heralded a shift in monetary policy expectations.

"The existence of noise in the October data will likely make it difficult for the Fed to gather enough evidence to start tapering in December," strategists at Barclays wrote in a note to clients, adding that they still to expect the central bank to begin reducing its current $85 billion monthly bond purchases in March 2014.The U.S. data pressured emerging market currencies, with the Indian rupee and Indonesian rupiah leading slides.The euro remained under pressure after plunging in the previous session as euro-zone inflation dropped to its lowest rate in nearly four years,alligator shear sharpening expectations that the European Central Bank, in contrast to the Fed, will further ease its monetary policy.

The single currency dropped about 0.2 percent to $1.3555, moving away from a two-year peak of $1.3833 set one week ago. On Thursday, it suffered its biggest one-day fall against the greenback in six months, tumbling 1.1 percent.Data on Thursday showed euro-area inflation slowed to a four-year low of 0.7 percent last month, far below the ECB's target of just under 2 percent. Other data showed unemployment held at record highs in September.The dollar index .DXY,skin analyzer which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was on track for a sixth session of gains, rising about 0.1 percent to 80.305 after touching a two-week peak of 80.418 and pulling further away from a nine-month trough of 78.998 hit one week ago.Against the Japanese currency, the dollar was about 0.4 percent lower on the day at 97.91 yen.In commodities trading, gold steadied but was still trading close to its lowest in nearly two weeks, hurt by sharp losses in the previous session from month-end profit-taking, the strong U.S. economic data and the higher dollar.

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Little Orphan Fannie Mae

The commission learned from John Kerr, an examiner with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, that Fannie was "the worst-run financial institution" he had seen in 30 years as a bank regulator. Austin Kelly, an official at FHFA's predecessor agency, said regulators couldn't trust Fannie's numbers because their "processes were a bowl of spaghetti."And you should hear what people were saying inside these firms. Former Fannie Mae Chief Risk Officer Enrico Dallavecchia wrote in a 2007 email to the company's COO that Fannie "was not even close to having proper controls processes for credit,Fashion Dresses market and operational risk." He added that "people don't care about the risk function or they don't get it."Over at Freddie, former CEO Richard Syron acknowledged in an interview with the commission that one of the reasons he fired longtime chief risk officer David Andrukonis in 2005 was that Mr. Andrukonis opposed relaxing Freddie's loan underwriting standards.

According to civil charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, around the end of 2004 Mr. Syron rejected the advice of Freddie credit risk officers who had urged him to stop Freddie from guaranteeing so-called NINA loans, which required no verification of borrower income or assets.Adding to the absurdity of the FHFA suit,Fashion Dresses even Fannie and Freddie don't claim they were innocent. The two companies have agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement in which they don't deny misleading investors about the size of their investments in subprime mortgages and liar loans.The SEC is still suing former senior executives at both companies for securities fraud. The cases may not come to trial until 2015,Fashion Dresses which is convenient for the government as it pursues the Fan-and-Fred-as-victims case with Morgan and other banks.

You never know what a trial might tell us about how the companies decided to buy mortgage-backed securities sold by banks.But we do already know that Fan and Fred were in constant communication with issuers and Fashion Dresses were informed in detail what exactly they were buying. In its 2005 annual report, Freddie told investors: "We manage institutional credit risk on non-Freddie Mac mortgage-related securities by only purchasing securities that meet our investment guidelines and performing ongoing analysis to evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuers and servicers of these securities and the bond insurers that guarantee them."

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Twitter Prepares to Feed New Hunger for I.P.O.'s

Now, underwriters say, companies are more willing to price their offerings slightly lower to ensure that their shares trade well from the start. That means occasionally putting up with big "pops," or significant jumps in price on the first day of trading: Rocket Fuel and FireEye both doubled their offering prices in their first day of trading last month. Such sharp rises suggest that companies raised less than was possible.Twitter itself is planning to sell its shares at $17 to $20,Fashion Dresses less than what many optimistic analysts had expected. Company executives may raise that price if they find exuberant demand in their week-and-a-half trip across the country.The company and its advisers will spend the next nine days traveling to major cities like New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles,Fashion Dresses meeting with institutional investors like mutual funds and hedge funds.

On Nov. 6, they will assemble the final order book determining the final price and size of the offering.Twitter would then begin trading on Nov. 7 on the New York Stock Exchange, under the symbol TWTR.While Twitter is expected to be the most prominent tech company to go public for some time, smaller but still popular contemporaries could follow suit in the next year or two.Names mentioned by the rumor mill include Square,Fashion Dresses the payment company founded by Twitter's chairman, Jack Dorsey; Dropbox, an online storage company; and Lending Club, a specialist in online peer-to-peer lending.Such is the strength of the I.P.O. market that not even the two-week government shutdown earlier this month significantly harmed business. Deal-makers said that companies already on the road pitching their offerings witnessed little effect, though some issuers about to start the process waited until an end to the political impasse was in sight.

A bigger factor has been the strong growth of the equity markets, especially with interest rates still hovering near record lows. Philip Drury, one of Citigroup's co-head of equity capital markets for the Americas, said that investors had proved eager to pay significantly for investments that outperform the market and shares in fast-growing companies help fill that need.The rise in listings has been relatively spread out across industry sectors,Fashion Dresses though it has been dominated by the likes of energy and health care. This is my favorite article:Download IMA's First China Salary Survey.

Trucks loaded with tomatoes

Trucks loaded with tomatoes, milk and almonds clog the two main highways that bisect California's farm heartland, carrying goods to millions along the Pacific Coast and beyond. This dusty stretch of land is the starting point for one of the nation's most expensive public infrastructure projects: a $68 billion high-speed rail system that would span the state, linking the people of America's salad bowl to more jobs,Fashion Dresses opportunity and buyers.Five years ago, California voters overwhelmingly approved the idea of bringing a bullet train to the nation's most populous state. It would be America's first high-speed rail system, sold to the public as a way to improve access to good-paying jobs, cut pollution from smog-filled roadways and reduce time wasted sitting in traffic while providing an alternative to high fuel prices.

Now, engineering work has finally begun on the first 30-mile segment of track here in Fresno, a city of a half-million people with soaring unemployment and a withering downtown core littered with abandoned factories and shuttered stores.Rail is meant to help this place,Fashion Dresses with construction jobs now and improved access to economic opportunity once the job is complete. But the region that could benefit most from the project is also where opposition to it has grown most fierce."I just wish it would go away, this high-speed rail. I just wish it would go away," says Gary Lanfranco, whose restaurant in downtown Fresno is slated to be demolished to make way for rerouted traffic.

Such sentiments can be heard throughout the Central Valley, where roads are dotted with signs such as: "HERE COMES HIGH SPEED RAIL There goes the farm." Growers complain of misplaced priorities, and residents wonder if their tax money is being squandered.Aaron Fukuda,Fashion Dresses a civil engineer whose house in the dairy town of Hanford lies directly in one of the possible train routes, says: "People are worn out, tired, frustrated."Voters in 2008 approved $10 billion in bonds to start construction on an 800-mile rail line to ferry passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes, compared with 6 hours by car now during good traffic. Since then, the housing market collapsed, multibillion-dollar budget deficits followed, and the price tag has fluctuated wildly ―Fashion Dresses from $45 billion in 2008 to more than $100 billion in 2011 and, now, $68 billion.

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Bankers' Fee for Market Debut

The shutdown started on Oct. 1 after Congress couldn't come to agreement on stopgap legislation to continue funding the government,Fashion Dresses known as a continuing resolution, because of deep divisions between the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate over the health care law.Talks to end the government shutdown and extend the nation's borrowing authority continued Friday with some Senate Republicans saying a deal could be reached in the next few days.Even if the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau resumes operation in short order, however,Fashion Dresses that doesn't mean it's business as usual for craft breweries. It typically takes more than a month, sometimes longer, for label approvals under normal government operations, so breweries are preparing for a backlog.

The social-media service will probably start a roadshow with bankers to promote the deal in the last week of October, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details aren't public. Twitter, which is leaning toward listing on the New York Stock Exchange, is still negotiating with that exchange and Nasdaq on the ability to handle the IPO, as well as associated listing fees, one of the people said.Twitter's ability to negotiate a fee well below the norm for U.S. IPOs --Fashion Dresses which have averaged 5.7 percent, according to 2013 data compiled by Bloomberg --Fashion Dresses shows investment banks are still willing to take tens of millions of dollars less to land a high-profile role with a large client. Missing out on the Twitter IPO could cost an investment bank in reputation among technology clients and in future IPOs with smaller startups.

"It's a low fee for Twitter to have to pay, and it's a very positive development," said Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Schuster LLC in Chicago. "It may set a standard that will help companies with future IPOs save costs when they come to market."Twitter's fees are higher than those paid by Facebook Inc. FB because it's a smaller offering, said two people with knowledge of the negotiations. Facebook raised $16 billion at its IPO in May 2012, paying banks 1.1 percent.Twitter hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as the lead underwriter, which typically earns a bigger cut of the deal.Globally, the average IPO fee this year is 4.5 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2012, IPO managers in the U.S. earned an average of 4.3 percent in fees, while globally they made 3.7 percent, the data show.

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Score another one for the Apple doom-and-gloom crowd

Score another one for the Apple doom-and-gloom crowd. "Apple's Mac Shipments Decline In US PC Market In Q3 As Tablets Continue To Erode Worldwide PC Sales," declared the International Business Times. Why the focus on the U.S. Fashion Dresses you might ask? Because the "data" such as it is comes from reports by IDC and Gartner, which themselves are nothing but surveys. Apple will release actual sales results on October 28,Fashion Dresses where it will tell the world precisely how many computers it sold in the quarter. While it's quite probable the total will be down versus a year ago, here's an equally accurate headline: "Apple On Verge Of Becoming Top 5 Global PC Maker For The First Time Since 1996."

To clarify, neither Gartner nor IDC believes Apple is in that top 5 though it's possible they're wrong. And however close Apple is, the only reason it's on the cusp is because sales at Asus are collapsing,Fashion Dresses down at least 22% and perhaps 34%, depending on which of the two firms' numbers you believe. Things are scarcely better for fourth place Acer, which has seen similar sales declines in the past year. The good news for the market overall, though, is that the top three: Lenovo, HP and Dell, have each eked out small gains. Unfortunately, they're becoming bigger in a market that's still becoming smaller: Total PC shipments are down 8% versus 2012 and IDC doesn't like the immediate future: "Despite being a little ahead of forecast, and the work that's being done on new designs and integration of features like touch, the third quarter results suggest that there's still a high probability that we will see another decline in worldwide shipments in 2014."

Gartner notes this time of year is often strong: "The third quarter is often referred to as the 'back-to-school' quarter for PC sales, and sales this quarter dropped to their lowest volume since 2008," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. That's Great Recession-level volumes. Not surprisingly it puts the blame on increasing use of tablets. ""Consumers' shift from PCs to tablets for daily content consumption continued to decrease the installed base of PCs both in mature Fashion Dresses as well as in emerging markets." But the continued myopic look at tablets as consumption devices misses the disruptive impact both they and smartphones have had. Consider the chart from Asymco.

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Central Bank Deputy Governor Yi Gang

Liu Li-Gang and Zhou Hao, economists at ANZ Bank, said China's sliding export sales were also a result of a rising yuan.They said activity was further hurt by the Mid-Autumn festival, which fell in the middle of September this year,Fashion Dresses reducing the number of working days in the month compared with 2012."The strong renminbi has eroded China's export competitiveness," ANZ Bank said in a note. It said there were risks that China's economic growth may miss market forecasts this year, but predicted 2013 growth would hit 7.6 percent.The yuan,Fashion Dresses which hit a record high of 6.1090 to the dollar on August 12, has gained 5.7 percent against 60 other currencies since January, data from the Bank of International Settlements showed, outstripping a 3 percent rise in the dollar.In the face of China's unsteady economic recovery, Beijing has repeatedly expressed confidence that the country can still achieve its 2013 growth target of 7.5 percent.

Central Bank Deputy Governor Yi Gang was quoted as saying this week in Washington that China's annual economic growth this year could hit about 7.6 percent.Anlaysts have long warned that a recovery in China's economy may be fragile and brief, especially if Chinese leaders stick to plans for financial reforms, including curbing extravagant investment,Fashion Dresses which would hurt growth in the near term."Despite the subdued export outlook, we expect the government to maintain its current policy stance," said Kuijs from RBS."We expect it to hold on to the firmer monetary stance that it is trying to pursue in order to rein in overall credit growth."An unexpected drop in exports led to China's trade surplus narrowing to a disappointing $15.2 billion in September from $28.6 billion in August, customs figures showed Saturday.

Exports fell 0.3 percent year-on-year to $185.64 billion last month, while imports increased 7.4 percent to $170.44 billion, the figures said.The statistics could signal potential headwind for the world's number two economy, which relies heavily on global demand for its products.Exports in August jumped 7.2 percent year-on-year to $190.7 billion. The positive figures had led analysts to point to optimism in China's economy.However,Fashion Dresses the September trade result was worse than expected, with a survey of nine analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires forecasting a trade surplus of $27 billion.Analysts say China's national holidays falling in September, along with a strong local currency, could have stalled exports.
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White House Encourages Praise of Fed's Yellen

All signs point to President Barack Obama nominating Janet Yellen for the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve.In phone calls to Senate Democrats, White House officials have been asking them to talk favorably about Ms. Yellen in public settings, a Senate Democratic aide said Friday. Also, the White House has asked senators to lay out any objections they might have to Ms. Yellen now, rather than after the nomination is announced, the aide said."Every signal we've received since Lawrence Summers withdrew Fashion Dresses is that she is their pick," the aide said."The message has been it would be nice if folks could start saying positive things about her and if you have any issues please let us know now because we don't want to be sandbagged by anything."

Another Senate official familiar with the White House's thinking about the Fed selection also said the White House has told him Ms. Yellen – who is now vice chair of the Fed — is the likely nominee.Nothing's for certain Fashion Dresses, though. At one point Mr. Summers, a former top White House economic adviser, was the front-runner to succeed Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman. But the Summers candidacy collapsed as Senate Democrats complained about his ties to Wall Street and urged that Ms. Yellen be chosen instead.The White House declined to comment Friday.With no nominee in place, the Senate isn't likely to hold a confirmation hearing until late October or November, the Senate aide said.

Bipartisan good feeling is never in abundance on Capitol Hill. But the atmosphere is especially toxic these days due to the budget fights. If lawmakers can't reach a compromise,Fashion Dresses the Fed nomination hearings could unfold at the same time Congress is arguing about shutting down the government and lifting the debt ceiling."I don't think it necessarily endangers her confirmation because Democratic support is very strong and Republicans have made positive noises," the aide said. "But it could delay it –Fashion Dresses and delay is always bad."It sounds like the plot of TV drama like "24," or, more recently, the acclaimed "Homeland," whose third season premieres Sunday on Showtime. In fact, it's the real-life story of British national Samantha Lewthwaite, who is suspected of participating in last weekend's bloody terror attack on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.
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Health law challenge threatens government shutdown

A conservative challenge to the president's health care law has the federal government teetering on the brink of a partial shutdown.The Senate has the next move on must-do legislation required to keep the government open past midnight on Monday, and the Democratic-led chamber is expected to reject the latest effort from House Republicans to use a normally routine measure to attack President Barack Obama's signature health care law.Congress was closed for the day on Sunday after a post-midnight vote in the GOP-run House to delay by a year key parts of the new health care law Fashion Dresses and repeal a tax on medical devices as the price for avoiding a shutdown. The Senate is slated to convene Monday afternoon just 10 hours before the shutdown deadline,Fashion Dresses and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has already promised that majority Democrats will kill the House's latest volley.

A House GOP leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, said the House would again rebuff the Senate's efforts to advance the short-term funding bill as a simple, "clean" measure shorn of anti-heath care reform provisions.Since the last government shutdown 17 years ago, temporary funding bills known as continuing resolutions have been noncontroversial, with neither party willing to chance a shutdown to achieve legislative goals it couldn't otherwise win. But with health insurance exchanges set to open Tuesday,Fashion Dresses tea party Republicans are willing to take the risk in their drive to kill the law, so-called "Obamacare.""You're going to shut down the government if you can't prevent millions of Americans from getting affordable care," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

A leader of the tea party Republicans, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, insisted the blame rests with Senate Democrats."The House has twice now voted to keep the government open. And if we have a shutdown Fashion Dresses, it will only be because when the Senate comes back, Harry Reid says, 'I refuse even to talk,'" said Cruz, who led a 21-hour broadside against allowing the temporary funding bill to advance if stripped clean of a tea party-backed provision to derail Obamacare. The effort failed.The battle started with a House vote to pass the short-term funding bill with a provision that would have eliminated the federal dollars needed to put Obama's health care overhaul into place. The Senate voted along party lines to strip that out and set the measure back to the House.
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York was called many things during those times

Moody's said GM's current stash of $24 billion in cash and $7 billion more in quickly accessible credit "affords the company with ample flexibility to contend with market downturns and other operational stress."Good thing, because the past decade showed how rapidly a huge auto company can burn through cash when it becomes too smug about its own rosy projections and too slow to respond when the house is on fire.In January 2006, the late Jerry York — who was then stirring the pot at GM on behalf of activist investor Kirk Kerkorian — said GM was burning through cash at the rate of $24 million a day and predicted it would run out in about 1,000 days.

York was called many things during those times, but nobody ever accused him of being bad at counting. GM collapsed into the arms of U.S. government 1,074 days later.York had urged several moves to stem the bleeding,Fashion Dresses including cutting the shareholder dividend in half. Unbelievably in retrospect, GM had the highest ratio of dividend to stock price of any company in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, until it finally did slash the dividend a month after York's big 2006 speech.Ominous warnings about GM's financial assumptions had come years earlier from others, including my Free Press colleague Susan Tompor.

In a 2002 column, two years after the dot-com bust had ushered in a bear market for stocks, Tompor pointed out that GM was still assuming a rosy 10% return on its pension fund assets — even though investment guru Warren Buffett had publicly raised a red flag about such high expectations.General Electric had already cut its pension fund return forecast to 8.5%, but GM didn't budge until long after most other companies got more conservative.I resurrect this unpleasant history not to throw cold water on the new GM's impressive comeback, but merely to caution about the devious way success has of going to one's head.

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Chrysler prepares for IPO

Product recalls also harm our reputation and may cause consumers to question the safety or reliability of our products. For example, we estimate that we will incur costs of $151 million in connection with a voluntary safety recall for the 1993-1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty and a customer satisfaction action for the 1999-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee, both of which we initiated following a recall request from NHTSA related to the risk of fuel tank fire from rear impact collisions.

Chrysler shares haven't been publicly traded since 1998, when the company merged with Daimler. The automaker, based in Auburn Hills, Mich., is majority owned by Italian automaker Fiat.The shares that would be sold are owned by a United Auto Workers-run trust that pays the health-care costs for about 130,000 blue-collar Chrysler retirees. The trust owns a 41.5 percent stake in Chrysler and would get all of the proceeds from an IPO.

Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of both Fiat and Chrysler, has said he wants to buy up the UAW's shares and combine Fiat and Chrysler. But Fiat and the trust have been unable to agree on a price. The trust has set the value of the stake at $4.27 billion, while Fiat says it's worth $1.75 billion.At the trust's request, Chrysler filed the IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday. But Chrysler emphasized that the shares may never be publicly sold. The two sides could still reach an agreement on the price of the shares without an IPO.

The trust did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. But it probably calculated that its shares are growing in value as Chrysler's sales and profits improve with the economy. Chrysler reported its eighth-straight quarterly profit in the April-June period, with net income up 16 percent to $507 million.In its filing, the company also warned that the IPO could hurt Fiat's alliance with Chrysler. Fiat owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler.

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Summers' exit a change of seasons for EM currencies

The surprise withdrawal of Federal Reserve Chairman candidate Lawrence Summers will likely give risk-on trades, such as battered emerging market currencies, a boost, analysts say."Summers' removal means Janet Yellen is a near certainty. Her dovish-ness will be highly supportive to emerging market currencies and you can already see that in early trade," said Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG. The rupee strengthened on the news in early Asian trade on Monday opening over 1 percent higher from Friday's levels.

Summers, who had been seen as President Barack Obama's preferred choice, officially withdrew his name for consideration to succeed Fed chair Ben Bernanke, on Sunday. Many industry watchers had been nervous about the prospect of Summers taking the role due to his hawkish economic views and fiery temperament. With dovish Fed vice-chair Janet Yellen back in the running, risk-on trades are likely to get a boost, analysts say. And indeed, the world's largest fixed income investor PIMCO, tweeted on Monday that According to Steven Englander, global head of G10 FX Strategy at CitiFX, currencies from countries with larger current account deficits are in line for a boost now Summers has been removed from the running.

"The main buying opportunities are probably high current account deficit emerging markets, Aussie dollar and the yen," he said."In that vein, Lawrence Summers' withdrawal from next Fed Chairperson race leaves the field open for Fed Vice-Chair Yellen and USD on the back foot," said Vishnu Varathan, market economist, at Mizuho bank. "Overall, it looks like a 'risk on' bet with the AUD's knee-jerk jump as proof of the pudding," he added, referring to strength in the Aussie dollar, which rallied roughly 0.8 percent by mid-morning in Australia on Monday.

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Samuel Adams Beer Creator Becomes Billionaire

The companies may also target diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, Crooke and Scangos said. Biogen had been developing a drug for ALS, dexpramipexole, that failed to show any benefit earlier this year in the last stage of clinical trials."Biogen has a pretty aggressive program to understand more about the genetic causes of ALS," Scangos said. One part of that, an academic group, is "already generating interesting insights into the biology and some potential targets we would hope to be able to take forward."

The partnership is the first for Isis around an entire therapeutic area, Crooke said. The company doesn't have a sales force, preferring to make partnerships with larger drugmakers to run late-stage clinical studies and to market its medicines. Its first approved drug, Kynamro, for a rare cholesterol disorder, is marketed by Sanofi (SAN)'s Genzyme unit."This is the next step in the evolution of our partnering strategy," Crooke said. "It makes a lot of sense for us; what we need is to make sure our partners understand our technology, are ready for the drugs when they're ready for them, and that there are people in the organizations we can trust to do a good job with our assets."

Samuel Adams beer creator Jim Koch has reportedly become a billionaire, as sales of the popular beer have helpe Boston Beer Co. shares double in the past year. According to Bloomberg, shares of the company reached a record high on Friday, while overall beer sales have become stale.Sam Adams is one of the bright spots of the U.S. beer market. Reports said total American beer sales fell 2 percent in the first half of 2013, while the craft brew segment grew 15 percent. Boston Beer's sales increased more than 17 percent during the same period.

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In Hawaii, firms like longtime employer mandate

"For most employers, it really isn't worth it," said Andy Anderson, who leads the health division at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Chicago. "They want to keep their employees."UPS announced this summer that it would no longer offer coverage to workers' better halves who could get insurance through their own employers. UPS blamed the move in part on increased costs under Obamacare. Whether it's driven by the health care law or just an effort to cut health costs, it's a move that some other firms have made or are considering as well.If you don't like your insurance, can you change it?

If your employer doesn't offer decent, affordable insurance, you may have new options.The basic standard for good insurance under Obamacare is that the health plan will pay at least 60 percent of medical expenses. Most large employer plans now more than meet that measure, but there are notable exceptions among big businesses, too, especially in the restaurant, hospitality and retail industries.And insurance is "affordable," according to the Affordable Care Act, if you can buy it for less than 9.5 percent of your taxable income. But what's affordable under the ACA may not be affordable by other lights. A person with adjustable income of $40,000 could pay up to $3,800 a year, or about $315 per month.

Next year, people who don't have access to affordable insurance can go into the exchanges and seek an income-based subsidy. Employers have to send out a notice this fall that will help workers know whether that's an option.Unlike its 49 counterparts, Hawaii has been living with a strict employer mandate for nearly 40 years. And as businesses nationwide celebrate a one-year delay in the similar Obamacare requirement that they cover workers, supporters of Hawaii's law say theirs is proof that the rest of the country could adjust — and even learn to like it.

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Not making more loans

JPMorgan, which already restricted student loans to existing Chase bank customers, will stop accepting applications for private student loans on October 12, at the end of the peak borrowing season for this school year, according to a memo from the company to colleges that was reviewed by Reuters on Thursday. Final loan disbursements are expected before March 15, 2014."We just don't see this as a market that we can significantly grow," said Thasunda Duckett, chief executive for auto and student loans at Chase, in an interview.

Not making more loans "puts us in a position to redeploy those resources, as well as focus on our No. 1 priority, which is getting the regulatory control environment strengthened," Duckett said.JPMorgan's decision comes after Congress acted in mid-2010 to bypass the banks and have the government lend directly to students. The federal government now issues 93 percent of student loans. Banks and other private lenders have also come under pressure from regulators and politicians to offer more flexible repayment terms on student loans.

JPMorgan's portfolio has been shrinking by roughly $1 billion to $2 billion a year since then, and is a small fraction of its assets. The company's student loan portfolio at the end of June held $11 billion - less than 0.5 percent - of its $2.44 trillion of assets. Last year, Chase made education loans to 12,500 people for a total of about $200 million.Hundreds of thousands of students, however, still look to private lenders when they have exhausted their federal borrowing limit. Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association, said decisions like JPMorgan's show that the government's direct lending policies are leading to "less competition in the marketplace."

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The euro-dollar traded at 1.316

In the US, the Dow gave up much of a 120 points intra-day rally as Syrian fears escalated and markets still squeezed out small gains supported by positive economic data on Tuesday. European shares closed down in choppy trade and back home, our market got clobbered yesterday as the four-day rally came to a grinding halt wiping out USD 25 billion in market cap.Meanwhile, Asian markets slipped in early trade today.In the currency space, the dollar hit a six week high after stronger-than-expected US economic data bolstered expectations the Federal Reserve will start scaling back stimulus this month.

The euro-dollar traded at 1.316 and the yen stood at 99.5/USD. The rupee lost ground breaching the 68-per-dollar mark on Tuesday, before RBI intervention lifted the currency off the day's lows.In commodities, crude prices rose as lawmakers voiced support for military action against Syria, raising new fears about an armed conflict that could crimp supply. Brent traded at USD 115.7/barrel while Nymex rose above USD 108/barrel giving up some gains towards closeFrom precious metals space, gold prices rose as much as 1.4 percent intra-day to within striking distance of a 3.5-year high as the consensus against Syria developed before giving up some gains.

Watch for strength in Strides Arcolab as the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given the final nod for the USD 1.6 billion Mylan deal. Mylan says that the transaction is expected to close in Q4 of 2013.Jet Airways will be in focus as the government has recommended the over Rs 2000 crore Etihad deal to the cabinet committee for approval. The deal is likely to be completed by September 20 as all regulatory clearances are expected to be in place by then.

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Health law prompts confusion in Allamakee County

For Candy Seibert, a self-employed property manager from northeast Iowa, getting by without health insurance is just a way of life.Her experience isn't unusual in Allamakee County, where the 44-year-old Seibert lives. According to 2010 Census data, the bucolic county has the highest percentage of people without insurance in Iowa. A total of 18.2 percent of the population here lacks insurance, compared with a statewide average of 10.7 percent, based on the Small Area Health Insurance Estimates survey.

The onset of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul could bring down the number of uninsured in this region, with an expansion of state-run low income health coverage and new insurance marketplaces where people can buy plans. But there is both confusion and skepticism about the program in this area. Seibert, who has never had health insurance as an adult, said she didn't know much about the new law and wasn't sure if it would have an impact on her life."I feel a little strange that this is the first time we're forced to do something by our government," said Seibert, who said she'd be taking a wait and see approach.

Currently, she pays doctor bills off in installments, though she admits she's been lucky to have had relatively good health.Like Seibert, people without insurance in Allamakee, a county of about 14,000 people, said they manage in a variety of ways — visiting a free clinic in a neighboring county, seeking charity care at the hospital, putting medical bills on a payment plan, or just not going to see a doctor. Most who said they didn't have insurance, or had limited insurance access, said they knew little about the health care overhaul — officially the Affordable Care Act, but often referred to as "Obamacare" —and were not sure it would solve their problems.

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Ackman puts JC Penney stake up for sale

Bill Ackman has put his stake in JC Penney up for sale as the hedge fund manager prepares to end three years as the biggest shareholder in the department storewhere he has lost at least 40 per cent of his original investment.Mr Ackman's Pershing Square hedge fund will sell its 17.7 per cent stake via Citigroup, which will act as bookrunner, as the mid-market retailer struggles to recover from the impact of a chief executive Mr Ackman installed.In a letter to investors in his fund this month, Mr Ackman said that as of August 16 JC Penney "stock trades at a more than 40 per cent discount to our average cost" of investment.Given that Mr Ackman holds 39m shares and the stock closed at $13.40 on August 16, that suggests he is carrying a paper loss of at least $349m. It is not known at what price he will be able to offload the shares.

The hedge fund manager played a central role in hiring Ron Johnson from Apple to revive the tired chain, but Mr Johnson's strategy alienated shoppers and triggered a disastrous fall in sales. He left the job in April after 17 months.JC Penney shares closed at $13.35 on Monday, then fell 1.8 per cent to $13.11 in after-market trading after Mr Ackman's share sale was announced.In the letter to investors this month, Mr Ackman acknowledged that his JC Penney investment had been a "failure". But in recent weeks he has sought to portray the hiring of Mr Johnson as a move that all JC Penney directors wanted.Mr Ackman resigned from JC Penney's board earlier this month after an unusually public spat with fellow directors.

It was sparked by the hedge fund manager's unhappiness over the performance of Mike Ullman, who was brought back as chief executive in April to replace Mr Johnson having stepped down in 2011 to make way for him.JC Penney, which has over 1,000 stores mostly in regional malls, will not receive any proceeds from Mr Ackman's share sale, it said.As underwriter, Citi will purchase the shares from Mr Ackman and offer them for sale "from time to time?.?.?.?in one or more transactions or otherwise", according to a JC Penney regulatory filing.Last week JC Penney reported another quarterly loss and plunging sales.

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Lew warns Congress to strike debt ceiling deal

Jack Lew, the US Treasury secretary, delivered his most extensive warning yet to Congress about the dangers of brinkmanship over the US debt ceiling, saying it would inflict broad damage to the economy in an "unnecessary self-inflicted wound".On a visit to Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Mr Lew did not offer an exact deadline by when US lawmakers will need to strike a deal to raise America's borrowing limit or face default. But analysts at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think-tank, believe it will be somewhere between mid-October and mid-November, depending on the government's cash flow.

In his speech, Mr Lew harked back to the "cloud of doubt" that enveloped the US economy two years ago when Congress and the White House only reached a debt ceiling deal at the eleventh hour after weeks of protracted, tense negotiations."The drawn-out dispute over the debt ceiling caused business uncertainty to jump, consumer confidence to drop, financial markets to fall, and economic growth to falter," Mr Lew said. "We cannot afford a repeat of what happened in 2011," he added.Mr Lew has cited the risk of another brush with default in the past, but Thursday's remarks were the most pointed and lengthy on the subject since he took the helm of the Treasury in February.

His comments came with Congress still on summer recess, but facing a gruelling set of high-stakes fiscal negotiations when it returns next month.In 2011, Republicans in the House sought to link raising the debt limit with deep spending cuts that Democrats and the White House found hard to stomach. But this year, they are also trying to extract concessions on "Obamacare" – the 2010 health reform law.The attempt by some staunch conservatives to "defund" the law has been discouraged by Republican leaders but there is another idea gaining traction.A top Republican aide said the party was toying with the idea of demanding a one-year delay in the "individual mandate" that will require every American to be insured by the end of next year or face a tax penalty.

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Obama urges regulators to enact Wall Street rules

Three years after President Barack Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules, execution of the law is behind schedule with scores of regulations yet to be written, let alone enforced. Meeting privately with the nation's top financial regulators on Monday, Obama prodded them to act more swiftly.The president's push'es as the five-year anniversary of the nation's financial near-meltdown approaches. The law when passed in 2010 was considered a milestone in Obama's presidency, a robust response to the crisis, which led to a massive government bailout to stabilize the financial markets.

But the slow pace of implementation has prompted administration concern that banks could still pose potentially calamitous risks to the economy and to taxpayers. Obama hoped to convey "the sense of urgency that he feels," spokesman Josh Earnest said before the president convened the meeting with the eight independent regulators in the White House Roosevelt Room.Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008, and the administration has wanted to use that dubious milestone to look back on the lessons of the crisis and progress so far to prevent a recurrence. In a statement at the conclusion of the meeting, the White House said Obama'mended the regulators for their work "but stressed the need to expeditiously finish implementing the critical remaining portions of Wall Street reform to ensure we are able to prevent the type of financial harm that led to the Great Recession from ever happening again."

Not everyone feels that way about the law, known as Dodd-Frank after its Democratic sponsors, Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Christopher Dodd.Republican House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, an early opponent of Dodd-Frank, dismissed Obama's meeting with the regulators, saying, "Much like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank is an i'prehensively'plex piece of legislation that is harmful to our floundering economy and in dire need of repeal."

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AOL Chief Apologizes Over Firing of Worker

A recording of the firing was leaked to news outlets and caused a firestorm around Mr. Armstrong, who has been trying to turn AOL from a struggling Internet portal into a successful media company.The four-paragraph statement, sent to AOL employees at 4:30 p.m. and obtained by The New York Times, said, "I am writing you to acknowledge the mistake I made last Friday during the Patch all-hands meeting when I publicly fired Abel Lenz. It was an emotional response at the start of a difficult discussion dealing with many people's careers and livelihoods. I am the C.E.O. and leader of the organization, and I take that responsibility seriously."

The firing took place during a conference call with more than 1,000 employees of Patch, the local news service AOL runs for hundreds of towns. Mr. Armstrong had convened the meeting to emphasize the direness of Patch's circumstances and prepare the staff for coming layoffs and management changes."If you think what is going on right now is a joke, and you want to joke around about it, you should pick your stuff up and leave Patch today," Mr. Armstrong told the employees.But right after that statement he can be heard reprimanding Mr. Lenz, Patch's creative director, who was videotaping the meeting, then firing him.

"Abel, put that camera down right now! Abel, you're fired. Out!" Five seconds later, to stunned silence, he proceeded with his message.In his letter to the staff, Mr. Armstrong further explained the reason for the firing, saying confidential meetings should not be recorded and that Mr. Lenz had been warned previously not to make recordings. AOL said that Mr. Lenz would not be hired back but that Mr. Armstrong had contacted him to apologize.AOL has spent hundreds of millions on the Patch service, but has acknowledged being disappointed with its financial performance. During a call with analysts last week Mr. Armstrong said he would sell off or seek partners for as many as 400 of Patch's 900 local sites, a move that could result in hundreds of layoffs.

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Tax rules could force Bezos to play active role at Wash Post

It was unclear how Bezos - the world's 19th richest person with a fortune of $25.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine - would manage his new businesses for tax purposes. U.S. individual tax returns are private, meaning that he has no obligation to disclose publicly how he might use the newspaper purchase to his tax advantage. His 2012'pensation from Amazon was $1.7 million; he owns nearly 19 percent of Amazon.In an effort to root out tax shelters, Congress passed tax rules that prevent an individual from claiming business tax breaks without playing an active role in the business itself.Before the law, "people would be passive investors in a business, the business would throw off losses and they would use depreciation losses to offset other i'e," said David Kautter, managing director of the Kogod Tax Center at the Kogod School of Business at American University.

To realize the business tax benefits, Bezos may need to spend 500 hours a year in managing The Post's business, tax experts said, citing Internal Revenue Service rules. That'es to an average of 9.6 hours a week.Such rules may influence Bezos' participation at the Post. An Amazon spokesman for Bezos did not respond to requests for'ment. A Post spokeswoman declined to'ment.The law is murky in defining what qualifies as business activity for tax breaks, and subject to interpretation, but it generally includes making decisions and telling people what to do, experts said."A lot of it depends on how you count hours ... It's a fair amount of time you have to spend, it's not inconsequential," said Bill Smith, a managing director with CBIZ MHM, an accounting firm.

The paper's operations will be kept separate from Amazon'. The deal is notable also because Bezos bought The Post's assets, not shares in the Washington Post Co, which would not entitle him to business tax breaks. The Post's parent'pany will be selling some additional publishing assets, but no real estate, into a limited liability Delaware'pany set up for Bezos.Bezos faces the same tax considerations as anyone buying a business, accountants said."This is designed so that he can save on taxes," said David Lifson, an accountant with Crowe Horwath LLP, who advises wealthy clients. "It's no different than if he was buying a hotdog stand."



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Sugary drinks tied to obesity among preschoolers

Although the link between sugary drinks and extra weight has been well documented among teens and adults, researchers said that up until now, the evidence was less clear for young children."Even though sugar-sweetened beverages are relatively a small percentage of the calories that children take in, that additional amount of calories did contribute to more weight gain over time," said Dr. Mark DeBoer, who led the study at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.He and his colleagues surveyed the parents of a nationally-representative group of 9,600 children when the kids were two, four and five years old. The children were all born in 2001. Parents reported on their i'e and education, as well as how often children drank sugary beverages and watched TV.

The children and their mothers were weighed at each survey visit.The proportion of kids who had at least one soda, sports drink or sugar-sweetened juice drink each day ranged from 9 to 13 percent, depending on their age.Those children were more likely to have an overweight mother and to watch at least two hours of TV each day at age four and five.After accounting for those influences as well as families' socioeconomic status, the researchers found five-year-olds who had at least one sugary drink each day were 43 percent more likely to be obese than those who drank the beverages less frequently or not at all.Kids were considered obese if they had a body mass index - a measure of weight in relation to height - above the 95th percentile for their age and gender, as calculated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 15 percent of five-year-olds in the study were obese.Four-year-old sugary beverage drinkers also tended to have a higher rate of obesity than non-drinkers - but that finding could have been due to chance, the researchers reported Monday in Pediatrics. Among two-year-olds, there was no link between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity.In a statement sent to Reuters Health, the American Beverage Association trade group wrote, "Overweight and obesity are caused by an imbalance between calories consumed from all foods and beverages and calories burned. Therefore, it is misleading to suggest that beverage consumption is uniquely responsible for weight gain among this group of children, especially at a time in their lives when they would normally gain weight and grow."


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Should Hindu Nationalist Narendra Modi Be Allowed a U.S. Visa?

The big debate right now in America is whether to hand more visas to Indian techies who want to study or live in the United States. But the issue that dominated the news cycle in India last week concerned the visa of one man: Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the state of Gujarat,Here is a quick tour of the assembly aerial working platform stations at the Queen's Machine factory. who wants to do neither.Sixty-five members of the Indian Parliament—some of whom have since backtracked —released a letter they wrote to President Barack Obama urging him to maintain America's eight-year-old visa ban on Modi. The U.The sinfully excellent Motor Grader of Huntress were the first act on the Jagermeister stage and had one of the most stunning sets both visually and sonically.S., along with England and other Western countries, imposed the ban after human-rights groups implicated Modi in the 2002 massacre of Muslims in his state. 

The Indian Supreme Court exonerated Modi a decade later, but by then many witnesses had been tampered with or died or killed.That year, Hindu mobs—some led by figures from Modi's own party, one of whom was eventually convicted—went on a revenge spree against Muslims for burning a train with Hindu pilgrims.Although there was a lot of student drag bit, McInturff quickly found out creating a debate team from scratch was no easy task. They razed Muslim homes, raped Muslim women, and killed Muslim men.However, when asked by Reuters a few weeks ago if he felt any remorse over the grisly events that unfolded on his watch, his response was: If your driver runs over a "kutte ka baccha"—a crude term for a puppy—you would obviously feel regret; it was a statement that simultaneously dodged responsibility and dehumanized Muslims. 

But none of this has fazed Modi's solid fan base in the majority Hindu population that has made him the opposition BJP's Bharatiya Janata Party standard-bearer in next year's elections for prime minister.Part of Modi's attraction is that, in sharp contrast to the i'petence,Instead, you can employ a Skid steer loader that uses the Remote Desktop Connection tool to connect to a networked virtual machine running in Client Hyper-V. corruption, and intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling Congress Party, he is a man of vision—an able administrator who has done wonders for his state's economy. This is an image he feeds constantly.Coordinate robot will love the fact that one interactive screen handles it all—from size, crust and toppings to specialty and.bo orders. A month ago, a story floated by his PR firm about how he orchestrated the rescue of 15,000 people stranded in a flood zone, even as the Indian army struggled, caused a sensation among his followers.

Kitchenware retailer found to be sham contracting

After they ceased work for Metro, the sales representatives each lodged a'plainant with the Fair Work Ombudsman claiming they had not been paid as they should have been.The three issues for the Court to determine were whether:the sales representatives were employees or independent contractors;Metro misrepresented the sales representatives' employment as an independent contracting arrangement under the FW Act; and the sales representatives had an entitlement to payments in accordance with the FW Act.In reviewing recent case law relating to determining a worker's employment status,2 Judge Barnes noted the principles set out by the Full Court of the Federal Court in ACE Insurance3 that there is no one single criterion that will necessarily determine the relationship, and that it is necessary to examine the various facets and circumstances of the relationship as a whole to discern its true character. 

In determining the relationship between Metro and the sales representatives, Judge Barnes examined a number of criteria, including:the content of Metro's training, where the participants had to attend,As our Hillary Watch 2016 series marches on, Hillary 2016 pop-up ads from what I am calling the Road Roller are bombarding my computer screen. pass a test, and obtain a sales kit;Metro's training manual,Most of all, most of her students —diamond core bit for Zapatier — had no experience.Enter the Rebel Debate Institute.For the past two weeks. which had a very strict 16 step presentation format and selling technique;the contractual documents,Ads like this one below or others shouting: "Show Your Support. Take the Ready for Hillary pledge."rough terrain crane can only imagine what that pledge entails. particularly the Independent Agent Agreement;the requirement of on-going training and contact with the Metro office;delegation and control; and whether the sales representatives served Metro's business or their own business. 

Judge Barnes was satisfied that the sales representatives were under the control of Metro in significant respects,A few friends who also participated in the display at the picnic were among the early and China visa houston supporters of the now annual event on the farm. both directly in the manner in which they were directed, and supervised, in the performance of their tasks,On the lower end of the scale you could find yourself getting questions scissors supplier posts that the previous owner made. as well as indirectly through the use of suggested Metro scripts and instructions as to what they 'should' do.In considering the totality of the relationship, Judge Barnes found that, although some factors tended to indicate against an employment relationship, she was satisfied that the proper characterisation of the arrangements was that Metro was the employer of the four sales representatives.Judge Barnes also found that by providing the sales representatives with the Independent Agent Agreement, Metro had contravened the FW Act by misrepresenting employment as an independent contracting arrangement.

"Multi-tool on steroids" delivers a dozen functions

We first ran into AceCamp a year ago at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, where it was showing a plastic firestarter called the FlameStick. For this year's Summer Market,It allows us to get.panies who sell different types of services — China visa houston processing, loyalty, ordering et cetera — to bundle with our POS, and to integrate their service with us. AceCamp is showing a larger line of survival hardware, which includes the Survival Multi-Tool Shovel.The 11.4-oz (312-g) Survival shovel appears to be an average folding shovel, good for digging a wilderness toilet or firepit. What makes this one different from the rest of the folding shovels you find at outdoor superstores is its 11 additional functions. Look closely and you'll see that the shovel packs more than just the usual blade – on one side is a saw blade, and on the other, a hatchet blade. The shovel blade also has a hammer, nail puller, wrench and bottle opener. 

Those functions are enough to push the AceCamp's shovel past nearly any other shovel in the function department, and that's just on the outside. Remove the compass cap on the bottom of the handle and a small knife blade, fishing line and hooks, and matches fall out. So this shovel not only digs you a fire pit, it cuts the wood, starts the fire, catches the fish to fry over that fire, and pops your beer while that fish sizzles. Cutting wood and fishing might be a little awkward with the shovel's hardware, but at least you can give it a go.The Survival Multi-Tool Shovel retails for US$19.99. Considering that a keychain multi-tool costs a couple dollars more than that, and the nearest competitors like the $80 Zippo 4-in-1 Woodsman and $110 Crovel cost multiple times as much, it seems like a solid deal. 

Those competitors appear to have larger, superior hardware, but $20 isn't bad even for a simple folding shovel, so why not get a couple of extra uses out of it?Upon graduating college with a poli sci degree, Chris toiled in the political world for several years.A public relations expert who specializes in advising stars in difficult Motor Grader. Realizing he was better off making cynical comments from afar than actually getting involved in all that mess,Maurene Horder from the peak body for migration onshore hose, the Migration Institute of Australia, says more regulation is needed. he turned away from matters of government and news to cover the things that really matter: outdoor recreation,Fiona Suleiman, a Thermal printer OEM resident since 1985, was relieved that the problem had been detected. cool cars,This might even help Baxter's.edic timing. "A Skid steer loader is not simply left, right, left," explained Tempest. It has to be timed right to be funny. technology, wild gadgets and all forms of other toys. He's happily following the wisdom of his father who told him that if you find something you love to do, it won't really be work.

Tool Reduces the Environmental

For instance, in a village where parasitic load is heavy,He was taken to Motion controller with serious but non-life threatening injuries, authorities said.Route 60 near Cedar Grove was shut down for more than one hour while crews cleared the scene. drug administration rather than mosquito control would be the priority. In places with heavy mosquito density, larval and adult spraying measures need to be taken up followed by drug administration."This is the first of its kind approach in the country in reducing mosquito-borne diseases at village level," Dr. Murthy added.My husband has not been getting his mail from clients, bank statements, China tourist visa, letters from our families overseas and our bills, added the 36-year-old.He said the health officials in the five States have been imparted training on the use of the software. "The feed back from Arunachal Pradesh is that it is working very well and they are able to identify the affected villages and take precautionary measures," he said.For now, Jenkins's team and others are making steady progress toward that goal, training robots to stack blocks, pick up objects to tidy the lab space, and even boot a rough terrain crane. 

Determining the technical and economic feasibility of the use of construction and demolition waste in the design,Maurene Horder from the Migration Institute. Will Robot system the reporter. operation and closure of dump sites and getting a responsible management of the existing ones is one of the main uses of the calculation tool created by Joan Esteban Altabella, student of the Master's Degree in Energy Efficiency and Sustainability in Industrial Facilities and Building at the Universitat Jaume I, in his final research project supervised by the lecturer Francisco J. Colomer.The new calculation tool, named "Labwaste.12," includes more than 200 parameters and variables that must be taken into account when planning a landfill. It can be applied both in the training field on issues related to this subject and in the professional field for the design, operation or closing of these facilities. 

The programme is now ready to be used and there is no method on the market that provides many output data.The idea for this work arose from the need to investigate new applications for waste that, until now, had been taken to manufacture structural concrete, but that were stuck with the crisis in the construction sector,Boxer told The Associated Press the law would benefit U.S. citizens by specifically requiring the secretaries of state and Marine hose. and employ them in landfills, where there is a greater and continuous demand independent of the economic situation, with an indefinite use. The last comprehensive waste plan (PIR) of the Valencian Community watched a shortfall in treatment plants of this kind of waste and raised the need to increase them in the future.