For stocks, last 6 months could be tough to match

wall-street

Steve Rothwell The Associated Press

5 hours ago

Richard Drew / AP

Specialist Peter Elkins, left, and trader George Baskinger work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, June 28, 2013. Stocks ended mostly lower on Wall Street as the market closed out a turbulent month.

The stock market just had its best first half of the year since 1998. Now what?

History suggests stock investors will make more money the second half of the year.

Since World War II, a big increase in the first half of a year has almost always been followed by more gains in the second half.

In the 68 years beginning with 1946, the S&P 500 index has risen 10 percent or more 23 times, according to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices. Of those 23 years, the market rose the second half of the year 19 times. Eleven of those years, or nearly half, the S&P 500 rose at least 10 percent the second half of the year.

The best second half was in 1954, in the middle of the stock market's longest bull run. Stocks increased 26.2 percent July-December. The worst second half was in 1987. The "Black Monday" market crash was Oct. 19, and stocks fell 17.4 percent the second half of the year.

In years like this one, in which stocks have started with a gain of between 10 and 15 percent, the average second-half increase has been 9.4 percent.

Those numbers suggest that when a rally gets going, it keeps going.

Of course, past performance is no guarantee of the market's future, and investors face some hurdles in this year's second half. The Federal Reserve has helped stocks rally by forcing down interest rates. But the central bank is considering reducing that stimulus later this year. Also, concerns about the Chinese economy, the world's second-largest, have unsettled markets in recent weeks.

But the factors that drove the market methodically higher the first five months of the year remain: The housing market is strengthening. Auto sales are strong. Companies continue to earn record profits. Inflation and interest rates are ultra low. The economy is growing moderately and may pick up the second half of the year.

"We're going higher," said Phil Orlando, Chief Equity Strategist at Federated Investors. "Rising stock prices and rising real estate prices are making people feel better about their financial condition ... So we think that second-half GDP and second-half earnings are going to be better than the first half."

Orlando predicts that the S&P 500 will end the year at 1,750.

Although many investors had expected stocks to climb this year, they were surprised at the speed of the advance early on. By May 21, the S&P 500 had climbed to a record 1,669 and was up 17 percent. A day later, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank was considering pulling back on its stimulus. The market's advance cooled, and the S&P has lost 3 percent since.

Add dividends to the S&P 500's price rise and the total return for investors is 13.8 percent ? the most in 15 years.

"We're not surprised at the positive performance across U.S. equity markets this year because the fundamentals of the economy are improving," says Steve Rees, head of U.S. Equity Strategy for JPMorgan Private Bank. "We were surprised, though, at how quickly we achieved that performance at the start of the year."

Here are the five best first halves for the S&P 500 since World War II. Data before 1957, when the S&P 500 was launched, combine the values for four earlier S&P indices: the industrials, utilities, financials and transportation:

? 1975. First half: up 41.7 percent. Second half: down 3.2 percent.

The 1970s began with a bull run, but things soon went sour. The oil crisis of 1973-1974 caused oil prices to soar and the economy entered into what would be a 16-month recession in November 1973. The annual rate of inflation began to climb. It surged as high as 12.2 percent in November 1974 from 3.4 percent a year earlier. The S&P 500 dropped 48 percent between Jan. 11, 1973 and Oct. 4, 1974.

The market soared in the first half of 1975 as inflation moderated and investors grew hopeful the economy was pulling out of its slump. The market gave up some of its gain in the second half of the year as doubts about the strength of the economic recovery grew and concern rose that inflation might re-emerge. New York City's fiscal crisis also weighed on markets.

? 1987. First half: up 27.4 percent. Second half: down 17.4 percent.

In early 1987, investors were still enjoying a bull run that had begun in August 1982. Unemployment and inflation had fallen. Tax cuts and low interest rates had spawned an economic boom.

But things unraveled in a big way.

Stocks peaked on August 25, when the S&P 500 closed at a record 336. Rising interest rates and concerns about a stock bubble prompted a sell-off in October. That culminated in 'Black Monday' on Oct. 19, 1987, when the index plunged 57 points, or 20.5 percent, to 224.

? 1983. First half: up 22.2 percent. Second half: up 0.25 percent.

In early 1983, the great '80s bull run was just beginning. It had started the previous summer after the Fed lowered its benchmark interest rate from 14.5 percent to 10 percent. President Reagan's tax cuts also got the economy going after it had contracted for much of 1982.

But the surge in stocks stalled in the second half. Investors worried that the expanding economy would revive inflation and compel the Fed to raise rates.

?1986. First half: up 20.7 percent. Second half: down 1.8 percent.

The factors that had given stocks a lift in 1983 were still in play. Also, falling oil prices helped lower the threat of inflation and allowed the Fed to cut interest rates. The price of oil dropped as low as $10.42 a barrel in March, after starting the year at $26.30 a barrel.

? 1954. First half: up 20.6 percent. Second half: up 26.2 percent.

The stock market was on its longest bull run, from 1949 to 1961. In 1954, an improving economy and rising confidence after the Korean War helped stocks. By November, the market had finally returned to its peak before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Are Liberals Turning on Immigration Reform? (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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Fresh Sony Xperia i1 'Honami' leak shows more hardware details

A couple of days back we got our first look at what could be Sony's upcoming 20-megapixel "cameraphone," the Xperia i1, or "Honami." In addition to a beastly rear camera, alleged specs for the future Sony flagship include a Snapdragon 800 CPU and a 5-plus-inch display.

Today we're seeing fresh images of the device cropping up on Just Another Mobile Blog. The site shows a device matching the earlier "Honami" leaks, while revealing new hardware details, such as a microSD slot, an Xperia Z Ultra-like magnetic charging port and a dedicated camera key (natch). The report also claims the final version device will ship with a Xenon flash rather than the LED flash pictured.

Aside from the specs, Sony's clearly still utilizing its "Omnibalance" design language in its latest product, and the device pictured would look right at home alongside the manufacturer's current line-up. We've heard through our own sources that a Q3 launch is likely for the product, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long to find out more.

Source: Just Another Mobile Blog; via: GSMArena

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/a9k2Pcrx12Q/story01.htm

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Justin Miller Found Dead: Former MLB Pitcher Dies at 35

PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) ? Justin Miller, a pitcher for four teams during a major league career that spanned seven seasons, has been found dead. He was 35.

Miller's death was confirmed Friday by his agent, Matt Sosnick. Miller's body was found Wednesday night, but the cause of death hadn't been released by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Miller pitched for the Blue Jays, Marlins, Giants and Dodgers from 2002 to 2010. He had a career record of 24-14 in 216 games.

The California native lived in Palm Harbor since 2002.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/29/justin-miller-found-dead-mlb-pitcher_n_3520256.html

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Carter: World religions perpetuate women's plight

ATLANTA (AP) ? Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says religious leaders, including those in Christianity and Islam, share the blame for mistreatment of women across the world.

The human rights activist said Friday religious authorities perpetuate misguided doctrines of male superiority, from the Catholic Church forbidding women from becoming priests to some African cultures mutilating the genitals of young girls.

Carter said the doctrines, which he described as theologically indefensible, contribute to a political, social and economic structure where political leaders passively accept violence against women, a worldwide sex slave trade and inequality in the workplace and classroom.

"There is a great aversion among men leaders and some women leaders to admit that this is something that exists, that it's serious and that it's it troubling and should be addressed courageously," Carter said at an international conference on women and religion.

The 39th president is hosting representatives from 15 countries at The Carter Center, the human rights organization he launched in 1982 after leaving the White House.

The Mobilizing Faith for Women event emphasizes to world leaders that religious institutions can be forces for equality, he said.

Nations represented at the Carter conference include Afghanistan, Botswana, Egypt, Iraq, Malaysia, Nigeria, Senegal and the Sudan. Carter mentioned widespread oppression in many of nations where iterations of Islam dominate, but also had criticism for the developed Western world where Christianity is the strongest cultural influence.

A common thread, he said, are "gross abuses of religious texts in the Koran and in the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament. Singular verses can be extracted and extorted to assert the singular dominance of men."

Referring to the Christian apostle Paul, credited with writing much of the New Testament outside the gospels, he said, "Paul said there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, slaves or masters, man or woman."

The former president noted that the early Christian Church included leaders of both sexes. It wasn't until a few centuries after Jesus Christ's time on earth, he said, that leaders of what would become the Roman Catholic Church established the exclusively male priesthood. Catholic doctrine justifies the practice by noting that Jesus, according to gospel texts, named only men among his apostles.

Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were once members of the Southern Baptist Church. The couple recently disassociated from Southern Baptists, citing its prohibition on ordaining women or allowing them to serve as deacons or other leadership posts in local congregations.

Their independent Baptist church has a woman pastor and a man pastor and divides six deaconships equally between men and women, Carter said. "My wife is probably the most famous Baptist deacon in the world."

He noted that women in Saudi Arabia can't drive or vote. Girls in some cultures are forced to marry before they are 10 years old and women in the United States, he said, are paid about 70 percent of what men earn for the same work. Across the world, he said, prosecutions for rape are either rare or too often become a referendum on the victim.

"The point is that the voices demanding these circumstances change are few and far between," Carter said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/carter-world-religions-perpetuate-womens-plight-145100259.html

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Senate falls short of 70-vote goal on immigration bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate's vote passing a broad immigration reform bill fell two votes short of what some of its main backers had said was necessary to pressure the House of Representatives to act.

The Senate voted 68-32 for the bill, giving more than two-thirds support in the 100-member chamber. Earlier, backers said they were pushing to get 70 votes to help sway the more conservative House to consider it.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa called the failure to hit 70 votes a strategic setback for proponents. Yet backers insisted that they were happy with 68-32 tally, saying it demonstrated broad bipartisan support, and eight more than the 60 that is traditionally needed to clear procedural roadblocks.

(Reporting By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-falls-short-70-vote-goal-immigration-bill-203859926.html

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Molecule drives aggressive breast cancer

June 27, 2013 ? Recent studies by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University's Kimmel Cancer Center have shown a gene known to coordinate initial development of the eye (EYA1) is a powerful breast tumor promoter in mice. The gene EYA1 was also shown to be overexpressed in a genetic breast cancer subtype called luminal B.

The scientists found that excess activity of this gene -- EYA1 -- also enhances development of breast cancer stem cells that promote resistance to cancer therapy, recurrence, and poor survival.

Because EYA1 is an enzyme, the scientists are now working to identify a natural compound that could shut down EYA1 activity, says Richard Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Kimmel Cancer Center.

"It was known that EYA1 is over-expressed in some breast cancers, but no one knew what that meant," he says. "Our studies have shown the enzyme drives luminal B breast tumor growth in animals and the enzyme activity is required for tumor growth."

In a mouse model of aggressive breast cancer, the research team targeted a single amino acid on the EYA1 phosphatase activity. They found that inactivating the phosphatase activity of EYA1 stopped aggressive human tumors from growing.

"We are excited about the potential of drug treatment, because it is much easier to develop a drug that targets a phosphatase enzyme like EYA1, than it is to target a gene directly," he says.

Tracing how EYA1 leads to poor outcomes

The study, which was published in the May 1 issue of Cancer Research, examined 2,154 breast cancer samples for the presence of EYA1. The researchers then linked those findings to patient outcomes. They found a direct relationship between increased level of EYA1 and cyclin D1 to poor survival.

They then chose one form of breast cancer -- luminal B -- and traced the bimolecular pathway of how EYA1 with cyclin D1 increases cancer aggressiveness. Luminal B breast cancer, one of five different breast cancer subtypes, is a hormone receptor-positive form that accounts for about 20 percent of human breast cancer. It is more aggressive than luminal A tumors, a hormone receptor-positive cancer that is the most common form of breast cancer.

Their work delineated a string of genes and proteins that are affected by EYA1, and they also discovered that EYA1 pushes an increase in formation of mammospheres, which are a measure of breast cancer stem cells.

"Within every breast cancer are breast cancer stem cells, which give rise to anti-cancer therapy resistance, recurrence and metastases," Dr. Pestell says. "We demonstrated in laboratory experiments that EYA1 expression increase the number of mammospheres and other markers of breast cancer stem cells."

"As the EYA1 phosphatase activity drove breast cancer stem cell expansion, this activity may contribute to worse survival," he says.

This study was supported in part by the NIH grants RO1CA132115, R01CA70896, R01CA75503, R01CA86072 and P30CA56036 (RGP), a grant from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (RGP), a grant for Dr. Ralph and Marian C. Falk Medical Research Trust (RGP), Margaret Q. Landenberger Research Foundation, the Department of Defense Concept Award W81XWH-11-1-0303.

Study co-authors are, from Kimmel Cancer Center: first author Kongming Wu, Zhaoming Li, Shaoxin Cai, Lifeng Tian, Ke Chen, Jing Wang and Adam Ertel; Junbo Hu, from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China; and Ye Sun, and Xue Li from Boston Children's Hospital.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/jBYVoKY_n-o/130627190327.htm

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10 Things to Know for Today

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. WHAT'S NEXT IN GAY MARRIAGE FIGHT

Advocates say they will try to legalize same-sex marriages nationwide in the next five years after the U.S. Supreme Court extended federal recognition to the unions.

2. OBAMA HIGHLIGHTS DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA

Thousands of boisterous revelers welcome the president to Senegal, where he is expected to reflect on the country's ties with African-Americans.

3. IMMIGRATION VOTE COULD COME TODAY

Test votes in the Senate show a majority of over 60 votes needed to secure passage of Obama's overhaul of immigration laws. Prospects in the House are still uncertain.

4. UNCERTAINTY SURROUNDING NSA LEAKER GROWS

Snowden still hasn't been heard from and Ecuador's foreign minister says it may take two months to decide whether to grant him asylum.

5. SOUTH AFRICA WAITS AND WORRIES ABOUT MANDELA

The president canceled a visit to Mozambique today after visiting the critically ill anti-apartheid leader in the hospital.

6. VIDEO, TEXT MESSAGES CITED IN HERNANDEZ ARREST

Police say the ex-New England Patriot was seen leaving home with a gun, and the semi-pro player he's accused of killing texted he was with "NFL" hours later.

7. SANDY'S LATEST VICTIM

The remains of a handyman who drowned in a trailer in New York City's Rockaways weren't found until April, six months after the superstorm.

8. PAYING YOUR BILLS IN SPACE

PayPal and two space travel groups are forming a group to investigate what currency might be used beyond Earth's realm once space tourism takes off.

9. SAYING GOODBYE TO GANDOLFINI

The "Sopranos" star will be remembered today at a Manhattan funeral service. Broadway lights were dimmed last night in his honor.

10. TWO BIG NAMES OUSTED AT WIMBLEDON

Seven-time champ Roger Federer and No. 3 seed Maria Sharapova were stunned in the second round by players who weren't ranked in the top 100.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-things-know-today-101340019.html

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Yahoo News Gets A Makeover, But The Bigger Improvements Are Under The Hood

A little over a month after Yahoo partnered with Twitter to beef up its homepage news feed with relevant tweets from news organizations, the company is today announcing a major makeover for one of its flagship properties, Yahoo News. The updated Yahoo News site is has been redesigned with a more modern look and feel, to better fit in with Yahoo homepage's new look, introduced earlier this year. But the bigger improvements are the less visible ones.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2Ov6SLKTy88/

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Supreme Court ruling sets up new wave of gay marriage battles (reuters)

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New Animal's Skull Discovered in Niger

Link Information - Click to View

New Animal's Skull Discovered in Niger
The face of the Bunostegos' looks like it was made by a kindergartner who went wild with a tub of Play-Doh. Flaps of skin are stretched below its chin, hanging like stalactites. Hard knobs decorate its nose and forehead. As weird looking as the animal is, it was able to live in the harsh deserts of the ancient supercontinent, Pangea.????

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Marathon speech helps Democrats block Texas abortion bill (reuters)

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Marriage ruling renews GOP centrists-vs.-base feud (The Arizona Republic)

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Telefonica To Give Windows Phone 8 An Extra Push To Try To Dilute Android, iOS

Microsoft continues to throw money down the Windows Phone well, perhaps buoyed by signs its ongoing marketing and platform support efforts are shifting the needle a few fractions. Today more evidence -- presumably -- of Ballmer's money-throwing commitment to make its smartphone OS stick: carrier Telefonica has announced it will be collaborating with Microsoft to "promote and foster sales" of WP8.

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Spatial training boosts math skills

June 25, 2013 ? Training young children in spatial reasoning can improve their math performance, according to a groundbreaking study from Michigan State University education scholars.

The researchers trained 6- to 8-year-olds in mental rotation, a spatial ability, and found their scores on addition and subtraction problems improved significantly. The mental rotation training involved imagining how two halves of an object would come together to make a whole, when the halves have been turned at an angle.

Past research has found a link between spatial reasoning and math, but the MSU study is the first to provide direct evidence of a causal connection -- that when children are trained in one ability, improvement is seen in the other. The findings will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Cognition and Development.

Kelly Mix, professor of educational psychology, said the findings suggest spatial training "primes" the brain to better tackle calculation problems. Mix authored the study with Yi-Ling Cheng, a doctoral student in MSU's College of Education.

"What's shocking is that we saw these improvements in math performance after giving the students just one 20-minute training session in spatial ability," Mix said. "Imagine if the training had been six weeks."

Understanding the connection between spatial ability and math, she said, is especially important in the early elementary grades because many studies indicate early intervention is critical for closing achievement gaps in math.

Spatial ability is important for success in many fields, from architecture to engineering to meteorology, according to a Johns Hopkins University paper. An astronomer must visualize the structure of the solar system and the motions of the objects in it, for example, while a radiologist must be able to interpret the image on an X-ray.

Some education experts have called for including spatial reasoning in the elementary math curriculum. But there are many forms of spatial ability and Mix said it's important to first figure out how each of them may or may not relate to the various math disciplines.

To that end, Mix is leading a larger study that tests elementary students on different forms of spatial ability and math performance.

Mix's research into spatial ability and math is funded by two grants totaling $2.8 million from the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/qnePuR5O67Q/130625121239.htm

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New Cambodian tailorbird is an unlikely bird, in an unlikely place

Scientists have discovered a new bird unique to Cambodia in the unlikeliest of places: the teeming capital.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 26, 2013

The Cambodian tailorbird was identified in Phnom Penh's urban capital.

Ashish John/WCS

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It's easy to get lost in the big city.

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Scientists have discovered a new bird hiding in Cambodia?s booming, urban capital.

Called the Cambodian tailorbird (Orthotomus chaktomuk), the previously undocumented bird was found in Phnom Penh, as well as at several locations, including a construction site, outside the teeming city. The name "chaktomuk" translates from Khmer to ?four-faces,? in reference to the three rivers ? Tonle Sap, Mekong, and Bassac Rivers ? that converge to divide Phnom Penh into four zones.

?The modern discovery of an un-described bird species within the limits of a large populous city ? not to mention 30 minutes from my home ? is extraordinary,? said Simon Mahood, of the Wildlife Conservation Society. ?The discovery indicates that new species of birds may still be found in familiar and unexpected locations.?

Described in the Oriental Bird Club?s journal Forktail, the small gray bird has an orange-topped head ? like a baseball cap painted on and pulled low over its eyes ? and a white and black throat. It was identified after?Mahood began investigating an unidentified bird pictured in his co-author Ashish John's photographs taken at a construction site on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.?

While it?s rare for a bird to be discovered in a major city, as opposed to in Cambodia?s jungles in its far-flung provinces, Phnom Penh is not an entirely unlikely home for the bird, which lives in the humid scrub in the river-girdled capital?s floodplain. The bird's territory is also not exactly in the capital itself, but more in the outskirts, where the urban landscape transitions into a hodgepodge of farmlands, factories, and construction zones.

Still, as development booms and Phnom Penh widens, the bird?s habitat is in decline. The paper?s authors recommend that it be classified as "Near Threatened" under the International Union for Conservation of Nature?s Red List. The newly discovered bird?s homeland is already part of the Baray Bengal Florican Conservation Area, where the Wildlife Conservation Society is at work with local communities and the nation?s Forestry Administration to protect the Bengal florican and other threatened birds.

The tailorbird is one of only two bird species found only in Cambodia. The other, the Cambodian laughingthrush, is seen just in the Cardamom Mountains, in Cambodia?s southwestern corner.

Bird discoveries have boomed in Southeast Asia in recent years, though most of those findings are coming as scientists plunge into the region's unexplored, remote jungles and less so from those countries' dense capitals. Among the newly documented species are various babbler birds from Vietnam?s mountains, the bare-faced bulbul from Laos, and the Mekong river?s wagtail.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/WQlH9kZa99A/New-Cambodian-tailorbird-is-an-unlikely-bird-in-an-unlikely-place

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Al Huffington Post Maghreb Launches in Tunis | Morocco World News

NEW YORK and TUNIS, June 25, 2013

The Huffington Post Media Group and private investors Alix Etournaud and Fares Mabrouk today announced their partnership and plans for Al Huffington Post Maghreb, a French-language version of The Huffington Post covering the Maghreb countries ? Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. The announcement was jointly made by Arianna Huffington, Chair, President, and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, Alix Etournaud and Fares Mabrouk.

?I?m delighted to welcome Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria to the HuffPost family,? said Huffington. ?A month after launching our first Asian edition, in Japan, we?re thrilled to be bringing the HuffPost platform to Africa and inviting people in Maghreb to add their voices to the growing global conversation. And the way Al Huffington Post Maghreb came to be is the best evidence of the power of that conversation: Alix and Fares were inspired by our French edition, Le HuffPost, and came to us with the idea of expanding to Maghreb, which we?re delighted to be doing.?

?Arianna has created a new digital journalism, rigorous, inventive and popular, widely opened to contributions. Covering the Maghreb countries with a specific edition of The Huffington Post, including three editorial staffs working together around a common approach, became obvious to me with the Arab Spring and the social media explosion. I am proud to be part of this adventure which will consolidate public debate,? said Alix Etournaud.

?I am very pleased to participate in this alliance with the world?s leading pure player,? said Fares Mabrouk. ?At a time of globalization of the media sector, I hope that our voices, sometimes divergent, can make a strong place in this new order and fully participate in the emergence of an adversarial public space. It is time to create synergy by bringing editorially our Maghreb countries to sustain a common cultural space and to meet the expectations of the audience.?

?During the Arab Spring, Northern Africa showed the world what can happen when individual voices are organized and amplified by technology,? said Huffington Post Media Group CEO Jimmy Maymann. ?We think that kind of environment provides fertile soil for The Huffington Post platform.?

Al Huffington Post Maghreb will eventually include three editorial staffs of six to eight journalists each, first in Tunisia, then expanding to Morocco and Algeria. Al Huffington Post Maghreb brings The Huffington Post?s signature mix of news, blogging, community, video and social engagement to French speakers in North Africa. Kader Abderrahim, a renown professionnal, will be editor at large. Houeida Anouar is appointed editor in chief.

This new venture is a part of The Huffington Post?s continued international expansion. The Huffington Post is both a journalistic enterprise with editors and reporters in the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Italy and Japan (with a German-language edition launching in the fall) and a platform, with over 50,000 bloggers worldwide ? from politicians, students and celebrities to academics, parents and policy experts ? who contribute in real-time on the subjects they?re most passionate about. It has also reached 250 million comments. Global editions of The Huffington Post have 75 million unique visitors a month (comScore metrics, April, 2013). HuffPost Live, a live-streaming video network that uses the most engaging stories on HuffPost, launched in 2012 as the jumping-off point for conversations and commentary.

Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/06/95565/al-huffington-post-maghreb-launches-in-tunis/

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Scalia the Mullah

Justice Antonin Scalia appears on "Fox News Sunday" on July 27, 2012. Scalia robs morality of its intellectual component, equating it to what people simply don't like.

Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images

In a speech last week titled ?Mullahs of the West: Judges as Moral Arbiters,? Justice Antonin Scalia told the North Carolina Bar Association that the court has no place acting as a ?judge moralist? in issues better left to the people. Since judges aren?t qualified?or constitutionally authorized?to set moral standards, he argued, the people should decide what?s morally acceptable.

But does Scalia, whose quarter-century on the bench has marked him as the court?s moral scold for his finger-wagging views on social issues, have a coherent understanding of what it means to say something is or isn?t moral, and of morality?s proper role in the law?

Scalia would have you believe it?s liberal, pro-gay sympathizers who are imposing their own brand of moral laxity on the nation, and unconstitutionally using the courts to do it. His angry dissent in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case ending sodomy bans?decided 10 years ago this week?blasted the court for embracing ?a law-profession culture that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda [which is] directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.?

Ever since, Scalia has been railing against the loss of ?moral opprobrium? as a legitimate basis for passing laws. Scalia implies that whatever the people feel should rule the day, constitutional rights be damned. ?Countless judicial decisions and legislative enactments,? he wrote, ?have relied on the ancient proposition that a governing majority's belief that certain sexual behavior is ?immoral and unacceptable? constitutes a rational basis for regulation.? A long string of state laws, he argued, are ?sustainable only in light of? the court?s ?validation of laws based on moral choices,? including bans on incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, public indecency and selling sex toys.

Yet as Sandra Day O?Connor pointed out in her concurring opinion in Lawrence, that?s not actually true. At least when you?re singling out a group for separate treatment. ?We have never held that moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest, is a sufficient rationale under the Equal Protection Clause to justify a law that discriminates among groups of persons.?

Scalia may wish that moral disapproval alone were a legitimate basis to discriminate, but if you read his Lawrence dissent closely, you?ll find evidence that he knows he?s lost that battle: The giveaway is that he nearly always pairs his references to morality with some other asserted state interest. He defends the people?s right to legislate their belief that some forms of sex are ?immoral and unacceptable,? to oppose, by law, ?a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive,? and to pass public indecency statutes to protect ?order and morality.?

The American legal system, while making some room for moral complaint in law, has nearly always paired it with some more concrete form of harm. According to the legal scholar Diane Mazur, the Supreme Court has, for most of its history, combined reference to morality with other actual harms such as threats to order, health, safety and welfare. It decided cases on the importation of slaves based on the ?health and morals? of the people; it decided whether to permit a civil rights march based on its impact on the town?s ?safety, health, decency, good order, morals or convenience?; and it decided cases about nude dancing based on a state?s interest in ?protecting societal order and morality.?

In each case, ?morality? seems an afterthought?something that legislators or judges throw into the mix to make a point, but never the real basis of law. If what?s really at issue are acts that threaten safety, health, and order, why do people like Scalia keep insisting that mere moral disapproval, rather than preventing harm, should be a constitutionally legitimate basis to limit people?s rights?

The entire anti-gay movement has gotten this memo. Which is why arguments that gay people are sick, disgusting and all-around morally bad have yielded, since the 1990s, to arguments alleging that gays threaten to cause concrete harm to American families and institutions. Of course, many social conservatives, often animated by their religious traditions, still believe homosexuality is immoral. And this view occasionally still appears in arguments against gay marriage, as when the proponents of Prop 8 claimed that the initiative advances ?important societal interests? like accommodating the rights of those who ?support the traditional definition of marriage on religious or moral grounds.?

But these days anti-gay advocates mostly stick to claims of harm, even bending over backward to insist they don?t view homosexuality as a moral issue. Societies have historically restricted marriage to opposite-sex pairs, argued Prop 8?s defenders, ?not because individuals in such relationships are virtuous or morally praiseworthy, but because of the unique potential such relationships have either to harm, or to further, society?s vital interest in responsible procreation and childrearing.?

If you?re obsessed with morality, like Scalia, that approach must be irritating indeed. Scalia seems to reduce morality to feelings and tastes alone. He wants judges to get out of the way and respect that ?people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough? to pass laws against them. For him, it was the very ?impossibility of distinguishing homosexuality from other traditional ?morals? offenses? that allowed the court to ban sodomy prior to Lawrence.

But homosexuality is distinguishable from other morals ?offenses.? Assisted suicide, incest, adultery, pornography?all these arguably cause some form of harm to living creatures, while two women loving each other just doesn?t. We can argue this point and debate the subtleties of that harm?Is a fetus a full human with capacity for pain? Does pornography necessarily degrade women? Indeed the healthy?and genuinely moral?society is the one that does debate these points instead of lumping together whatever scrunches up our noses into the amorphous category of a moral wrong.

What we should no longer be able to get away with in the 21^st century is calling something immoral just because we don?t like it. Genuine moral judgment is not reducible to whatever people feel, what they like or don?t like. (Isn?t that what lax liberals are alleged to believe?) Morality is not just whatever views a majority has long held, and it?s not simply what you learned on your mother?s knee or whatever it says in your faith?s scripture. Moral belief is a grounded judgment about what harms or helps living things. Yet somehow, homosexuality?s become just about the only thing left that people get to call immoral without every explaining why.

If equal treatment of gay people harms society, that alleged harm should be debated. But trying to defend discrimination by giving free rein to some people?s moral disapproval of homosexuality is a losing battle, and a shockingly sloppy mode of thinking about what ?morality? actually means. Morality actually has a rational basis; moralists, not so much.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/scalia_and_gay_marriage_how_the_justice_misunderstands_morality.html

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Samsung denies giving up on desktop PC tower business

Yesterday, The Korea Times reported that Samsung was to close its "unprofitable" desktop PC business as "demand for conventional desktop PCs is going down," according to an unnamed spokesperson. The weirdly written article also quoted another Samsung official saying "tablets, all-in-one and hybrid PCs are Samsung's current focus," thus suggesting the company seemed to be singling out desktop PC towers or boxes.

Even though it's been a while since some of us last saw a Samsung desktop PC tower (the latest models we covered date back to 2006, though there have been more recent efforts), something didn't smell right here so we reached out to Samsung directly. The response we got was that this rumor is all "groundless," and the company also specifically said it'll keep an open mind about its PC tower business. Here's the full statement:

"The rumor that Samsung is withdrawing from the PC desktop business is groundless. Samsung will continue to offer diverse products according to market needs, including our recently announced ATIV One 5 Style, a stylish all-in-one PC. We will continue to open all possibilities in PC business including our PC Tower business, to satisfy consumer's diverse lifestyle and needs."

So in a nutshell: nothing to see here, move along. And technically speaking, the Chromebox kinda counts too, right?

Filed under: Desktops

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/BUKG0CvPss4/

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Judge: Calif. must move inmates because of fungus

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) ? A federal judge on Monday ordered the state to move several thousand inmates out of two California prisons because they are at a high risk of contracting a potentially deadly airborne fungus.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson instructed corrections officials to transfer most black, Filipino and medically at-risk inmates because they are more vulnerable to health problems from valley fever. The fungal infection originates in the soil of the San Joaquin Valley, where Avenal and Pleasant Valley state prisons are located.

He gave the state 90 days to fully comply.

About 3,250 of the two prisons' 8,100 inmates fall into the categories covered by the judge's ruling. But Henderson said inmates among those groups who already have had the disease do not have to be moved.

He also altered the recommendation from the court-appointed official who oversees prison medical care to exclude inmates over age 55, although that category of inmates could be included at a later date.

It is not immediately clear how many of the inmates will actually have to be transferred based on the judge's revised criteria, said Joyce Hayhoe, a spokeswoman for federal receiver J. Clark Kelso, who made the recommendations to Henderson.

Hayhoe said it makes sense for the judge to exclude inmates who previously contracted the infection because they can't get the illness twice.

Henderson criticized Gov. Jerry Brown's administration for delaying significant response to the problem for years and for its recent proposal to delay action for several months until the U.S. Centers for Disease Control can complete health studies at the prisons.

Prison officials are moving about 600 vulnerable inmates by August, but "are unwilling to exclude other inmates whom they know are at an increased risk of severe disease, which may lead to death," the judge wrote. "Defendants have therefore clearly demonstrated their unwillingness to respond adequately to the health care needs of California's inmate population."

Henderson gave the state seven days to begin moving the inmates from the two prisons located about 10 miles apart and 175 miles southeast of San Francisco.

Deborah Hoffman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the state is reviewing Henderson's order.

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the Democratic governor, who is trying to persuade federal judges that the state has improved prison medical and mental health care enough to meet constitutional standards. A three-judge panel that includes Henderson last week gave the state until year's end to reduce the prison population by nearly 10,000 inmates as the best way to improve conditions.

Brown filed a one-paragraph notice on Monday that the state will appeal the order to reduce prison populations to the U.S. Supreme Court, as it previously announced.

Henderson's valley fever order came a week after a hearing in his San Francisco courtroom in which attorneys representing inmates said 18 prisoners died in 2012 and January 2013 from complications relating to the fungus.

"The order is absolutely necessary to preserve people's lives and health because state officials have been simply unwilling to take appropriate action when there's a clear and imminent danger to prisoners' lives. It's the most recent example of the state's inability to protect the health of prisoners," said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office that successfully sought both the valley fever and prison crowding orders.

Brown's administration has said it would have difficulty moving so many inmates while the state also tries to reduce prison crowding statewide.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-calif-must-move-inmates-because-fungus-012951925.html

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98% A Hijacking

All Critics (54) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (53) | Rotten (1)

Lindholm doesn't present the film as a procedural for hostage negotiations because he knows too well that there are too many movable parts, too many things that can go wrong.

Methodical and tense ... has the feel of something based on real-life events ... boils down to an arresting portrait of two men, with different backgrounds and abilities, doing everything they can not to break.

We're impatient for action, any kind of action - but preferably the sort that involves a team of Navy SEALs, maybe led by Dwayne Johnson. Instead, we get something like a merger meeting.

Hand-held camerawork, so often a confounded nuisance, here makes the conditions on board the Rozen feel nauseatingly urgent.

No mainstream American thriller could ever be made about this subject that resisted simple-minded narrative clich?s the way "A Hijacking" does, or that refused to depict its characters as either heroes or villains.

Lindholm turns tedium and frustration into agonizing suspense.

A smart movie derived out of the small moments that collectively comprise the hostage experience, rather than grandiose gestures.

Lindholm's you-are-there docudrama works as a tense thriller, but themes of negotiation and the ability to empathize provide a rich subtext.

...slow, mostly talk, but tense and realistic...

The level of suspense in this riveting Danish thriller doesn't build in sweeping melodramatic fashion, but rather at a low-key simmer that emphasizes authentic character dynamics.

A Hijacking accomplishes a tricky task, generating tension through talk rather than action.

This absorbing chronicle of a hijacking in the Indian Ocean has the strengths of the best procedural dramas -- it assumes a distanced and objective tone and packs an emotional wallop.

Moment by moment we find ourselves wondering what will happen next...

Auteur Tobias Lindholm does a striking job in grabbing your attention and running with it as he succinctly tells the story of "A Hijacking."

A Hijacking is an absorbing, highly moving film that's lingered heavily on the mind for a couple of days now.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_hijacking/

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Access Hollywood section

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Source: http://www.today.com/id/7358550/ns/today-entertainment/

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Opportunities In Home Healthcare - Seeking Alpha

The home healthcare industry in the U.S. is experiencing a boom with a growing demand for services. Baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, are now moving into retirement age. Because of this, a sharp increase in the need for healthcare and social assistance services is expected to follow.

The primary reason for this growth is due to the increase in the number of senior citizens. According to Census, the 65-year old and older population share of total population is around 13 percent is 2010. This group's population share is projected to increase in 2020 to 16 percent and in 2030 to 19.3 percent.

Home healthcare services are classified as a sub-sector of ambulatory service industry. These service organizations (some of them are Medicare-certified) include home healthcare agencies, home care aide organizations and hospices.

Home healthcare is cost effective for people recovering from a hospital stay, functional or cognitive disability, or who are unable to take care of themselves. It also strengthens and complements the care given by family and friends, while maintaining the independence and dignity of the care receiver.

This article highlights four publicly traded companies that specialize in home healthcare. Each company is a small cap, which opens up the possibility for consolidation.

(click to enlarge)

Medicare home healthcare consists of skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, aide services, and medical social work provided to beneficiaries in their homes. To be eligible for Medicare's home health benefit, beneficiaries must need part-time (fewer than eight hours per day) or intermittent skilled care to treat their illnesses or injuries and must be unable to leave their homes without considerable effort. Medicare requires that a physician certify a patient's eligibility for home healthcare and that a patient receiving service be under the care of the physician.

The home health benefit has changed substantially since the 1980s. Implementation of the inpatient prospective payment system (PPS) in 1983 led to increased use of home health services as hospital length of stay decreased. Medicare tightened coverage of some services, but the courts overturned these curbs in 1988. After this change, the number of agencies, users, and services expanded rapidly in the early 1990s. Between 1990 and 1995, the number of annual users increased by 75 percent and the number of visits more than tripled to about 250 million a year. Spending increased from $3.7 billion in 1990 to $15.4 billion in 1995.

The trends of the early 1990s prompted increased program integrity actions, refinements to eligibility standards, temporary spending caps through interim payment system and replacement of the cost-based payment system with a PPS in 2000. Since implementation of the PPS, the number of home visit episodes increased from3.9 million in 2001 to 6.8 million in 2010. The number of agencies in 2011 was almost 11,900, about 1,000 more agencies than at the earlier peak of spending in 1997.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 includes several reductions intended to bring payments more in line with costs:

1. 2011 - The standard 60-day episode rate was reduced by 2.5 percent.
2. 2012 and 2013 - The market basket update was reduced by 1 percent.
3. 2014-2016 - A phased rebasing was implemented to lower payments to a level to reflect changes in average visits per episode and other factors that may have changed since the rate was originally set.
4. 2015 and following years - The market basket was reduced by multifactor productivity for each year.

While these reductions will affect home healthcare payments, companies are able to adjust their operations to maintain positive financial performance. The experience of 2003, when Medicare implemented a 5 percent reduction to the home healthcare base rate, is illustrative. All four of our subject companies reported net profits in 2006. While the payment changes in the new law are significant, experience with prior adjustments suggests that some companies will likely be able to offset at least a portion of these reductions.

(click to enlarge)

Addus HomeCare Corporation (ADUS) provides home healthcare to a variety of consumers. The company's payers include federal, state and local governments, commercial insurers and private pay individuals. The company offers services in 19 states to 26,000 consumers. In March 2013, Addus sold its Home Health business to LHC Group.

ADUS has a December fiscal year. In 2012, net income totaled $7.6 million on $244.3 million in revenue. Compared with 2011, sales increased 6.2 percent. The company had a net loss of $2.0 million in 2011. EPS for the first quarter of 2013 was $0.25 on $63.0 million of sales compared to the year-ago EPS of $0.16 on $58.9 million sales.

Gross margins are holding steady in the 26 - 27 percent range. Net margins fluctuate dramatically year to year. The company closed FY2012 with a net margin of 3.1 percent and the margin for the trailing twelve months has expanded to 6.5 percent. Operating margins are about 6.5 percent. The company carries on the books about $17.8 million of cash and has no long-term debt.

Almost Family (AFAM) is another small cap with a recent market capitalization of $181 million. Revenues for the twelve months ending March 2013, fell 0.9 percent compared to the year ago period. Quarter-over-quarter revenue fell 3.4 percent. In 1Q13 EPS was $0.35 on $86.9 million in revenues compared to 1Q12 EPS of $0.53 on $90.0 million of revenue. Gross margins are in the 47 - 48 percent range and net margins are about 7 - 8 percent. AFAM has on $0.5 million in long term debt and $34.6 million in cash.

Almost Family provides services in Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, Massachusetts, Missouri, Alabama, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Amedisys (AMED) delivers the typical range of home health services through 440 Medicare-certified home healthcare centers and 87 Medicare-certified hospice care centers. It operates in 41 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The company experienced a decline in revenues of 1.6 percent during the twelve month period ending March 2013. This revenue decline accompanied a 6.9 percent decline in gross income. However, net income increased by 78.0 percent.

Quarter-over-quarter revenue declined to $339.2 million from $370.8 million and EPS dropped to $0.09 from $0.22. Gross margin remained steady at about 43 percent but net margin was (5.9) percent. The company reported a net loss for 2012 and 2011.

AMED has long-term debt of $43.0 million and cash of just $7.0 million. Cash from operations is negative though free cash flow is positive.

Our final company is also the largest by revenue. Gentiva Health Services (GTIV) had 2012 revenues of $1,712.8 million and 2012 net income of 426.8 million. FY2012 EPS is $0.88. 1Q13 saw a EPS at ($6.73) on $415.6 million revenue compared to an EPS of $0.16 on revenue of $435.7 million. Gentiva has a fairly high gross margin of about 47 percent but has been struggling to make a profit since 2010. The company reports cash of $159.6 million and long term debt of $903.9 million.

The table shown above reflects the quantitative factors I consider most critical for evaluating valuation and profitability. I always pair an earnings based metric with cash based metric when measuring profitability and valuation.

From the outset, I consider AMED and GTIV poor choices due to their lack of earnings before interest, taxes and non-cash expenses. Their free cash yield is adequate and free cash to operating income, in both cases, is strong. AMED's cash return on invested capital is low relative to the alternatives. Finally, GTIV has insufficient free cash to safely cover its long-term debt.

AFAM is selling at a low valuation of 5.25X EV/EBITDA and has an acceptable free cash yield. Free cash to operating income indicates that it is converting a significant portion of its operating income to free cash. The returns on invested capital based on EBITDA less capital expenditures and free cash to invested capital are less than I require from an investment.

The smallest of the subject companies, ADUS, offers the best combination of valuation and profitability. It passes all of our tests. The market seems to agree as the company is trading near its 52-week high. ADUS is not a widely followed company; Thomson Reuters reports just three EPS estimates for 2013.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in ADUS over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...)

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1518722-opportunities-in-home-healthcare?source=feed

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