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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Xbox to Receive New Content Channels and Windows Phone Connectivity
Via updates to its Xbox Live service, Microsoft will be adding a slew of new TV, movie, sports and news hubs to its Xbox hardware, as well as unifying its gaming and mobile product lineups with a common user interface. And, yes, there's an app for that: Along with the new content options, which begin rolling out Tuesday, Windows Phone users will be able to download a free app that lets them control their Xbox 360s, as well as find, and learn more about, Xbox Live content.
US job growth engine badly broken
By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer
The job market seems to be perking up a bit, but it?s just not creating work fast enough. The problem may be that it?s badly broken.
A closer look at the numbers points reveals that entire sections of the labor market are simply not adding jobs because they?re ?structurally impaired, ? according to a recent research report from economists at Credit Suisse. And it looks like they?re going to remain crippled for some time.
From real estate, to finance to manufacturing, these sectors have all but shut down as job-creators. Together, these industries account for about half of the jobs lost from the January, 2008 peak to the January, 2010 trough. With little or no job growth from these sectors, it?s as if half of the job market?s cylinders just aren?t firing.
The hardest-hit sector, real estate, has created the biggest crater in the job market. After overall employment levels peaked, the housing bust wiped out nearly 2.5 million real-estate related jobs over the next two years. Since then, employment levels for the industry has more or less flat-lined. That sector accounts for 38 percent of the jobs lost since the job market collapsed, according to Credit Suisse.
Those jobs won?t come back until the housing market begins to show meaningful recovery. But with a house prices falling and a foreclosure backlog of some four million homes, most forecasters don?t expect to see a meaningful recovery until 2015 at the earliest. In the meantime, that ?structural impairment? will likely keep a lid on new hiring for real estate-related jobs.
The recession also took a big bite out of employment in the finance and auto industries: close to a million jobs went away, or about 14 percent of the lost jobs. Employment levels for those industries haven?t begun to recover, either. Major banks continue to shed jobs as they work to rebuild after the financial panic of 2008. Car makers are enjoying strong sales this fall, but at a pace well below pre-recession levels.
Manufacturing (other than cars) accounts for another 27 percent of the jobs lost since the 2008 peak. Though manufacturing companies have boosted sales and profits since 2008, they?ve done so by making their existing workforces more productive with ?heavy investment in new equipment to automate output. As long as those businesses can squeeze more widgets from the assembly line with advances in technology instead of more workers, lost manufacturing jobs are going to be tough to replace. That?s especially true for the workers who lack the skills to operate all that new high-tech machinery.
Since the job market trough in January 2010, a new sector has become ?structurally impaired? ? state and local governments, which have shed roughly half a million jobs in the past year alone. Those losses are expected to widen as governments plug budget holes opened up by lower tax receipts generated by a weak economy.
Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/05/9228766-us-job-growth-engine-is-badly-broken
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Monday, December 5, 2011
Family funeral held for 5 young NC slaying victims
A line of five hearses leave Pleasant Garden Baptist Church after a funeral at the church near Greensboro, N.C., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Mourners packed into a Baptist church in their hometown near Greensboro for a collective funeral for the five children between 8 and 17 gunned down in a shooting rampage by Mary Ann Holder, 36. Officers say Holder apparently shot one of her sons and three other children while they slept at her Pleasant Garden home, shot and wounded her married former lover, then killed her younger son. Holder then killed herself. (AP Photo/News & Record, Nelson Kepley)
A line of five hearses leave Pleasant Garden Baptist Church after a funeral at the church near Greensboro, N.C., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Mourners packed into a Baptist church in their hometown near Greensboro for a collective funeral for the five children between 8 and 17 gunned down in a shooting rampage by Mary Ann Holder, 36. Officers say Holder apparently shot one of her sons and three other children while they slept at her Pleasant Garden home, shot and wounded her married former lover, then killed her younger son. Holder then killed herself. (AP Photo/News & Record, Nelson Kepley)
Clutching a program memorializing five people who died after they were shot on Nov. 20, two people embrace outside Pleasant Garden Baptist Church after a funeral at the church near Greensboro, N.C., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Pictured on the brochure are: clockwise from top left, Zachary Lee "Zack" Smith, Dylan Smith, Hanaleigh Michelle Suttles, Richard Brian "Ricky" Suttles and Makayla Lee Woods, center. Mourners packed into a Baptist church in their hometown near Greensboro for a collective funeral for the five children between 8 and 17 gunned down in a shooting rampage by Mary Ann Holder, 36. Officers say Holder apparently shot one of her sons and three other children while they slept at her Pleasant Garden home, shot and wounded her married former lover, then killed her younger son. Holder then killed herself. (AP Photo/News & Record, Nelson Kepley)
PLEASANT GARDEN, N.C. (AP) ? Hundreds of friends, teenagers and teachers filled a North Carolina church Friday to join a family as it buried five children killed in what investigators have described as a family massacre.
Mourners packed into Pleasant Garden Baptist Church to attend the collective funeral for the five children, ages 8 to 17, who authorities say were gunned down in a shooting rampage by Mary Ann Holder, 36. Authorities say Holder apparently shot one of her sons and three other children while they slept at her Pleasant Garden home, shot and wounded her married former lover, then killed her younger son. Holder then killed herself.
Four of the children survived for days with what Sheriff BJ Barnes said were bullet wounds to the head. Holder left two notes apologizing for the pain she'd caused, Barnes said.
So many people attended the funeral in Guilford County that an overflow crowd gathered in the gym of the Family Life Center to watch a live video feed.
Four ministers led the service in the pulpit, under which lay the closed caskets of the five children. Three of the ministers eulogized the child or children they knew best.
Authorities say Holder killed her two sons: Robert Dylan Smith, 17, and Zachary Smith, 14. Barnes said she also killed the niece and nephew she took into her home when her sister died: Richard Brian Suttles, 17, and Hannaleigh Suttles, 8. She also mortally wounded Makayla Leigh Woods, Robert's 15-year-old girlfriend.
"It takes your breath away," friend Brooke Bex said. "I never thought I'd see my friends in a casket at that age."
Another friend, Adam Couch. was a pallbearer for Dylan Smith. He said he choked up when the family asked him to be part of the memorial.
"I never would have thought in a million years I'd be carrying my best friend to his grave, but I'm honored to do it," Couch said.
Holder's mother, Frances, said the family was praying that at least one of the children would survive to describe what happened. Frances Holder said she can't believe her daughter was responsible for the mass killings because she cared deeply for her children.
"People are calling my daughter a deadbeat mother, she was a no-good mother," Frances Holder said Thursday outside the church where mourners visited with the family. "She was very close to her children. I don't know what happened. I have no answers. I'm waiting for answers, just like everyone else."
Mary Ann Holder had been having an affair with Randall Lamb, 40, for more than three years, and its aftermath created months of bitter accusations involving Holder, Lamb and Lamb's wife, including allegations of stalking and harassment.
Jennifer Lamb had prepared but not yet filed a potentially costly lawsuit against Holder accusing her of alienating the affections of her husband, investigators said.
Mary Ann Holder met Randall Lamb the night before the shooting rampage to give him a $10,000 check in an apparent settlement aimed at staving off the threatened lawsuit, criminal investigators said in a search warrant. Holder then asked to meet him again the next morning in a community college parking lot.
That meeting ended with Holder firing several shots at Randall Lamb and wounding him in the shoulder. He recovered in a hospital and has returned home.
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Sunday, December 4, 2011
UN official to AP: pledges to cut CO2 will go on
Protestors shout during a climate change rally outside the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Protestors shout during a climate change rally outside the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Protestors march during a climate change rally outside a climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011. A report released late Thursday in London and discussed Friday at the U.N. climate conference in South Africa said that _ in theory _ reflecting a small amount of sunlight back into space before it strike's the Earth's surface would have an immediate and dramatic effect.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
South African Police prevents protestors entering the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011. Brighten clouds with sea water? Spray aerosols high in the stratosphere? Paint roofs white and plant light-colored crops? How about positioning "sun shades" over the Earth? At a time of deep concern over global warming, a group of scientists, philosophers and legal scholars examined whether human intervention could artificially cool the Earth _ and what would happen if it did.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Protestors shout during a climate change rallyoutside the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011. A report released late Thursday in London and discussed Friday at the U.N. climate conference in South Africa said that _ in theory _ reflecting a small amount of sunlight back into space before it strike's the Earth's surface would have an immediate and dramatic effect.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
DURBAN, South Africa (AP) ? The top U.N. climate official said Saturday she is confident industrial countries will renew their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions after their current commitments expire next year.
Further commitments under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an unshakable demand by poor countries, would avert a feared derailment of U.N. negotiations, but would mark little advancement toward the goal of a rapid and steep drop in worldwide carbon emissions blamed for climate change.
The protocol's future has been in doubt because rich countries have conditioned its continuation on an agreement by nations such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa to also accept binding emissions targets for themselves in the future.
"Countries are here these two weeks exactly talking about how they are going to go into a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol," U.N. official Christiana Figueres told The Associated Press.
"The discussion this week is not about the 'if,' it's about the 'how.' That doesn't mean that we are out of the thick of it," she said. Delegates are discussing participation, the legal form of the rules and all of the conditions that will define the second commitment period, she said.
Figueres, who is executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, spoke to AP to mark the halfway point of the two-week meeting in South Africa's eastern city of Durban.
Conference chairmen were also compiling the first draft of an agreement that will be given to government ministers arriving next week for the final four days of talks. Among them are 12 heads of state or government and ministers from more than 130 nations.
Outside the conference hall, several thousand activists, South African village women, and trade union members paraded through this port city for a march billed as a "global day of protest."
"It's all about our future. It's calling for a sustainable future. We've got to act and we've actually got to act urgently, so that we put this planet back onto a sustainable path," said Bishop Jeff Davies, Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute. "At the moment, we are destroying our very life support systems."
Figueres said that talks were in "good shape" in preparation for the more senior delegates.
One reason for an uptick in optimism may be a signal from China that it will in the future set absolute caps on its emissions, perhaps as early as 2020. Until now, China has spoken of emissions controls purely in terms of energy intensity, or the amount of energy it uses per unit of economic production.
The signal from Beijing came from Xu Huaqing, a senior researcher for China's Energy Research Institute, who was quoted Friday in the semiofficial China Daily. His remarks were confirmed privately by one of China's top climate negotiators, Su Wei, on the sidelines of the talks in South Africa.
China is the world's largest emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gas and a main foil of industrial countries in the U.N. negotiations. Virtually every statement, even semiofficial comments, is parsed by delegates seeking departures from its public positions.
"It's part and parcel of a growing realization that all countries can contribute to the solution, that every one of them has to do it, of course, according to their respective capabilities," Figures said.
The 27 members of the European Union provide the bulk of those countries falling under Kyoto's targets. In return for signing up to another round of pledges, the EU wants all major polluters to agree to a legally binding regime for everyone to be negotiated by 2015.
The United States refused to join the Kyoto regime, which it said unfairly exempted major developing countries from any emissions constraints.
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Katy Perry, Kardashians Top Barbara Walters' 'Most Fascinating'
'X Factor' judge Simon Cowell, 'Modern Family' stars also make the cut.
By Jocelyn Vena
Kim Kardashian
Photo: James Devaney/ WireImage
The past 12 months were full of some interesting folks, and Barbara Walters has announced who made her annual list with "The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2011." So, who made the cut? The top seven released so far include the Kardashian family, who continue to captivate TV audiences and the rumor mill thanks to several TV franchises and their headline-making relationships (babies, divorce and everything in between).
Pop superstar Katy Perry also will be featured on the special. After releasing her album Teenage Dream last year, she managed to break chart records this year with hits like "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" and "E.T." She also released several memorable videos and hit the road on her California Dreams Tour.
Wednesday night, Perry was nominated for several Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for her single "Firework."
Simon Cowell also landed on the list. After leaving "American Idol," he launched the U.S. version of "The X Factor" this fall, reuniting with his former "Idol" pal Paula Abdul. Longtime Yankee Derek Jeter, TV personality/entrepreneur Donald Trump and Kate Middleton's sister/royal wedding breakout star Pippa Middleton also will be featured on the special.
"Modern Family" onscreen couple Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet made the cut as well, bringing the list, technically, to 11. The #1 most-fascinating person, as well as the two other folks who made the list, will be announced on the primetime special December 14 on ABC.
Who's on your list of the most-fascinating people of 2011? Share your picks below!
Related ArtistsSource: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1675202/katy-perry-kardashian-barbara-walters-fascinating.jhtml
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PFT: Cutler unsure if he'll play this season
APPatriots coach Bill Belichick was not happy when reporters suggested that his team has an easy game on Sunday against the Colts.
?There?s 16 games on the schedule and they?re all the same,? Belichick said, via the Boston Herald. ?It?s our team versus that team that week. And we look at tape and learn about our opponent, scout them, and pick up tendencies. But how we match up against that team that day is all that matters. The rest of it, it?s a bunch of garbage. You guys can write about it all you want, it doesn?t matter. But, the winner of this game will be determined by which team plays better on Sunday, not what happened four weeks ago. And I know this is a news story, it?s like this every week. Every week.?
Reporters who pointed out that the Colts are 0-11 heard Belichick say what he?s probably saying to his players: They need to be focused on doing their jobs, not looking at how the Colts have played so far this year.
?What difference does it make? How somebody played two weeks go against somebody else,? Belichick said. ?I mean, who cares? Us or anybody else. It doesn?t matter. The only thing that matters is how we and the Colts perform against each on Sunday. That?s all that matters. Who cares who won three weeks ago in some game with some other players? It doesn?t matter.?
For the record, three weeks ago the Patriots went to New York and pounded the Jets, while the Colts got whipped at home by the Jaguars. Surely, that tells us a little bit about the Patriots and the Colts, doesn?t it?
Not according to Belichick, who said he?s focused only on the game ahead. When one reporter started telling him that he wouldn?t be able to judge his team based on how they play against a bad opponent like the Colts, Belichick got upset.
?I don?t agree with that,? Belichick said. ?So, you can go ahead on your soliloquy about that, but I just don?t agree with that. You don?t think you can gauge a team based on how a player blocks Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis? I mean, who else would you gauge it against? What? Are you kidding me? Covering Reggie Wayne, [Austin] Collie, and [Pierre] Garcon ? you don?t think you can gauge your coverage based on those players? I don?t care what their record is. You don?t think there?s better receivers around than them? Better pass rushers than Freeney and Mathis? I mean, I?m not sure what games you?re watching here.?
Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/30/cutler-not-sure-if-hell-play-this-season/related/
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Friday, December 2, 2011
AT&T says FCC "cherry-picks" facts in T-Mobile spat (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? AT&T Inc accused the U.S. communications regulator of being one-sided and cherry-picking facts when it issued a stinging rebuke of the company's plan to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom.
The scathing Federal Communications Commission staff report, released earlier this week, said AT&T's $39 billion proposal to purchase T-Mobile would lead to higher prices for customers and big job losses.
"The report cherry-picks facts to support its views, and ignores facts that don't. Where facts were lacking, the report speculates," Jim Cicconi, AT&T's chief lobbyist, said in a statement on Thursday.
AT&T has withdrawn its FCC merger request, saying it will focus on fighting a Justice Department lawsuit that seeks to block the deal on antitrust grounds.
People familiar with the matter said AT&T and Deutsche Telekom were still fighting for the merger and were not conceding to second-best solutions like a joint venture.
Analysts at Stifel Nicolaus said the FCC report had given the companies "a higher mountain to climb in overcoming government opposition."
The FCC's analytical support would help the Justice Department in making its case, the analysts said in a research note to clients.
Acquiring T-Mobile would vault No. 2-ranked AT&T into the leading position in the U.S. wireless market, overtaking Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.
AT&T has said the deal would expand faster wireless service to 97 percent of the country, and bring jobs back to the United States.
But the FCC staff report released on Tuesday took issue with many of AT&T's touted benefits and said the companies had failed to prove the transaction was in the public interest.
The 157-page analysis found that among the top 100 U.S. markets, only Omaha, Nebraska, would be left with significant wireless competition if the merger went through.
The FCC report also predicted massive job losses and concluded that the merger would not result in significantly more build-out of next generation 4G wireless service than would occur absent the transaction.
REVIEW QUESTIONED
Cicconi challenged all of these findings, saying the agency failed to give the merger a fair and objective look.
"The document is so obviously one-sided that any fair-minded person reading it is left with the clear impression that it is an advocacy piece, and not a considered analysis," Cicconi said.
In response, an FCC spokesman said agency experts had dispassionately analyzed all the facts, including a 200,000-page record with input from 50 companies and consumer groups.
"The AT&T/T-Mobile merger would result in the single greatest increase in wireless industry consolidation ever proposed," the spokesman said in an email.
AT&T disputed the agency's conclusion that the T-Mobile deal, with $8 billion in broadband investment and commitments on job preservation and enhancement, would result in the loss of jobs and investment.
The FCC recently said its $4.5 billion annual fund to promote broadband to underserved communities would create 500,000 jobs over the next six years.
"This notion -- that government spending on broadband deployment creates jobs and economic growth, but private investment does not -- makes no sense," Cicconi said.
Cicconi also said there were inconsistencies in the report's analysis of mobile competition. The report, he said, assumes a high level of competition in rural areas that would compel buildout without the merger, while also suggesting that competition in more populated areas is fragile.
He said the report failed to consider that T-Mobile has been losing customers and its parent company has said it will not be able to continue funding the U.S. unit.
Cicconi acknowledged the deal raises some concerns but said AT&T has made clear its commitment to addressing these issues.
(Reporting by Jasmin Melvin in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
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