Chattanooga Area Under Tornado Watch Until 1 PM, Icy Precipitation Alert Tonight; Some Schools Close Or Delayed

The Chattanooga area is under a tornado watch.

The watch covers 33 counties in East Tennessee.

The National Weather Service reported a tornado in the Dunlap area.

Some schools are closed or have a start delay due to the threatening weather.

Closed are Sequatchie County Schools and Dunlap Adventist Christian School.

On a two-hour delay are Bledsoe County, Cumberland County, Grundy County and Van Buren County Schools.

Source: http://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/1/30/243281/Chattanooga-Area-Under-Tornado-Watch.aspx

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New search for remains of boy missing since 1984

Paul Sakuma / AP file

Ann and David Collins, parents of missing 10-year-old Kevin Collins, hold one of their posters during a news conference in March 1984 in San Francisco. .

By Jean Elle and Lori Preuitt, NBCBayArea.com

One of the Bay Area's best known child kidnapping cases burst back into the headlines Tuesday.

According to police sources, law enforcement officials moved in with a search warrant in hand to search a home in San Francisco in connection with the 1984 disappearance of then-10-year-old Kevin Collins. Police said the current person who lives in the home is not a suspect in the case.

San Francisco police were at the home near the corner of Masonic Avenue and Page Street from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday.? It is a large three-story light green home.

Read more at NBCBayArea.com

Sources said police were searching for possible remains of the missing child.

---

San Francisco police said in a press release issued late Tuesday that the medical examiner responded to the scene and removed several bones that were located under concrete in the home's garage.

"A preliminary assessment of the bones indicates that they are from an animal and not human in origin," the release read. "However, further analysis of the bones is necessary," police said.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office said that San Francisco police requested their search cadaver dogs to help them search the home. Spokesman J.D. Nelson did not know if the dogs found anything.

Collins disappeared the evening of Feb. 10, 1984. He was on his way home from a basketball practice at St. Agnes School in the Haight neighborhood and was last seen talking to a man with blonde hair waiting for a bus at the corner Oak Street and Masonic. Normally his older brother would have been with him, but that day his brother was home sick.

The location where Kevin was last seen and the location of the home that was searched Tuesday are within two blocks of each other.

He was one of the first missing children who received national attention. His image was on the cover of magazines and milk cartons.

Kevin Collins' birthday was last Thursday. He would have been 39 years old on Jan. 24.

Anyone with information on this matter is asked to contact the SFPD Major Crimes Unit at (415) 553-1145. Information can be given anonymously at (415) 575-4444, or via text message to Text a Tip at TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16771316-san-francisco-police-search-home-for-remains-of-boy-missing-since-1984?lite

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The Ultimate Sports Social Media Job Contest

Take a chance on being the next voice of XFINITY sports -- here's how!

XFINITY is looking for the next voice of Xfinity sports. The Ultimate Sports Social Media Job presented by XFINITY, provides fans the opportunity to become the next sports social media star. The winner will share behind-the-scenes stories and news with more than 15,000 followers, from the biggest sporting events over the next year.

Applicants are asked to create a short video and statement detailing why they should be the next person to take over the @XFINITYSports handle. Eight Semi-finalists will be catapulted to the next round based on their outstanding submissions, but the final two Semi-finalist spots will be awarded to two of ten Wild Card contestants.

Fans will have the opportunity to vote for one of the ten Wild Cards, to send to the next round. Once selected, the skills of the 10 Semi-finalists will be put to the test in a full scale social media evaluation at XFINITY Live! in Philadelphia. The top scoring five contestants will then receive the opportunity to visit an XFINITY partner team to act as a reporter and share their experience with their fans. Ultimately from the five Finalists, the new voice of XFINTIY Sports will be selected.

Check out the Facebook app: Facebook.com/xfinity

Full prizing details:
? Unparalleled access to the country's premier sporting events
? Annual salary
? XSG Home Studio in Philadelphia apartment
? 12 months of free Comcast/XFINITY service (TV with all sports packages, internet and phone)

NO PURCH.NEC. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. THIS IS NOT A GAME OF CHANCE. Open only to legal U.S. residents (incl.DC) who are legal adults 18+. For application details and official rules, click here. Enter 12:01a.m. ET on 1/28/13 to 11:59 p.m. ET on 2/18/13.

This Contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to Comcast? and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for purposes of administering this Contest.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Source: http://www.peachtreehoops.com/2013/1/30/3932308/xfinity-the-ultimate-sports-social-media-job-contest

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Judge postpones Texas woman's execution

By Michael Graczyk, The Associated Press

Texas Department of Criminal Justice via Reuters

Kimberly McCarthy is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday for the stabbing murder of her neighbor in 1997.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas ??A Dallas judge has halted the scheduled Tuesday night?execution of a Texas woman who would have been the first woman put to death in the U.S. in three years.

The order from state District Judge Larry Mitchell moves the execution of Kimberly McCarthy, 51, to April 3.

McCarthy faced lethal injection for the 1997 beating, stabbing and robbery of a 71-year-old neighbor in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas.?

Lawyers for McCarthy, who is black, argued that the jury that convicted and sentenced her to death was selected improperly based on race. It was made up of 11 white people and one black person.

The ?Dallas County District Attorney's office said it wouldn't appeal the ruling. The DA's office had?called the effort a "mere delay" tactic, saying the record didn't support a valid legal claim for discrimination.

---

A Dallas County jury had already found McCarthy, a?former nursing home therapist,?guilty of the killing when evidence at the punishment phase of her trial tied her to two similar murders a decade earlier.

"Once the jury heard about those other two, we were certainly in a deep hole," recalled McCarthy's lead trial attorney, Doug Parks. Jurors decided McCarthy should die.

Her execution would have been the first since a Virginia inmate, Teresa Lewis, became the 12th woman put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. In that same time, 1,309 men have been executed.

McCarthy also would have been the first woman executed in Texas in more than eight years and the fourth overall in the state, which executes the most people in the nation ? 492 prisoners since capital punishment resumed 30 years ago.

Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics compiled from 1980 through 2008 show women make up about 10 percent of homicide offenders nationwide. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 3,146 people were on the nation's death rows as of last Oct. 1, and only 63 ? 2 percent ? were women.

Ring cut from living victim
Evidence showed McCarthy, who has exhausted her court appeals, phoned Booth to borrow a cup of sugar, then attacked Booth when she went to retrieve it. Booth was stabbed with a butcher knife, beaten with a large candle holder and robbed of a diamond wedding ring.

"(McCarthy) quite literally took the woman, put her left hand on a chopping block of the kitchen and then used a knife to sever her ring finger while she was still alive," said Greg Davis, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted McCarthy. "She took the ring from the finger that had been severed and continued the attack until she finally killed her."

Prosecutors showed McCarthy stole Booth's Mercedes and drove to Dallas, pawned the ring for $200 and then went to a crack house to buy some cocaine. Evidence also showed she used Booth's credit cards at a liquor store and was carrying Booth's driver's license.

Booth's DNA was found on a 10-inch butcher knife recovered from McCarthy's home. McCarthy was arrested after police found her name on a pawn shop receipt for the ring.

McCarthy was tried twice for Booth's slaying, most recently in 2002. Her first conviction in 1998 was thrown out three years later by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled police violated her rights by using a statement she made to them after asking for a lawyer.

Prosecutors presented DNA and fingerprint evidence that tied McCarthy to similar slayings of two other women in Dallas in December 1988. Maggie Harding, 81, was beaten with a meat tenderizer and stabbed.

Jettie Lucas, 85, was beaten with both sides of a claw hammer and stabbed. McCarthy was indicted but not tried for those slayings. She denied any involvement.

?When the jury saw the other two were equally gruesome, I think it sealed the deal for her," Davis said.

McCarthy is a former wife of Aaron Michaels, founder of the New Black Panther Party, and he testified on her behalf. They had separated before Booth's slaying.

McCarthy declined to speak with reporters as her execution date neared. She's one of 10 women on death row in Texas but the only one with an execution date.

In 1998, Karla Faye Tucker, 38, became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War for a robbery in Houston where two people were killed with a pickax.

At least eight male Texas prisoners have executions scheduled in the coming months.

Related:

Widow asks Pennsylvania governor not to execute husband's killer

Convicted Ohio killer: I'm too obese to be executed

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

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/29/16748754-judge-postpones-texas-womans-execution?lite

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Genetics may explain severe flu in Chinese people

LONDON (AP) ? A genetic variant commonly found in Chinese people may help explain why some got seriously ill with swine flu, a discovery scientists say could help pinpoint why flu viruses hit some populations particularly hard and change how they are treated.

Less than one percent of Caucasians are thought to have the gene alteration, which has previously been linked to severe influenza. Yet about 25 percent of Chinese people have the gene variant, which is also common in Japanese and Korean people.

British and Chinese researchers analyzed 83 patients admitted to a Beijing hospital during the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic. Of those with serious complications like pneumonia, respiratory or kidney failure, 69 percent had the genetic alteration. Among patients with mild illness, only 25 percent did.

"It doesn't mean you should panic if you have this gene variant," said Andrew McMichael, director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University, one of the study's authors. "Most people who have it won't run into any trouble at all."

He suggested people with this genetic predisposition to severe flu should be treated earlier and more aggressively than others.

McMichael estimated that people with the genetic variant were five to six times more likely to get severely ill once they're infected. The gene alteration doesn't make people more likely to catch the flu, since that depends on other factors like environmental exposure and previous immunity.

McMichael said the gene variant might give people the same susceptibility to get severely ill from other ailments including dengue, SARS and other flus. But it could also provide them with better immunity if they recover.

The research was published online Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Some experts said it was an intriguing finding that shows a patient's response to a virus may determine how sick they will become.

"The bug in someone who gets severely ill is not any different than the one that infects someone who has mild illness," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, who did not participate in the study. "It's the host that does all the damage to themselves."

If people carried the genetic variant, Osterholm said, their immune systems were more likely to kick into overdrive if they caught the flu, causing problems like organ damage or blocking their airways.

Scientists have long recognized that diseases don't strike all populations equally. Caucasian people are more likely to get the crippling Guillain-Barre syndrome after vaccinations and flu epidemics are often more fatal in indigenous populations in Australia and Canada. Records are too limited to know if previous flu outbreaks have been more lethal in Asia.

Osterholm warned that the genetic variant wasn't limited to people of Chinese descent. "A lot of other populations have the same genes that respond immunologically like this," he said.

Osterholm thought that different flu strains would likely trigger different responses in people and just because Chinese people may have been more vulnerable to severe disease with swine flu doesn't mean they would have the same reaction with other flus.

Others said genetic screening might one day be included in national flu plans.

"Further work needs to be done to justify that, but maybe in the future we would be able to say that if you're of a certain ethnicity, you are more at risk and should be prioritized for vaccination or antivirals," said Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London. "It's possible we could one day do a genetic test before treating someone with flu to see what the best treatment would be."

____

Online:

Follow Maria Cheng at mylcheng(at)twitter.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2433

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/genetics-may-explain-severe-flu-chinese-people-162005796.html

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Non Resident Home Loan Assistance from Future Financial

It is good to know that there are already companies that are specializing in providing loans to people. Some example includes non resident home loan, equity finance mortgage or EFM, investment home loans, low doc home loans, mortgage refinance, self employed home loans, first home owners construction grant, debt consolidation home loans and many more to mention. The financial institution is helping self employed individuals and those who are in the contracting sector to get the loans that they need for the situation.

The company will simply have to check certain details to support that you are indeed capable to pay them back the loan to a certain period of time. For instance, they will have to look to your annual income or the history of your employed status. That is where they will base their decision to offer the loan that you need as of the situation. At times, they are letting people borrow through annualized rate and of their contract salary. If you are wondering what you are going to do in order to qualify for the loans mentioned above, well it is important that you simply collect the necessary documentation needed. For example you can include your past pay slips or your tax records. You can also include the information about your future contracts and then the bank statements too. You may want to work part time to a company in order to let the financial company see that you are indeed earning regular money. Check the site of Future Financial for loan assistance today.

Source: http://d-z-d.com/finance/non-resident-home-loan-assistance-from-future-financial/

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Active characters needed!!!

In the past 5 great Gods of this world lived in peace. Each of them ruled over their own element. The crow God ? Karasu ruled over winds and the sky; the snake God ? Hebi ruled over water and seas; the wolf God ? Okami ruled over earth and forests; the fox God ? Kitsune ruled over fire and heat and the demon God ? Oni ruled over power and energy.

Each god had its own duty to fullfil and all gods were respected and adored among humans. Except for one. Oni was the one God that was hated because his duty was to give energy (life) to people and also take it away once the right time comes. Humans could not understand the difficulty of Oni?s job and thus hated him. At beginning the demon God didn?t mind it saying that ?They will understand one day?. However humans never did, they continued to detest the God more and more by generation until one day Oni had enough. He was tired of being hated by mere mortals so he decided to destroy human race and create new kind that would understand the burden of his job.

Other Gods however couldn?t agree with it. They cared for humans and only wished them good. Because other Gods defended mortals, Oni grew even angrier and said ?Why do you defend humans? They?re sad beings that only care about themselves! Have they ever done anything to repay us ? Gods, for giving them chance to life and be happy!? Hebi and Okami thought about it and agreed with demon God, while Karasu and Kitsune completely denied it. So Gods decided to fight to prove which side was actually right. However no matter how long they fought none of them ever became victorious. Slowly Gods only separated more from each other, creating chaos in human world.

A human girl ? a priest saw gods fight each other and became really sad. When gods lived in peace, humans were happy as well, but now when Gods fought, humans fought as well. In order to stop the Gods, priest went to each of Gods and asked them to give a little something from each of them. Okami gave his fang, Karasu ? his feather, Hebi ? his scale and Kitsune ? his fur. Only Oni refused to give anything to priest. But she didn?t give up. Every day she went to Oni until he finally grew to like the human girl and gave her his hair. Priest combined all the powers given to her by Gods and became a dragon God named Ryuu.

Ryuu courageously fought against five Gods in order to put an end to this war. But her power was not enough. In the end she had to sacrifice herself in order to kill other Gods as well. After that peace was restored to this world, however descendants of 5 gods could never live in peace. In the end, during each generation descendant of dragon God had to seal herself/himself in order to return peace to human world. How long will this death cycle continue? Will it ever come to an end?

Characters:
1. Karasu descendant
2. Okami descendant - reserved by Kuukakulily
3. Hebi descendant reserved by FireandRain
4. Kitsune descendant - reserved by shadowsabre
5. Oni descendant
6.Ciara Kyuu by Ageha
7. Cameron "Cam" Tamotsu by usernamesareadrag
8. Human

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/4qyo1qKPmQE/viewtopic.php

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White: Education of Business Online from NCSU How Is Email ...

By admin | Published January 27, 2013

Email marketing is a promotional tool used for online marketing of the business. According to research and study, researchers have found that it has become one of the most popular and easy to use marketing tool. Above all, its use is cost effective and can get easily fit into the budget of a marketer. Let?s see how it is an affordable means to reach out a customer.

Many marketers indulge in aggressive and robust marketing or advertising of their products and services. They strive hard to promote their companies through all sorts of media. Main media are print, broadcast as well as Internet. Prior to Internet, print and broadcast were broadly used by the entrepreneurs striving to compete with and outshine each other. The print form includes newspaper, pamphlets, brochures, magazines or journals. This consumes massive amount of money and a lot of time and other resources of a marketer. If you are advertising your product through radio or airing the same on a television channel, it requires manpower to create a promotional ad, time as well as money.

The net result of promotions through print and broadcast media is that it is uncertain whether you have reached your target customer. Your target audience may not have turned on the radio, watching the television channel or read the newspaper the day your advertisement was being aired or printed. When Internet marketing came into existence the marketers started turning to the World Wide Web for promotion. One of the major factors for turning to this medium was that the marketers found it inexpensive.

Email marketing is one such promotional tactics used by the advertisers to advertise their products or services. The essence is that one can create an ad or a newsletter, fetch for a potential customer and reach out to him. It has an assurance that a customer has received the mail. Avoid using promotional words as they can trap you in the snare of Spam. Create informative content that your reader would like to read. A marketer simply needs an opt-in list and an Internet connection in the marketing campaign. In this way, you can reach out your customers cost-effectively and easily.

Posts related to How Is Email Marketing Cost-Effective?

This entry was posted in Marketing Strategy Planning. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. or leave a trackback.

Source: http://www.graspncsu.com/2013/01/how-is-email-marketing-cost-effective/

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Source: http://whiteheadmike.blogspot.com/2013/01/education-of-business-online-from-ncsu.html

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Nightclub inferno: Locked door trapped patrons?

A fire broke out early Sunday morning at a night club in Santa Maria, in southern Brazil, killing revelers ? many of them students. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.

By Alastair Jamieson, Staff Writer, NBC News

Dozens of victims of a fast-moving nightclub inferno that claimed the lives of more than 230 people in southern Brazil were due to buried on Monday as reports emerged that fleeing patrons were blocked by a locked door.

About 50 funerals were expected to take place at the municipal cemetery in Santa Maria, according to Brazilian television news broadcast Zero Hora, while other bodies removed from the Kiss nightclub remained at the city?s gymnasium awaiting identification

The cemetery opened early, at 7.30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET), and was planning to conduct burials at half-hour intervals, O Globo reported, saying the army had helped dig graves.

The newspaper Diario de Santa Maria reported that a refrigerated truck was used to preserve some of the bodies overnight because local mortuary facilities were full.

The blaze began early Sunday when a band's small pyrotechnics show ignited foam sound-insulating material on the ceiling.

Yuri Weber / Agencia O Dia via Reuters

A view inside the blackened Boate Kiss nightclub in which at least 233 died.

The first images from inside the blackened building show the extent of the panic, with drinks and clothing scattered across the floor.

Many of the victims were under 20 years old, The Associated Press reported, and were attending a party organized by students from several academic departments from the Federal University of Santa Maria.

'Barrier of bodies'
The main door of the nightclub was locked at the time, fire chief Guido Pedroso de Melo told O Globo.

He added that firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble getting inside the nightclub because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance.?

Local authorities told Reuters that 120 men and 113 women died in the fire, and 92 people are still being treated in hospitals.

Survivors and the police inspector Marcelo Arigony said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club, according to the AP, perhaps fearing that patrons would leave without paying their tab.

Marcelo Sayao / EPA

Relatives gather at the city gymnasium in Santa Maria, Brazil, to mourn victims from the 'Kiss' nightclub fire.

But Arigony said the guards didn't appear to block fleeing patrons for long. "It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died," he told the AP.

In a radio interview, the band?s guitarist Rodrigo Martins said the fire began shortly after the band took to the stage at 2.15 a.m. local time Sunday.

"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working," he said, adding that the accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

?

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16735889-blazing-nightclubs-main-door-was-locked-brazil-official-reportedly-says?lite

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Smartphone sales rise 36 percent worldwide

Smartphone sales increase for the fourth quarter is in sharp contrast to the 6 decline in PC shipments. Smartphone sales accounted for 45 percent of mobile phone shipments, a new record.?

By Michael Liedtke,?AP Technology Writer / January 27, 2013

Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note II is displayed at the showroom of the company's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday. Samsung was tops in smartphone sales in the fourth quarter, shipping nearly 64 million devices for a 29 percent share of the global market. Apple was No. 2 with nearly 48 million shipments.

Ahn Young-joon/AP

Enlarge

Smartphone?shipments rose 36 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter as the sleek devices supplanted personal computers and other gadgets on holiday shopping lists, according to a report released Friday.

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The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

The findings from the research firm International Data Corp. are the latest sign of the technology upheaval being wrought by the growing popularity of?smartphones?that can perform a wide variety of tasks, including surfing the Web and taking high-quality photos.

Companies whose fortunes are tied to the PC industry have been particularly hard hit by the shift to?smartphones?and tablet computers.

While some?smartphone?models were in short supply during the holiday season, fourth-quarter PC shipments fell by 6 percent from the previous year, according to another IDC report released earlier this month.

IDC estimates 219 million?smartphones?were shipped during the final three months of last year. That compares with nearly 161 million in the same 2011 period.?Smartphones accounted for about 45 percent of all mobile phone shipments in the fourth quarter, the highest percentage recorded by IDC.

Samsung Electronics Co. retained its bragging rights as the?smartphone sales leader, shipping nearly 64 million devices for a 29 percent share of the global market.

Apple Inc. ranked second with nearly 48 million iPhones shipped during the fourth quarter, translating into a market share of 22 percent.

For all of 2012, IDC estimated nearly 713 million?smartphones?were shipped worldwide, a 44 percent increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, annual PC shipments fell 3 percent from 2011, IDC said. It was the first annual decline since 2001.

Entering 2012, Apple held a slight edge over Samsung in the?smartphone?market. But Samsung sprinted past Apple in smartphone sales during the year as it introduced an array of models, most of which run on Google Inc.'s free Android software. Samsung's top-selling line, the Galaxy, boasts larger display screens than the iPhone and other features.

Apple alleges Samsung's devices illegally ripped off the iPhone's innovations. After a high-profile trial in federal court, a jury in San Jose, Calif. sided with some of the patent infringement claims last August and decided Samsung should pay more than $1 billion in damages. Samsung has been trying to overturn the verdict.

Lower-priced?smartphones?from Samsung and other device makers also have hurt Apple, whose slowing iPhone growth has contributed to a $250 billion decline in its market value since its stock price peaked in late September.

IDC says Huawei Technologies Ltd.'s emphasis on less expensive handsets helped it become the third largest?smartphone?maker with a market share of 5 percent at the end of the fourth quarter.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cSXawXNoSAI/Smartphone-sales-rise-36-percent-worldwide

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ECB finds merit in separating risky bank activities

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The ECB "sees merit" in separating some high-risk trading operations from banks' mainstream business but has stopped short of fully backing splitting deposit-taking arms from riskier investment banking.

In a document released on Monday, the European Central Bank also supported proposals to impose losses on bondholders at insolvent banks but wanted a closer examination of the practical implications of such "bail-in" provisions.

The ECB's views on banking carry weight because from next year it will have new powers that will give it automatic oversight of around 150 of the euro zone's 6,000-odd banks, and the authority to intervene in smaller banks if there are signs of trouble.

An EU advisory group, led by Bank of Finland chief Erkki Liikanen, proposed last October that banks separate their deposit-taking arms from proprietary trading and other risky investment banking work to shield taxpayers from further bailouts and protect savers.

The proposal is a response to concerns that rose during the financial crisis that retail banking is vulnerable to troubles that hit the investment banks.

"In general, the Eurosystem (of euro zone central banks) sees merit in separating certain high risk activities of financial institutions that are not associated to the provision of client-related services," the ECB said in the document on the Liikanen Report.

But it added that "further analysis is warranted on the possible scope for allowing market-making to be carried out by the deposit taking entity, subject to certain limits."

The European Commission is due to make proposals on changing the structure of banks in the coming months based on the Liikanen Report but is uncertain how far it will go in recommending a break-up of Europe's biggest banks.

The Liikanen proposals provide steps towards strengthening the resilience of the financial system, the ECB said, adding:

"The Eurosystem is of the view that an impact assessment needs to be carried out as a matter of priority in order to gauge the possible impact of the proposals in the EU."

Even mandatory separation of banks' activities may still be unable to avoid taxpayers facing a bill "if the trading entity is too systemic, large and interconnected", the ECB said.

"This should be avoided," it added in the document. "In this context, further research is warranted to understand and assess the implications of size and interconnectedness."

The "bail-in" proposal "is seen as providing legal certainty and incentives for investors to better monitor banks and reduces the implicit government subsidy for the too-big-to-fail entities," the ECB said.

But just as with bank structures, it added the caveat that further analysis should be carried out on the "practical and operational implications of bail-in."

(Writing by Paul Carrel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ecb-finds-merit-separating-risky-bank-activities-121046285--business.html

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A Guide For Offering Ebook Sales Online | www.SponsorDirectory.com

Have you been decided on selling your ebook online? The income you can earn selling ebooks online is unlimited. Here are the right tools and knowledge you need to consider in selling your ebook online.

A ?like? is a very powerful and of huge worth. Don?t underestimate how important an engaged and relevant community on Facebook can be to your brand or client. There is nothing wrong with playing to people?s strengths ? use simple ?Like and share? mechanisms to spread your brand and content virally, post visually appealing content in the form of images and video and use competitions to build your following.

Be prepared to spend money in your online ebook design business in order to make money. There are a lot of costs associated to running an online ebook design business. Make sure you understand how to best utilize your investment to help your online ebook design business grow.

Selling online has become secure, but still the risk of hacking and fraud is there for the taking. You need to provide full online security to your clients to ensure they buy online from your site without any hassle.

Register an email address that is associated to your online ebook design business. Hosting sites often include emails with the hosting packages they sell. If you are paying to host your site in the first place, you might as well take advantage of the email that is specifically tailored to your online ebook design business.

A couple lucky shippers get a surge of requests the day they open. Anyhow for most connected stores, development is moderate and relentless. In the first few weeks, you see a trickle of guests, and, if you?re lucky, one or two bargains. Depending on if you work hard, six months later that trickle may have transformed into a little however constant stream.

An interesting way to increase sales is to Google PPC ads. 1. Create your ad. 2. Place ads on Google. 3. Attract customers with ads. The good thing here is you only pay if they click on your ad. Then the ad takes them to your website. While this does not guarantee a sale; it does attract a new customer who could become a sale. One review states: ?AdWords doubled my website traffic!?

At least once every year it is a good idea to advertise in print magazines to increase your online sales. Take your most popular ebook and match your primary webpage with your ad. This will make it easy for new customers to identify your presence on the Internet.

Going online to get more suggestions could be a great idea. You can visit Bing and look for custom ebook design. You?ll be pleasantly impressed with new suggestions about ebook.

Source: http://www.sponsordirectory.com/guide-for-offering-ebook-sales-online/

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How To Pet Cats & Dogs (CHART)

Finally, someone had the good sense to map this out. Thanks to Redditor TheNormalMan, we now get it.

Via Tastefully Offensive

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/19/how-to-pet-cats-dogs-chart_n_2511905.html

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Abode: A Tale of Two Moons

An ElfQuest roleplay, based of the comic made by Wendy and Richard Pinni. Fantasy and adventure.

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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Abode: A Tale of Two Moons?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "Abode: A Tale of Two Moons"

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Meun

Member for 0 years

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Hey, I'm interested in making a character. However, I haven't read ElfQuest or anything like that so I'm not quite sure how this is going. Is there a plot of sorts, or is it a free for all sort of deal?

Also, is there a skelly or anything, specific requirements you would like for the bio/description, pictures, or can we just go with what's already on the character sheets?

You can dream and fantasize all you want, but some things can't be changed.
-Zeth

but if you dream
you can move forward

radioinvader

Member for 1 years

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Post a reply

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BofA in $10 billion settlement with Fannie Mae

7 hrs.

From wire services , NBC News

Bank of America?on Monday announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans, in a series of deals meant to help the bank move past its disastrous 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial.

The settlements and transactions and other charges will result in Bank of America posting only a small profit for 2012's fourth quarter. The bank is due to report results on Jan. 17.

Bank of America is paying $3.6 billion to Fannie Mae and buying back $6.75 billion of bad loans from the mortgage company to clear up all claims that government-owned Fannie Mae had made against the bank.

Fannie Mae and its sibling, Freddie Mac, have been pushing banks to buy back loans they sold to the two companies that never should have been sold to them because the loans did not meet the companies' criteria for purchasing.

Bank of America said most of the settlement would be covered by reserves, and another $2.5 billion, before taxes, that it set aside in the fourth quarter.

A separate settlement over foreclosure delays will result in Bank of America paying $1.3 billion to Fannie Mae, the mortgage company said. Bank of America had already set aside money to cover most of that, but took another $260 million charge in the fourth quarter to cover the balance.

Bank of America also sold the rights to collect payments on about $306 billion of loans to Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management. Nationstar is paying $1.3 billion for the right to service some $215 billion of loans, while Walter Investment is paying $519 million for the right to service about $93 billion of mortgages.

Reuters first reported that Bank of America was talking to Nationstar and Walter Investment on Friday.

Reuters contributed to this report.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/bofa-10-billion-settlement-fannie-mae-1B7832996

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