| | |
| 'I quit, Ted!' - New York woman ditches job in Super Bowl ad Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 08:19 PM PST By Jennifer Saba NEW YORK (Reuters) - GoDaddy, the company that provides website domain names, took a page from reality TV on Sunday night, and aired a commercial in which a 36-year old engineer quit her job in front of more than 100 million viewers tuning into the Super Bowl. The spot starred movie actor John Turturro who introduces Gwen Dean from Yonkers, New York, who Turturro said wanted to pursue her dream of puppetry. Full Story | Top |
| Obamacare computers not yet equipped to fix errors: report Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 07:51 PM PST  The HealthCare.gov website is not yet equipped to handle appeals by thousands of people seeking to correct errors the system made when they were signing up for the new federal healthcare law, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The newspaper, citing sources familiar with the situation, said appeals by about 22,000 people were sitting untouched in a government computer. "And an unknown number of consumers who are trying to get help through less formal means — by calling the health-care marketplace directly — are told that HealthCare.gov's computer system is not yet allowing federal workers to go into enrollment records and change them," according to the Post. It added that the Obama administration had not made public the problem with the appeals system. Full Story | Top |
| Abuse allegations against Woody Allen prompt new legal questions Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 07:40 PM PST  By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Woody Allen contends that renewed accusations by the filmmaker's adopted daughter that he sexually abused her at age 7 are "untrue and disgraceful," a spokeswoman for the director said on Sunday, a day after her letter detailing the allegations shook up Hollywood. Dylan Farrow, 28, the daughter of Allen's former girlfriend, actress Mia Farrow, challenged the acclaim the 78-year-old Oscar-winner has received in recent years, as she told her side of the decades-old case in an open letter published by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a friend of the Farrows. The allegation that Woody Allen abused Dylan Farrow first surfaced around the time of his 1992 split with Mia Farrow. Legal experts said that if prosecutors felt there was enough evidence from Dylan Farrow, it may still be too late under U.S. law to bring a case against Allen in Connecticut, where the incident is alleged to have occurred at the Farrow home. Full Story | Top |
| United Continental to reduce departures from Cleveland hub Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 06:57 PM PST  (Reuters) - United Continental Holdings Inc , the parent company of United Airlines, plans to lower the number of daily departures from its unprofitable Cleveland hub starting in April because of insufficient demand, according to a memo to employees. Average daily departures will fall by around 60 percent, leading to 36 percent less capacity based on seats, Chief Executive Jeff Smisek said in the memo. Local officials had expressed concern that United would drop Cleveland because the airline has a hub in its headquarter city of Chicago, and because the two cities are relatively close to each other. Full Story | Top |
| Without Keystone, oil trains may cause six deaths per year: U.S. State Department report Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 06:49 PM PST (Reuters) - Replacing the Keystone XL pipeline with oil-laden freight trains from Canada may result in an average of six additional rail-related deaths per year, according to a U.S. State Department report that is adding to pressure for President Barack Obama to approve the line. The long-awaited study, released on Friday, focused on the environmental impact of TransCanada's $5.4 billion pipeline, but also spent several pages analyzing the potential human impact of various ways to transport oil, using historical injury and fatality statistics for railways and oil pipelines. Shipping another 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude "would result in an estimated 49 additional injuries and six additional fatalities for the No Action rail scenarios compared to one additional injury and no fatalities" per year if Keystone XL is built, according to the report. Keystone XL would carry 830,000 bpd from Alberta's oil sands U.S. refiners, but has been awaiting a presidential permit for more than five years. Full Story | Top |
| Bruno Mars gives high-wattage halftime act at Super Bowl Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 06:10 PM PST  By Scott Malone EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (Reuters) - Accompanied by a light show that featured 80,000 fans with illuminated hats, pop star Bruno Mars rocked the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday with a selection of his hits including "Treasure" and "Runaway Baby." Dressed in a glittery, '50s style jacket and narrow tie, the bouffant-topped singer danced across the stage as fire effects and fireworks lit up East Rutherford, New Jersey's Met Life Stadium. He was backed by alternative rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose lead singer Anthony Kiedis strutted out onto the stage shirtless and in shorts even as the temperature dropped to 44 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius), belting out the group's 1991 hit "Give it Away." Mars later rolled on a round stage out to the center of the field to perform "Just the Way You Are," which earned him the first of his two Grammy Awards, completing his performance. The Hawaiian-born R&B singer follows performers from previous years who include Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and Prince in singing at what is far and away the most-watched U.S. sporting event. Full Story | Top |
| Asia stocks slip, euro stuck near 10-week lows Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 05:07 PM PST  By Wayne Cole SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares were slowly giving ground on Monday as strains in emerging markets show little sign of abating, while growing pressure for another policy easing in Europe shoved the euro to 10-week lows. Japan's Nikkei again led the way with a loss of 1.2 percent, hurt in part by a firm yen. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.2 percent, while Seoul's KOSPI lost 0.6 percent . The week ahead has plenty of event risk with a raft of global business surveys and jobs data from the United States to offer a clearer view on how well the global economy is faring, while the European Central Bank (ECB) might well ease at its meeting on Thursday. Full Story | Top |
| No evidence seen that Christie knew of traffic scheme: N.J. Democrat Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 05:07 PM PST  By Victoria Cavaliere NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey Democrat leading a probe of the bridge traffic scandal that has engulfed Governor Chris Christie said on Sunday he has seen no evidence to support claims that the governor had been aware of the apparently politically motivated traffic jams as they happened. The remarks by Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who co-leads the probe, came two days after a former Christie appointee at the agency overseeing the bridge who personally oversaw the lane closures said "evidence exists" that Christie had knowledge of the blockage when it happened. If such evidence does exist, a state panel investigating the closures has not yet seen it, Wisniewski said. Separately on Sunday, Christie's director of intergovernmental affairs, Christina Renna, resigned. Full Story | Top |
| GSK to launch late-stage clinical trials on 10 new drugs: paper Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 04:35 PM PST  (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline is set to unveil plans to launch late-stage clinical trials on 10 new drugs over the next two years, the Telegraph reported, without citing sources. The new drugs, which have not been detailed to investors, will include cancer and respiratory disease medicines, the newspaper said on its website. (http://link.reuters.com/fup56v) Britain's biggest drugmaker is also expected to report that fourth-quarter sales in China, where it is embroiled in a major bribery probe, took a smaller hit than when the scandal first blew up during the summer quarter, the report said. ... Full Story | Top |
| London housing market shows new bubble signs - report Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 04:12 PM PST  London's housing market looks like it is going into bubble territory as property prices soar compared with earnings, according to a report released on Monday. Houses in the British capital cost an average of 11 times individual Londoners' income, a level last seen before the financial crisis, according to a report by forecasting group ITEM Club, which is sponsored by Ernst & Young. "House prices across most of the country remain well below their pre-crisis peaks and there seems little danger of a bubble developing," Andrew Goodwin, senior economic advisor to the ITEM Club said. "But London, which is suffering from a combination of strong demand and a lack of supply, is increasingly giving us cause for concern." The capital has repeatedly stood out in surveys showing the strength of Britain's housing market, partly due to interest from foreign investors. Full Story | Top |
| UK lawmaker calls for limits on retail banking incentives Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 04:12 PM PST  Britain's banking regulator should be given new powers to limit the use and scale of the kind of sales-based incentive schemes that led to Lloyds being fined record sums for mis-selling products, an influential lawmaker has said. Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the parliamentary committee that scrutinises the country's finance ministry, said on Monday he had written to the regulator to urge changes to the way retail banking staff were remunerated. The focus has mostly fallen on senior executives or traders, but Tyrie said such scrutiny needed to extend to retail banking staff because they too could bring increased risk to the system. Lloyds Banking Group, which is trying to burnish its image and bolster capital levels before the sale of the government's remaining 33 percent stake in the lender, was fined 28 million pounds in December for the way it encouraged staff to sell products to customers who did not need them. Full Story | Top |
| ECB set to reveal further detail of bank health checks Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 04:07 PM PST  By Eva Taylor FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank will reveal more detail on Monday on how it plans to go about checking that top euro zone banks have the risks on their balance sheets under control. The ECB's asset quality review, or AQR, is part of a broader examination that also includes a stress test to see how banks hold up under shock scenarios, to avoid nasty surprises once the ECB takes up responsibility for supervising them from November. "The devil will be in the detail and the risks of lowest common denominator and compromise in such a multilateral process are legion," said Morgan Stanley's Huw van Steenis. "This is why the market still has many doubts on how cathartic a process the AQR and stress tests will be." The ECB will address at least some of such doubts on Monday by laying out, for example, how it will define when a loan has turned bad and what the next steps will be. Full Story | Top |
| Obama spars with Fox News host in testy pre-Super Bowl interview Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 03:59 PM PST  President Barack Obama accused Fox News on Sunday of keeping alive controversies the White House believes have been settled in a testy interview that aired before the NFL's Super Bowl, the most-viewed sports event in the United States. Host Bill O'Reilly asked Obama why he did not fire his health and human services chief over the botched rollout of the healthcare law last year, whether there was "widespread corruption" at the Internal Revenue Service, and whether the White House had tried to play down the significance of a 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Obama said "some boneheaded decisions" were to blame for extra scrutiny the IRS had given to conservative Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status, and that the issue had been cleared up during "multiple hearings" in Congress. Full Story | Top |
| Asia stocks give ground, euro pinned at 10-week lows Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 03:26 PM PST By Wayne Cole SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares look set for another trying week as strains in emerging markets show little sign of abating, while growing pressure for another policy easing in Europe shoved the euro to 10-week lows. Early Monday, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.2 percent with the Australian bourse off 0.5 percent . The week ahead has plenty of event risk with a raft of global business surveys and jobs data from the United States to offer a clearer view on how well the global economy is faring, while the European Central Bank (ECB) might well ease at its meeting on Thursday. Europe and the United States release their versions of the PMI later Monday and expectations are they will show continued growth, which could help reassure skittish investors. Full Story | Top |
| Study finds deregulation fuelling obesity epidemic Sunday, Feb 02, 2014 03:23 PM PST Governments could slow or even reverse the growing obesity epidemic if they introduced more regulation into the global market for fast foods such as burgers, chips and fizzy drinks, researchers said on Monday. A study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggested that if governments took firmer action, they could start to prevent people becoming overweight and obese - conditions with serious long-term consequences such as diabetes, heart diseases and cancer. "Unless governments take steps to regulate their economies, the invisible hand of the market will continue to promote obesity worldwide with disastrous consequences for future public health and economic productivity," said Roberto De Vogli of the University of California, Davis, in the United States, who led the study. The WHO is urging governments to do more to try to prevent obesity happening in the first place, rather than risking the high human and economic costs when it does. Full Story | Top |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment