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| Australian authorities say Malaysia plane search shifts north Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 09:08 PM PDT SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian authorities said on Friday that they have abandoned the previous search area in the southern Indian Ocean for wreckage of Malaysia Airlines MH370, in favor of a new site more than 1,000 km north. "We have moved on from those search areas to the newest credible lead," John Young, general manager of the emergency response division of AMSA, told reporters in Canberra. Young said the revised data, which was based on the jet travelling at a faster but constant speed than previously thought, could be revised still further as analysis continued. ... Full Story | Top |
| Motor racing-Hamilton quickest in first Malaysian practice Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 09:07 PM PDT (Fixes typo in headline, no change to text) By Patrick Johnston SEPANG, Malaysia, March 28 (Reuters) - Mercedes' early season strength was again evident with Briton Lewis Hamilton going fastest in Friday's first practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix in a session where many cars struggled for grip. The 2008 world champion clocked a best time of one minute 40.691 seconds at the Sepang Circuit on a scorching hot Friday where track temperatures reached 44 Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) during the 90 minute session. However, Hamilton was one of many drivers who encountered the Malaysian gravel after locking his wheels and the Briton said over the team radio the Sepang track was "like driving on marbles". Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was second quickest in a promising session for the Finn who clocked a best time of 1:40.843 just ahead of Hamilton's team mate Nico Rosberg, who won the season opener in Australia two weeks ago. Full Story | Top |
| As landslide risks remain, Washington state residents stay put Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 08:32 PM PDT By Jonathan Kaminsky DARRINGTON, Washington (Reuters) - Ken Root used to live just five minutes west of Steelhead Drive, an idyllic spot on the North Fork Stillaguamish River in Washington state that was washed away in a deadly landslide last Saturday. Root was just one of as many as 30,000 inhabitants of hilly Snohomish County - equal to 5 percent of the total county population - who are exposed to some kind of landslide risk, according to a report commissioned by the county in 2010. Because of glacial sediment and sand, vast tracts of Washington state are susceptible to landslides, said Daniel Miller, a geomorphologist who wrote a study of the Oso area in 1999 and warned of potential catastrophe. "Here in Washington, right around Seattle, there are areas that are built on sand. Full Story | Top |
| Microsoft CEO signals new course with Office for iPad Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 08:24 PM PDT  By Gerry Shih and Bill Rigby SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp's new Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella, finally unveiled Office for Apple Inc's iPad in a polished debut that set him apart from his energetic predecessor while signaling his plans to make mobile apps the top priority at the world's largest software company. At a news conference Thursday, executives demonstrated a new "touch-first" version of Office crafted for the iPad, available for download as a free app, though a subscription is needed to let users create or edit documents rather than just read them. Significantly, they did not demonstrate any software on Windows machines, telegraphing a departure from former Chief Executive Steve Ballmer's focus on the personal computer operating software and its own devices. "Their absence speaks volumes," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. Full Story | Top |
| Search for lost Malaysian jet shifts significantly after new lead Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 08:04 PM PDT  By Lincoln Feast and Michael Martina SYDNEY/PERTH (Reuters) - Australian authorities said on Friday they were shifting the focus of their Indian Ocean search for the wreckage of Malaysia's missing jet, moving it 1,100 km (685 miles) to the northeast after receiving new information from Malaysia. For more than a week, ships and surveillance planes have been scouring seas 2,500 km (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth, where satellite images had suggested there could be debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing on March 8 with 239 people aboard. The dramatic shift in the search area was based on analysis of radar data between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said. At that time, the Boeing 777 was making a radical diversion west from its course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Full Story | Top |
| UK retail sales jump in February, boding well for first-quarter growth Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:53 PM PDT  By Ana Nicolaci da Costa and William Schomberg LONDON (Reuters) - British retail sales rose much faster than forecast in February, suggesting that the economy's solid recovery extended into the first quarter of the year, official data showed on Thursday. Full Story | Top |
| Scottish financiers back independence as means of staying in EU Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:51 PM PDT  By Belinda Goldsmith LONDON (Reuters) - A group of Scottish financiers came out in support of independence on Thursday to counter a flood of warnings over Scotland going it alone, cautioning that staying within the United Kingdom could mean losing European Union membership. George Mathewson, former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland and chairman of Toscafund, and five other current and former Scottish financial players raised the possible risks of remaining in the United Kingdom in a letter to a newspaper. Their positive view of a solo Scotland comes after a string of banks and financial services companies raised concerns over a vote for independence at a referendum on September 18, citing uncertainty over the currency, regulation and EU membership. Full Story | Top |
| Government announces 0.75 percent cap on annual pension scheme charges Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:45 PM PDT  By Jemima Kelly and Kylie MacLellan LONDON (Reuters) - Annual charges on workplace pension schemes that automatically enrol their members will be capped at 0.75 percent from April 2015 in what the pensions minister called "an end to rip-off pension charges". The charge cap, announced by Pensions Minister Steve Webb in the Commons on Thursday, is a further blow to the UK insurance industry following reforms scrapping compulsory annuity purchases announced by Chancellor George Osborne last week. "This government will be the first to get an iron grip on the issue of pension charges," Webb told parliament. "We are going to put charges in a vice and we will tighten the pressure year after year." Webb said that further changes would be made after the cap was implemented, with schemes being prohibited from taking sales commissions from pension schemes after April 2016. Full Story | Top |
| Paper says FCA to check 30 million 'zombie fund' policies for rip-offs Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:28 PM PDT  (Reuters) - The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will announce next week that it is to check 30 million policies sold between the Seventies and 2000 to determine whether customers have been exploited, a British newspaper said. The FCA review, which will begin this summer, is concerned about insurers using returns from "zombie" funds — which are closed to new customers — to cover costs from other parts of their businesses, the Telegraph said on its website. Details of the inquiry, will look into pensions, endowments, investment bonds and life insurance sold by doorstep salesmen, will be included in the FCA's annual business plan on Monday, the Telegraph said. The FCA could not be reached outside of regular business hours. Full Story | Top |
| Families of some Chinese passengers on missing plane get insurance payouts Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:23 PM PDT Chinese insurance companies have started to pay compensation to the families of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane presumed crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. China Life, the country's largest insurance company, has compensated the families of seven passengers a total of 4.17 million yuan ($671,600), Chen Honghao, an official from China Life's department of planning told Reuters by telephone on Friday. China Life had 32 clients on the flight and estimates its total compensation would be 8.94 million yuan, Chen said. New China Life Insurance Co. Ltd. will compensate the families of nine clients on board the flight with a total of about 1 million yuan, Zhang Hongxia, a public relations official from the firm, said on Thursday. Full Story | Top |
| Euro soft as yields fall, China stimulus talk aids stocks Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:18 PM PDT  By Wayne Cole SYDNEY (Reuters) - The euro was wallowing near three-week lows in Asia on Friday as speculation intensified that the European Central Bank might ease policy further, while similar hopes of stimulus in China gave a fillip to Asian shares. Speculation about the possibility of Chinese stimulus got a boost when Premier Li Keqiang was quoted by state media as saying the government would roll out targeted measures step by step to aid the economy. Shares in Shanghai edged up 0.5 percent, while MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.6 percent. All the talk of a possible easing by the ECB pulled down bond yields across the European Union and undermined the euro. Full Story | Top |
| China's Baidu defeats U.S. lawsuit over censored search results Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:16 PM PDT  By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chinese Internet company Baidu Inc on Thursday won the dismissal of a U.S. lawsuit by pro-democracy activists who complained that Baidu illegally suppressed political speech on China's most widely used Internet search engine. Eight New York writers and video producers had accused Baidu of creating search engine algorithms, at the behest of China, to block users in the United States from viewing articles, videos and other information advocating greater democracy in China. The plaintiffs said this kept Baidu users from seeing their work, unlike users of other search engines such as Google and Microsoft's Bing. Full Story | Top |
| Judge rejects ABC News bid to throw out 'pink slime' lawsuit Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 07:15 PM PDT  ABC News has failed to persuade a South Dakota state judge to dismiss a $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit by a meat processor complaining about a series of reports that referred to its signature product as "pink slime." Judge Cheryle Gering of the Union County Circuit Court ruled on Thursday that Beef Products Inc may pursue most of its case against ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co, and others including news anchor Diane Sawyer and reporter Jim Avila. BPI claimed that ABC harmed its reputation and cost sales by mischaracterizing its "lean finely textured beef" as "pink slime" in reports aired in March and April 2012. "For example, the use of the term 'pink slime' with a food product can be reasonably interpreted as implying that the food product is not meat and is not fit to eat, which are objective facts which can be proven," the judge wrote. Full Story | Top |
| Fed's Evans sees no rate hike until 'well into' 2015 Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 06:47 PM PDT  By Michael Flaherty HONG KONG (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve will need to keep rates at rock bottom until late 2015, a top Fed official said on Friday. Raising rates earlier, whether to head off the risk of financial instability or unacceptably high inflation, could dangerously depress already low inflation and derail a recovery that is finally gaining steam, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said in remarks prepared for delivery in Hong Kong. Full Story | Top |
| State regulators hire outside lawyer for dispute with SEC Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 06:33 PM PDT  By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - State securities regulators have hired a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer to help them win a rare and high-stakes jurisdictional dispute with the SEC. The North American Securities Administrators Association, or NASAA, recently tapped former SEC enforcement lawyer Tom Sporkin to help respond to an SEC proposal on small public stock offerings that the state group says defies the will of Congress, exceeds the SEC's authority and reduces state policing powers. Sporkin, a partner at BuckleySandler LLP in Washington, spent nearly 20 years at the SEC, including a stint as director of the Office of Market Intelligence, a triage center for handling the SEC's tips and complaints. Full Story | Top |
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