Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, August 21, 2012.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Going to California by Led Zeppelin
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Court strikes down EPA pollution rule
By Neela Banerjee
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A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down a key Obama administration air pollution rule meant to protect Eastern residents from polluters in neighboring states, saying that the Environmental Protection Agency must grant states more time to implement protections.
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Tuesday's decision was accompanied by a scathing dissent from Judge Judith Rogers, who wrote that the majority's conclusions "are unsupported by a factual record, and a trampling on this court's precedent."
In 2005, the Bush administration EPA developed a rule to curtail interstate air pollution that was challenged by industry as too stringent and by the state of North Carolina as too lenient. In 2008, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the Obama administration regulation was too strict and that the Bush-era provision was too weak and ordered the EPA to develop a new good neighbor rule swiftly.
The EPA reacted by issuing standards on a state-by-state basis to reduce emissions, though it gave polluter states a timetable from 2012 to 2015 to submit their own plans to cut pollution. On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the states needed more time to devise their plans first before the EPA issued its standards.
Environmentalists contend that the polluter states have delayed such rules for more than 20 years and that the 2008 Circuit Court decision compelled the current EPA to step in.
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Hey, weather man: Where’s the climate coverage?
By Daniel Souweine
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This week in Boston, Mass., the nation’s broadcast meteorologists will meet in their yearly conference sponsored by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). You probably don’t have it marked on your calendar, but from the point of view of the planet, it’s the most important meeting of weather reporters in history. Because the burning question in Beantown is whether weathercasters will embrace their responsibility to communicate how climate change is creating a new normal of dangerous, extreme weather.
Given the climate change-fueled storms, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires that have dominated the past year, global warming will undoubtedly be a “hot” topic at this year’s conference. But, amazingly, many broadcast meteorologists remain lukewarm to the subject: The majority of weathercasters, including many with AMS certification, don’t believe that humans are causing climate change, let alone that it’s dramatically shifting our weather patterns. These meteorologists are missing the opportunity to be journalistic heroes who can inform the nation about our increasingly poisoned weather.
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These Forecast the Facts members are not alone. Most Americans want their meteorologists to report on climate change. According to a March 2012 Yale/George Mason survey, two out of three Americans believe that global warming is changing our weather and want to learn more. The survey also found that 58 percent of Americans [PDF] “would be interested in learning what my favorite TV weathercaster has to say about global warming.” Even those who aren’t expressly asking for that information are clearly in need. Over the past six years, 80 percent of Americans have been affected by extreme weather. Their local meteorologists are the ones who can help them understand what’s going on, and whether they should expect more.
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NASA Voyager 2 Space Mission Turns 35
By Tiffany Kaiser
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. . .
The Voyager 2 mission turned 35 years old yesterday, but the spacecraft actually became the longest-operating NASA probe on August 13 when it surpassed Pioneer 6. Pioneer 6 was the first in a series of solar-orbiting, battery-powered satellites that continually took measurements of interplanetary phenomena throughout different points in space. It launched December 16, 1965 and transmitted its last signal on December 8, 2000.
Voyager 2 has made a lot of progress in its 35 years in space, particularly in the way of Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus exploration. It discovered the hexagonal jet stream in Saturn's north polar region, the geyser's on Neptune's moon Triton and the magnetic poles of Neptune and Uranus.
"Even 35 years on, our rugged Voyager spacecraft are poised to make new discoveries as we eagerly await the signs that we've entered interstellar space," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology. "Voyager results turned Jupiter and Saturn into full, tumultuous worlds, their moons from faint dots into distinctive places, and gave us our first glimpses of Uranus and Neptune up-close. We can't wait for Voyager to turn our models of the space beyond our sun into the first observations from interstellar space."
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International |
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Indian court to hear crucial Novartis patent case on cut-price generic drugs
By Helen Pidd
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India's highest court is due to hear a case that could decide whether cut-price generic drugs for cancer and other serious conditions will continue to be available in much of the developing world.
The long-running case, which resumes in Delhi on Wednesday, has been brought by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis. It wants an Indian patent for its leukaemia drug imatinib mesylate, which has been patented as Glivec in nearly 40 countries including China, Russia, Mexico, Taiwan, Germany and the UK, and Gleevec in the US.
Novartis says the legal move is "about protecting intellectual property to advance the practice of medicine, not about changing access to medicines", according to Ranjit Shahani, the vice-chairman and managing director of Novartis India. But campaigners argue that a victory for Novartis could result in the deaths of thousands of people who will no longer be able to afford the drugs they need.
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Death of Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi likely to affect conflicts in Somalia, Sudan
By Alan Boswell
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Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi, who during 21 years of repressive rule transformed his nation into a regional powerhouse, has died of an unspecified illness, depriving the United States of a key ally in the battle against al Qaida-affiliated rebels in Somalia.
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Meles’ Tigray rebel movement took power in 1991 from what had been a Soviet-backed regime. Over the next two decades, Meles aligned his country with the United States and became a major influence in the volatile Horn of Africa and the wider African continent as well. The African Union is headquartered in Addis Ababa, and the capital under Meles became a hub for conferences and events made possible by a Chinese-fueled, state-led construction boom.
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Former President Jimmy Carter praised Meles for a commitment to improving living conditions in Ethiopia, citing a long list of accomplishments, from increasing crop production to battling a range of diseases that included river blindness and malaria, to training 30,000 health extension workers, mostly women, to deliver health services to rural communities throughout Ethiopia.
Despite those accomplishments, Meles headed a government known for its harsh suppression of dissent, and his death was greeted with some ambivalence in Addis Ababa.
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Fukushima’s Fish Are Soaked In Record Levels of Radiation
By Mario Aguilar
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During last year's nuclear disaster, the deadly radiation inside Fukushima 1 became one with the surrounding environment contaminating everything. Things aren't getting any better. Record quantities of the deadly radioactive isotope cesium-137 have just been discovered in the fisheries around Fukushima.
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Authorities had hoped things were getting better, and as the AFP reports, they allowed fishermen to get back to work for a trial run as long as they were more than 31 miles from the disaster site and stuck to shellfish. So far the experimental catches have proven (relatively) clean. Still, while everyone in the region is understandably eager to get back to normal, but let's hope the wishful thinking doesn't get out of hand.
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India parliament adjourned over $33bn coal scandal
By (BBC)
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The government auditors in their report last week said coalfields were allotted without auction from 2005 to 2009.
The report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has, however, exonerated Mr Singh.
But, opposition MPs say the PM was directly responsible since he was heading the coal ministry then.
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India is one of the largest producers of coal in the world.
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Somalia Olympic runner 'drowns trying to reach Europe'
By (BBC)
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A Somali Olympic athlete has reportedly drowned while attempting to reach Europe on a migrant boat.
Runner Samia Yusuf Omar was trying to cross from Libya to Italy in April when the boat she was travelling in sank, according to Italian media.
The head of Somalia's National Olympic Committee confirmed to the BBC that she had died but did not say how.
Samia competed in the 200m event at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 despite having almost no formal training.
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India cracks down on internet over Assam
By (Al Jazeera)
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India has put pressure on digital media outlets, including social networking site Facebook, and micro-blogging service Twitter, to remove "inflammatory" content it said helped spread rumours that sparked an exodus of migrants from some Indian cities last week.
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"The government is for free information. There is no question of anything being censored here. But that does not mean
there are not limitations," a senior official in the Ministry of Home Affairs said, adding that authorities were trying to
identify those responsible for posting the inflammatory material.
R Chandrashekhar, telecommunications secretary, threatened legal action against the websites if they did not fully comply with the requests to take down the offending pages.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Boston Plans For 'Near-Term Risk' Of Rising Tides
By Monica Brady-Myerov
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While many cities around the country grapple with drought and excessive heat this year, city planners in Boston have something else on their minds: the prospect of rising water.
In this coastal metropolis, scientists and computer models predict that climate change could eventually lead to dramatic increases in sea level around the city. Coupled with a storm surge at high tide, parts of the city could easily end up under water.
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Regardless of the ongoing national debate about climate change, Boston is calling the projected sea level rise a near-term risk. Projections range from 2 to 6 feet here by the end of the century, depending on how fast polar ice melts.
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Essentially, the city is looking at the big systems, in the hopes of preventing flooding in housing projects in East Boston or in million-dollar condominiums in the historic Back Bay neighborhood.
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After Akin, GOP Makes Extreme Abortion Policy Official
By Kate Sheppard
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In what will probably strike many people as a monumentally tone-deaf move, the GOP plans to include a plank in its 2012 platform calling for an amendment that would outlaw abortions under any circumstance. CNN reported on the draft language it obtained on Monday night, and the platform committee approved it on Tuesday:
"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."
This plank isn't new for the GOP; it was also part of the party's platform in 2008. But given the major flap this week over Missouri Republican Todd Akin's remark that women who are the victims of "legitimate rape" can't get pregnant and therefore a rape exception isn't necessary, the release of the draft language arrives at a pretty bad time for the GOP. Scores of Republicans have condemned Akin's remarks. But by including it in the platform, the party is formally aligning behind a position that shows the same disregard for women who are the victims of rape that Akin got pilloried for vocalizing.
The human life amendment—which is in line with the "personhood" bills that have proliferated in the states in recent years—would extend legal rights to fetuses at any stage of development. Most of the measures creating a new constitutional amendment that anti-abortion lawmakers have tried (and failed) to pass in Congress over the years have explicitly defined life as beginning at the "moment of fertilization," meaning they would effectively make all abortions illegal. That includes pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest, or if the life of the woman is at risk, since the amendment would make the fertilized egg and the woman equals in the eyes of the law. This type of amendment would also likely outlaw forms of contraception that prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg.
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Circumcision decline may cost US healthcare system billions
By Alexander Besant
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A new study says that declining circumcisions will lead to a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, increasing healthcare costs by billions.
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Rates of HPV, and herpes is expected to rise as previous studies have shown that one's risk of acquiring these maladies signficantly increases in uncircumcised men.
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Many states are no longer insuring the procedure under Medicaid, reported the Baltimore Sun.
Also, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement in 1999, saying that routine circumcision was not necessary.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
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This was inspired by Joni Mitchell's "California." Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were huge fans of hers. When performed live, after the lines "To find the queen without a king they say she plays guitar and cries and sings," Plant would often say the name "Joni."
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To Nick - Warwick, RI - Yes, this was inspired by Joni Mitchell's "California", but it was also more directly inspired by Joni's "I Had a King", ("To find the queen without a king they say she plays guitar and cries and sings") which was about Graham Nash. Nash responded with his song "I Used to Be a King" - Jerry Garcia played pedal steel guitar on that song.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Greenhouse gas seen as risk to marine life
By (UPI)
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Many marine species will be harmed or won't survive if carbon dioxide level increases persist in the world's oceans, U.S. and Australian researchers say.
The scientists argue current protection policies and management practices are unlikely to be enough to save the species. They say unconventional, non-passive methods to conserve marine ecosystems need to be considered if various marine species are to survive.
A significant amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is taken up by the oceans in a form that makes the ocean more acidic. The increasingly acidic conditions have been shown to be harmful to many species of marine life, especially corals and shellfish.
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Shell to invest $1bn a year in China shale gas strategy
By (Reuters via Guardian UK)
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Royal Dutch Shell plans to spend at least $1bn (£633m) a year exploiting China's potentially vast resources of shale gas, the firm's top China executive has said, in an aggressive strategy to expand in the world's biggest energy market.
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China is estimated to hold the world's largest reserves of the unconventional gas – which can be unlocked from ancient shale rocks by hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", a technology developed in recent years in North America.
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Exxon Mobil, BP, Total and Chevron are also trying to get a bigger slice of the Chinese market, where use of natural gas is set to triple this decade and growth in oil demand makes up more than a third of the world total.
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Science and Health |
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Time Flies When You're Having Goal-Motivated Fun
By (ScienceDaily)
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Though the seconds may tick by on the clock at a regular pace, our experience of the 'fourth dimension' is anything but uniform. When we're waiting in line or sitting in a boring meeting, time seems to slow down to a trickle. And when we get caught up in something completely engrossing -- a gripping thriller, for example -- we may lose sense of time altogether.
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The researchers also found that the perceived amount of time for the enticing pictures was related to when participants had eaten that day. Those participants who had eaten recently (lowering their approach motivation for food) judged the dessert pictures as having been displayed for longer periods of time than their hungrier peers.
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Gable and Pool propose that states high in approach motivation make us feel like time is passing quickly because they narrow our memory and attention processes, helping us to shut out irrelevant thoughts and feelings. This perceived shortening of time may help us to persist for longer periods of time in pursuing important adaptive goals, including food, water, and companionship.
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Heart Calcium Scan Most Effective in Predicting Risk of Heart Disease
By (ScienceDaily)
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Heart calcium scans are far superior to other assessment tools in predicting the development of cardiovascular disease in individuals currently classified at intermediate risk by their doctors, according to researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
The test, known as coronary artery calcium (CAC), uses a CT scan to detect calcium build-up in the arteries around the heart. The study findings are presented in the Aug. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Current medical guidelines recommend classifying individuals as high, intermediate or low risk using the Framingham Risk Score (FRS), a cardiovascular risk-prediction model. However, doctors realize that the model isn't perfect and that the intermediate group actually includes some individuals who could benefit from more aggressive drug therapy, as well as individuals who could be managed solely with lifestyle measures.
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Class affects how parents advise kids
By (UPI)
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Working-class and middle-class parents take deliberate, but different, approaches to coaching children how to cope with problems, a U.S. researcher says.
Sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco of Indiana University found working-class parents coached their children on how to avoid problems, often through finding a solution on their own and by being polite and deferential to authority figures. Middle-class parents were more likely to encourage their children to ask questions or ask for help.
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She said both working-class and middle-class parents were "relentless" when it came to teaching their children important lessons -- some even involved role-playing. The students were very receptive.
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New guide helps you scrimp and save without eating toxic junk
By Twilight Greenaway
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Have you ever been shopping for groceries and wished someone would help you find the foods that are the least scary/gross/toxic/processed for the best price?
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) — the folks who brought you the Dirty Dozen list and the (awesome) Skin Deep Cosmetic Database — have set out to do that. Good Food on a Tight Budget might just have the answers. EWG reviewed government surveys and tests [PDF] for nearly 1,200 foods. “We looked at food prices, nutrients, pesticides, environmental pollutants and artificial ingredients and picked the top 100 or so foods that ranked best on balance.”
The new guide zeroes in on whole foods — because, well, most processed and packaged foods just aren’t a good use of money or calories. It breaks down your options by food groups — fruit, vegetables, protein, fats and oils, grains, etc. — and makes recommendations for the foods that offer the most bang for your buck. A continuation of EWG’s Dirty Dozen list, this guide offers some recommendations about what to prioritize buying organic, but it’s clearly written with an eye toward inclusiveness, so assumes that most don’t have the budget for organic.
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Low-T, High Profit?
By Nicole Dubowitz, Matthew Puretz, and Adriane Fugh-Berman
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An unusually lengthy and undoubtedly expensive 90-second commercial for Androgel aired during men’s swimming and volleyball events in NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. The ad touts Androgel 1.62%, a more concentrated formulation of Abbott Laboratories’ testosterone treatment, and starts by addressing “the millions of men who have used Androgel 1%.”
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In recent years, low testosterone or "low-T syndrome” has become part of the popular vernacular. Symptoms associated with low testosterone include fatigue and reduced libido – symptoms that highly overlap with aspects of normal aging.
Testosterone declines naturally, by approximately 1 percent to 2 percent every year after the age of 40, but this does not necessarily mean that low testosterone causes symptoms of aging. No consistent relationship between low-T symptoms and testosterone levels has been proven.
Although the Androgel ad never mentions any symptoms, it may be part of a campaign aimed to convince men and their doctors that an epidemic of low-T has begun. . .
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Technology |
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Google Seeks to Ban Almost Apple's Entire U.S. Product Line
By Jason Mick
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Apple, Inc. (AAPL) has made it pretty clear that it wants to try to ban all of the top Android phonemakers off the market. Google Inc. (GOOG) has vowed to fight back, using the treasure trove of patents from its recent acquisition Motorola Mobility to help protect its partners. Google was seeking a ban on Apple's iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers to counter a potential Android ban.
Thus far that protection scheme didn't work out so well, as Google-owned Motorola Mobility and Apple had their suits/counter-suits twice tossed from the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago). In fact, so far federal courts have proven relatively retiscent to ban products from either side.
So Motorola Mobility's latest legal salvo -- a 50 page complaint with 187 exhibits, pertaining to eight patents -- instead hopes to sway the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban imports of Apple's products, an approach that Apple successfully used to ban shipments of top Android phonemaker HTC Corp. (TPE:2498) earlier in the year.
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Best Buy suspends profit forecast as earnings decline
By (BBC)
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Best Buy said uncertainty over its future sales meant it could not provide any guidance on its full-year profits.
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In March, Best Buy announced a major restructuring that included closing 50 stores, cutting 400 corporate jobs and trimming $800m in costs.
Despite these changes, sales have continued to fall.
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It said in June that one of its priorities was to stop its large stores simply becoming a showroom, where shoppers browse electronic products, but then buy them cheaper online.
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Samsung upgrades Texas mobile device chip factory
By (BBC)
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Samsung is to spend $4bn (£2.5bn) upgrading a US factory which makes processors for smartphones and tablets.
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It makes chips for Apple's iPhones and iPads as well as Samsung devices.
The investment will allow the base to make the latest system-on-chip designs in which various technologies are integrated onto the same circuit, helping minimise manufacturing costs.
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Samsung says the move will take its total investment in the factory to $13bn since 1996, making it the biggest ever foreign investment into Texas.
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Cultural |
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Kenya's Answer To Barbecue Is Part Celebration, Part Test Of Manhood
By April Fulton
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In Nairobi, Kenya, when friends want to celebrate a birthday, the end of bachelorhood or a graduation, they often go out for goat. This communal and culinary tradition in Kenya is called nyama choma — literally, roasted meat. While it's usually goat, some places offer beef, chicken and lamb. If you know where to look, you can even get illegal zebra and and wildebeest meat.
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Nyama choma is also ritual. When a man from the Kikuyu tribe marries, he must use a knife — often dull — to sever the roasted goat shoulder joint cleanly, while everyone watches. That's why Mburu Karanja, a beer marketer at a nearby table, is here. He's about to be married, and he needs to practice his knife skills.
"What if you don't do it in one cut?" asks Burnett.
"It's unthinkable. The wedding can be called off. It's actually a test of your manhood," Karanja replies.
Socializing and meat eating go hand in hand in Kenya. Nyama choma dens are packed on Saturday afternoons. Some men eat so much nyama choma that they're developing painful gout, Burnett reports. But they see it as a badge of honor.
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Viewpoint: Mosh pits and lessons for life
By Joe Dunthorne
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The first gig I ever went to was at the Brixton Academy. I was 13 and my escort for the night was my older sister's boyfriend Glyn.
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I was lobbed towards the stage and finally fell headfirst into the densest part of the crowd. What a shame to die under the feet of strangers whose heads I have recently kicked before Green Day have even played their new single.
And yet, moments later, I found the same strangers held back the crowd to give me space, others were pulling me upright, dusting me down, and one man was encouraging me to join him in some righteous air-drumming. For the next hour, I was part of a community.
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In my experience of punk crowds, it is considered absolutely standard procedure to push someone away when they are annoying. If you are ska-dancing in steel toecap boots with your elbows like scythes, then it's a given you'll get shoved. If you go on someone's shoulders, expect abuse from those whose view you're blocking.
If you faint, however, then those around you will lift you above their heads and pass your limp body forward to the security guys. These are self-policing zones - and the social lubricant is a kind of anti-sensitivity.
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To return to the mosh pit, a little shove in the back to let the guy in front know that you've got a mouthful of hair from his headbanging - it's nothing. But it takes practise to take the emotion out of it, for it not to be about winning or losing.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |