Food and Drug administration begins 60-day process to approve animal critics call a 'frankenfish' A genetically-modified AquAdvantage salmon, top, next to a control salmon of the same age.
Today the President spent some time around the kitchen table with the Weithman Family in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio natives Rhonda and Joe Weithman live in Columbus with their two children, Rachel (9) and Josh (11). The President talked to Joe and Rhonda about the challenges that they’ve had to go through; Joe runs a small Architectural firm that saw a drop in business during the economic slowdown and Rhonda lost her job.
Thanks for checking out the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that's happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This week, travel with the First Family to Panama City Beach, Florida for a weekend of swimming, mini-golf, and meeting with local business owners. Next up, the President hits the road travelling to Milwaukee, Seattle and Columbus to talk to business owners and families about the economy.
Filed under: Major Movement, Deals, Apple Inc (AAPL), Money and Finance Today, Chasing Value[TM]
Investors are running scared again and that
always means that stock bargains are not far behind. Apple Inc.
...
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I traveled there with other members of Congress. We flew in helicopters to survey entire neighborhoods submerged in dirty water. Those neighborhoods not underwater were abandoned. We toured the 9th Ward and saw the broken levees. Trash was everywhere. We visited hospitals jammed to over-capacity, and in chaos. We met with students at a local public school.
I knew then that we would have a lot of work to do to restore the community’s trust, respect and confidence in government. When I returned home to Los Angeles, I donated cleaning supplies and clothing to displaced hurricane victims...
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Wal-Mart (WMT), Target Corp. (TGT)
Big
Lots (BIG)
has had something of a tough time after peaking in April. The
one-year chart is a sad graphic for shareholders to look at.
As can be seen, the stock, ...
I’ve spent the last few days here in Iowa, a state that I was honored to serve as Governor for eight years. Yesterday, I walked the grounds of the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. The fair is refreshingly the same each year, but also a snapshot of changing rural America. The food stands, midway and cattle barns are in the same place that they’ve been for years. We’ve sculpted a "Butter Cow" since the early 1900s, but now the young people all have iPods and Blackberry phones. Their parents have cell phones.
Like the state fair, rural America is changing each year in subtle ways. Many of our grandparents and great grandparents made their homes on small farmsteads and...
A meeting in North Carolina is designed to make sure the country's health insurance reform law becomes reality.
Ed. Note: Building on the President’s commitment to address issues important to rural Americans, Administration officials are visiting state fairs all summer. Check out a map of where we've been so far and hear about the latest visit, cross-posted from the Department of Transportation's blog, Fast Lane.
Like hundreds of thousands of other Illinois households, the LaHood family circles the middle of August on our calendar each year for the Illinois State Fair.
From livestock, grains, and fruit to textiles, cooking, and other handiwork, the Illi...
The doctor charged in Michael Jackson's death is set to attend a court hearing in Los Angeles Monday which will determine when prosecutors will publicly present some of their evidence.
"This flooding has already affected more people than the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Haiti earthquake, and the 2005 Pakistan earthquake combined," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday during an address to the United Nations. Over 20 million Pakistanis have been affected during this humanitarian crisis and as the rains relentlessly fall the risk of expanded flooding continues. Shortages in food, shelter, clean drinking water, and medical supplies face families across the region and as the water continues to rise, it may get worse before it gets better.
...
Filed under: Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), EMC Corp (EMC), Options
3Par Inc. (PAR) closed up 94 cents to $27.03. Hewlett-Packard company (
In recent weeks, an outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis has sickened hundreds of people across the country and has led to a recall of shell eggs. FDA, CDC and state colleagues have worked hard to review reports of illness, to link these illnesses to eggs, and to trace these eggs to the farms involved.
We have had a team of investigators on two farms in Iowa investigating the problem, and ensuring that contaminated eggs are not shipped. The FDA is monitoring the recall, including conducting audit checks at retail stores, wholesalers, and distributors to make sure the recalled shell eggs are being removed from the market.
How to Contest a Property Tax Assessment from personal finance blog
Bargaineering.com.
Ed. Note: Cross posted from the Energy Blog.
One of the best and most exciting parts of my job is helping make homes and businesses more efficient. Why? The places where we live and work consume 40% of the energy we use in the U.S. Through tune-ups to existing homes or new construction, doing more while using less energy is key to improving our buildings and energy future.
Last week, we announced that during the month of June, more than 31,000 low-income homes nationwide underwent retrofits to use less energy. This month represents the largest number of homes ever upgraded &nda...
A federal judge halts U.S. funding for all projects involving the use of material from human embryos.
The Nebraska Appleseed Center says a Lancaster County District judge denied the non-profit's request for a temporary restraining order to restore eligibility for prenatal care to some 1,500 low-income pregnant women.
In short, now's the time to start thinking about such winter-related topics as heating bills, and such cold-weather investments as natural gas, heating oil and coal.
According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), natural gas provides heat for 55% of homes in the United States, followed by electricity, which warms 39%. Heating oil, propane and coal play only minor direct roles, although coal is us...
This afternoon, President Obama called on a partisan minority in Congress to stop blocking legislation that would make loans more available and cut taxes for small businesses. In his remarks on the South Driveway, the President said this legislation “makes sense, and normally we would expect ...
A court official says the judge handling Lindsay Lohan's criminal case plans to issue an unspecified ruling in the case a day before her attorneys are due in court.
Filed under: Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Analyst Initiations
Fashion retailer Hot Topic (HOTT)
was noted in BloggingStock's
Analyst Calls post Tuesday. Janney Montgomery initiated the
equity, which counts Abercrombie & Fitch (
Earlier this week, Vice President Biden unveiled a new report detailing how the Recovery Act is investing $100 billion in groundbreaking scientific research and advances in technology. The report focuses on how Recovery Act investments in modernizing transportation, jumpstarting the renewable energy sector, advancing medical research, and building a platform to enhance the private sector’s ability to innovate have helped put America on-track to achieve some major science and technology breakthroughs. You can read more about those efforts in
Later today, House Minority Leader John Boehner is slated to give a speech at the City Club of Cleveland laying out the major planks of his party’s economic agenda. Unfortunately, families in Ohio and across the country don’t need to wait until the speech to learn about these economic policies because they’ve been living with the impact of many of these same old policies for years. Today, Ohioans will hear an argument for a return to the economic policies that turned a surplus into record deficits and helped create the worst economic downturn since the Great Depressio...
Cross-posted from HealthCare.gov
HealthCare.gov puts the power of information at your fingertips. Not only can you learn about how the Affordable Care Act affects you, but you can also search for both public and private health coverage options through a new, easy to use health insurance finder tool.
Based on your answers to a series of questions, the insurance finder produces a menu of potential coverage choices – personalized just for you.
We’ve made it even easier for you to search for coverage options (or help others search for them) by developing a widget that you can embed on...
A group of Nebraska parents with children who have been placed in foster care says recent reforms marked by more reliance on private contractors who help families has made the state less accountable.
AP - For a vacationing President Barack Obama, it
seems all produce &...
Global takeovers announced so far this year have totaled $1.29 trillion, up 23% from the same time last year, according to Bloomberg News.
Last week a flurry of bleak economic news headlined by larger than expected unemployment claims spurred a 280-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
But, investors took some solace from a flurry of ...
State regulators said Friday they were reviewing whether the Iowa feed mill where investigators found salmonella linked to the nationwide egg recall should have been licensed and inspected.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is moving to the next round in his fight against criminal indictments in Texas, where he faces money laundering and conspiracy charges.
Cross-posted from HealthCare.gov
We’ve heard from seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries that sorting through the over 4,000 prescription drug plan choices, many of which offer similar benefits, can be a confusing and time-consuming process. Experts agree. That’s why seniors on Medicare, health policy researchers supported CMS’ efforts to make the Medicare Prescription Drug program less confusing by eliminating duplicative plans and making it easier for seniors to choose the plan that works for them.
Making Medicare Part D easier to use is one of our top priorities. A report for the Commonwealth Fund discu...
Two weeks before Election Day, the U.S. Department of Justice may be in the position of going to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston to explain why the government should be allowed to keep same-sex couples from receiving the same Social Security benefits and tax considerations as their heterosexual counterparts.
Ed. Note: Building on the President’s commitment to address issues important to rural Americans, Administration officials are visiting state fairs all summer. See a map of where we've been so far, and hear from SBA Deputy Administrator Johns about her recent visit to the Indian State Fair:
Having grown up in Indiana, I know firsthand that there is much debate over what a “Hoosier” is, but I can tell you for certain that there were many at the Indiana State Fair. From the young 4-H and FFA participants that I met at a pancake breakfast, to the small businesses selling...
Authorities in Michigan's Genesee County were jubilant when Atlanta police arrested a suspect in a spate of serial stabbings that left five people dead.
With the end of combat operations in Iraq days ahead, the President salutes our troops for their service and pledges to fulfill America’s commitment to them as veterans. 90,000 troops have left Iraq since the President came into office, and by the end of next year even the troops taking part in the non-combat mission will be home. The administration is upholding the sacred trust with our veterans by building a 21st century VA, making it easier for veterans with PTSD to receive the benefits they need, funding and implementing a Post-9/11 GI Bill, and devoting new resources to job training and placement to help those veterans looking for work in a tough economy. ...
Review: How Rich People Think by Steve Siebold from personal finance blog
Bargaineering.com.
'One on One with Jeff Lytle' ... Rick Scott's past brush with Medicare fraud happened too long ago to be an issue in his campaign for governor, says a local medical industry leader.
In honor of this year’s Women’s Equality Day and the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, I did a live web chat with Shireen Mitchell from the BlogHer community. Shireen and I had a great conversation, in which Shireen asked me a variety of questions from online participants. Watch the full video or use the links below to jump to the topics that interest you most:
Food and Drug Administration officials said Monday that there is no evidence a massive outbreak of salmonella in eggs has spread beyond two Iowa farms, though a team of investigators is still trying to figure out what caused it.
Do not simply list your activities like you would on a resume. Use complete sentences and punctuation, elaborate on your experiences, and make clear to the reader how each activity might be relevant to your success in medical school. Do not leave out pertinent information regarding each of your experiences for the sake of brevity. Be concise, but also highlight your responsibilities and what you got out of each experience.
While you should not try to use every character space that AMCAS allots you to describe each experience, do not miss the opportunity to describe and “sell” each experience. For example, if you have research experience, describe your res...
Bright Side of Lowered Home Values from personal finance blog
Bargaineering.com.
This has created a lot of volatility, and if you already have enough strong growth plays in your portfolio, adding some large, established companies with stable cashflows and hefty dividend yields could ease some of the anxiety you may be feeling.
Such an approach in my opinion is superior to bonds, since bond yields are just too low at these levels. That means you actually risk capital losses if they go up. In addition, safe dividends paid by leading companies are higher than bond yields. And unlike bonds, big compani...
AP - Rape. Scientology. Greedy bankers. Armed
militias. A love story gone wrong.
"Salmonella in eggs was not a problem in the United States until the 1980s when these huge mega producers were born," Fast Food Nation bestseller author Eric Schlosser told CNN.
Tuesday: House Minority Leader John Boehner speaks on jobs and the economy at the City Club of Cleveland.
Five years ago, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated communities across the Gulf Coast. Five years later, the communities are still working to recover and rebuild from the destruction and damage wrought by those storms. We know these efforts have been incredibly challenging and frustrating at times, but they have also been a powerful testament to the courage, hope and determination of the people of the Gulf Coast – and those across our country who helped.
The Obama Administration remains committed to supporting the people of the Gulf Coast in their ongoing efforts to rebuild stronger, vibrant communities. FEMA will continue to be a partner to the Gulf Coast region ...
A Loveland man accused of threatening U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak is working on a possible plea bargain.
This is part of a series of posts providing advice you can use when completing The Common Application for 2011. You can find the entire series, including tips for the Common App's required essays and advice on completing the activities section at http://blog.accepted.com/acceptedcom_blog/tag/2011-com...
Your Take: Any Bargaineering Success Stories? from personal finance blog
Bargaineering.com.
The President calls out Republicans for blocking campaign finance reforms that would address the Supreme Court decision opening the floodgates of corporate money into elections.
However, Analysts think the Fed will have to do more to help the economy move along, and are expecting more announcements of policy easing in coming weeks.
"
Filed under: Earnings Reports
Daktronics (DAKT)
has been stuck in a trading range between $7.25 and $9.50 for a
year and a half now. All it does is bounce back and forth between
support and resistance. However, Tuesday's earnings announcement
may change all of that.
Daktronics released a surprise quarterly profit of $2.4 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with $1.4 million, or 3 cents a share, last year and anno...
No Recession for College Graduates from personal finance blog
Bargaineering.com.
Ed. Note: Cross posted from the Energy Blog
Today Vice President Biden announced that 200,000 homes have been weatherized under the Recovery Act. Cathy Zoi, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy shares her thoughts:
Having made 13 visits to Iraq and held steady conversation with Iraqi leaders over the past two years, the Vice President was as well qualified as just about anybody to speak to t...
AP - Vice President Joe Biden said this week that
the Obama administration "hit...
Watch on Tuesday, August 31, 2010, as President Obama addresses the nation on Iraq from the Oval Office at 8 p.m. EST.
On August 31, 2010, President Obama will mark the end of America’s combat mission in Iraq. At this key transition point, it is important to show our support to the troops and their families who have made tremendous sacrifices for our country. President Obama kicks off “Saluting Service in Iraq” with his own video message:
var params = { allowscriptaccess: "always", allowfullscreen: "true" }; swfobject.embedSWF("http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/J22VfCPl0yc&hl=en&f...The Recovery Act is making a long-term impact on American families and communities by reducing energy costs, creating green jobs and improving the quality of life for people across the country. That’s why on Thursday, I was proud to announce a major Recovery Act milestone for HUD and the Administration. Through HUD’s Green Retrofit Program for Multifamily Housing, which the Recovery Act created for the first time, we’ve been able to award more than $100 million to 100 affordable housing developments around the country to complete energy effi...
Gov. Bill Ritter is using money from medical marijuana registrations to help the state meet a $60 million fiscal emergency.
Some Massachusetts towns have given up enforcing a law that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, saying the law is written with too many loopholes to be effective.
A jury on Monday convicted a former Marine of first-degree murder in the death of a pregnant colleague who had accused him of rape, a charge that stalled the military career he treasured.Cesar Laurean, 23, of Las Vegas, was found guilty of killing Lance Cpl.
Today, 10 applicants have won grants in the second phase of the Race to the Top competition. Along with Phase 1 winners Delaware and Tennessee, 11 states and the District of Columbia have now been awarded money in the Obama Administration's groundbreaking education reform program that will directly impact 13.6 million students, and 980,000 teachers in 25,000 schools.
The 10 winning Phase 2 applications in alphabetical order are: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island.<...
A member of Kansas' Westboro Baptist Church agreed Monday to drop federal lawsuits against Nebraska authorities in exchange for a prosecutor dismissing charges against her stemming from her 2007 protest outside a soldier's funeral.Shirley Phelps-Roper had been scheduled to face trial in Nebraska's Sarpy County Court on Monday on charges of ...
From education in Austin, to bill signings in DC, to ice cream in Florida – and a couple shots of how the President gets around. It’s the first August 2010 batch of behind-the-scenes shots from Pete Souza and the White House Photo Office.
Filed under: Allergan (AGN)
As the opening bell sounded and stocks got off
to a sluggish start, I decided to take a look for stocks that got
off to a fast start. One of those stocks is Botox-maker Allergan
(AGN).
In early trading, the pharmaceutical firm was more than a
percentage point higher, so I took to digging to find out why.
The biggest news I found for Allergan was that it entered into an
WASHINGTON _ Consumers will know the number of calories in food from many chain restaurants and vending machines under draft guidelines released Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration.
The amount of money flowing into bonds is "probably not sustainable on a consistent basis" Joel Levington, managing director of corporate credit at Brookfield Investment Management Inc., told Bloomberg News. "Eventually it won't be sustainable. Wheth...
The federal job safety agency fined SeaWorld Orlando $75,000 on Monday for three violations uncovered while investigating the February death of a trainer who was grabbed by a killer whale and dragged underwater.
Today we celebrate Women’s Equality Day and we mark the 90th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment. We honor those who made this day possible like Alice Paul and Ida Wells-Barnett and the countless women who fought for suffrage. They understood what we know now – that there is power in participation. We believe in the importance of voting.
Since 1920, women have made enormous strides toward social, political, and economic equality in the United States. Today, women and girls comprise just over 50 percent of the United States' population. Women now outnumber men in undergraduate education, as they now earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees and they makeup n...
Food and Drug Administration officials said Monday that there is no evidence a massive outbreak of salmonella in eggs has spread beyond two Iowa farms, though a team of investigators is still trying to figure out what caused it.
The Affordable Care Act is working to help bring down the cost of prescription drugs for seniors enrolled in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program and today, we got more good news for our seniors.
This afternoon, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that Medicare prescription drug plan premiums for 2011 will stay similar to rates beneficiaries are currently paying this year. The average premiums in 2010 were $29 per month -- in 2011 we expect average monthly premiums to be just a dollar more. All beneficiaries should check to make sure that the plan offerings that will be available in 2011 are right for them when information on those plans becomes ava...
Today, the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) approved its report on tax reform and sent it to the President.
The PERAB report fulfills the specific mandate they were given: to discuss the pros and cons of a spectrum of reform ideas relating to tax simplification, im...
As we approach the fifth anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it’s important to note how far our nation has come in improving our ability to respond to and recover from disasters and the progress we’ve made in helping our Gulf Coast recover from one of the worst natural disasters in our country’s history.
Since taking office, the Obama administration has made Gulf Coast rebuilding a top priority. Over the past 20 months, we’ve obligated more than $2.5 billion in funding for new schools and universities, fire houses, police stations, and critical infrastructure, including roads, bridges, hospitals, and public health assets across the Gul...
"It is hard to pick up the newspaper and see anyone optimistic," Francis Kinniry from The Vanguard Group Inc., told Bloomberg News. "The problem is there is not a lot of good news on the recovery front and that translates in people's mind to poor capital markets."
Bond funds for the past two years have seen inflows almost as high as stock funds did during the In...
Vice President Joe Biden talks with local workers and small business owners about the economy during a middle-class task force roundtable at Pete's New Haven Style Apizza restaurant in Washington, DC,
Today the Vice President held a Middle Class Task Fo...
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Amazon.com (AMZN)
When there's uncertainty to a thesis, I'm not inclined to
buy. That might seem obvious on the surface, but I know there are a
lot of individual speculators out there who would disagree with me.
Take a roll of the dice, they might say. Uncertainty can lead to
huge gains, they might counter. Well, it depends on the situation,
I suppose. In the case of Barnes & Noble, Inc. (
Having grown up on a working farm in Oregon, I understand this all too well. Those days taught me a lot about hard work and patience. Four decades later, as I read news stories about the current travails of Russian wheat farmers, the memories of getting up on wet winter mornings for the pre-dawn goat milking - or having to drive a tractor when I was only six years old - engender a lot of empathy for the difficult challenges the wheat farmers face.
Wild fires are racing through unharvested wheat fields, the result of a
Instead of saying thanks, some residents rebuked Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen.
Filed under: Major Movement, Management, Options, Technical Analysis, Commodities
Patriot
Coal Corporation (A Republican governor's race and a Democratic U.S. Senate campaign in which political newcomers sought to topple party establishment candidates are the feature races Tuesday in Florida's primary election.
WASHINGTON _ Long before Austin 'Jack' DeCoster became a central figure in one of the largest egg recalls in history, he had paid more than $10 million in fines and suit settlements, his eggs were banned in one state and quarantined in another and he was almost single-handedly responsible for new restrictions on child labor in his native Maine.
Filed under: McDonald's (MCD), Burger King Hldgs (BKC)
Burger
King (BKC)
really laid a whopper Tuesday when it announced
weaker-than-expected earnings.
Burger King said net income fell to $4...
With 64 percent of the state's precincts reporting, Scott had 46 percent of the vote to McCollum's 43 percent.
Instead of saying thanks, some residents rebuked Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen.
Filed under: Deals, Intel (INTC)
There's a downside and an upside to news regarding Intel's
(INTC)
$48-per-share
successful effort to acquire McAfee (MFE),
first discussed here
When it comes to the auto companies, we often focus more on the lake than the streams and rivers.
That is, much of the attention to how this critical sector is faring focuses on the end-of-the-line assembly plants, and less on the suppliers that provide the parts to be assembled.
You might think that’s because in employment terms, the end-of-the-line is most important. But in fact, for every worker in the assembly plant, there are three workers in the supply chain.
So if you want to assess the health of the auto industry, you’ve got to look beyond the factories that build the cars and trucks and examine how the suppliers are doin...
A bill designed to bring in millions of dollars for the state's Medicaid program is unconstitutional, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
Frontline
Ltd. (FRO),
which I first discussed here
on April 28, 2009 at a price of $19.17, appears to have
weathered the U.S.'s deepwater offshore oil drilling moratorium
reasonably well, but given sector uncertainty, it's perfectly
reasonable for more-cautious investors to close their FRO position
now, and take the roughly $7 gain.However, those investors who can tolerate high-risk can retain their full positi...
Administrator Jackson speaks with a response worker at the Incident Command Post in Alabama.
I grew up in New Orleans. As a chemical engineering student at Tulane University, I worked and studied in the local environment, particularly the wetlands, marshes and swamps. I saw then that the wetlands were the beating heart ...
Time.com - Voters hate it. Hardly anyone wants
credit for it. But President Obama's $787 billion stimulus is
quietly altering the way Americans work, move, innova...