Cooling factory activity hints at slowing economy

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Factory activity grew at the slowest rate in three months in March, suggesting the economy lost some momentum at the end of the first quarter as the effects of tighter fiscal policy started kicking in.

Data so far this year had shown little sign that higher taxes, and the $85 billion in across-the-board government spending cuts that took effect March 1 known as the "sequester," had weighed on economic activity.

"It suggests the economy was probably starting to slow at the end of the quarter, possibly reflecting the impact of the fiscal headwinds coming from sequestration and higher taxes," said Millan Mulraine, a senior economist at TD Securities in New York.

The Institute for Supply Management said on Monday its index of national factory activity fell to 51.3 last month from 54.2 in February. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector. New orders, a key indicator of future growth, accounted for much of the drop in the index.

The ISM report was at odds with a separate report showing that factories gained steam in March on strong order growth, closing out the best quarter for the sector in two years.

Financial data firm Markit said its Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index rose to 54.6 last month from 54.3 in February. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.

While the two surveys use the same sub-indexes, they assign different weights to the components.

Economists and investors placed more emphasis on the ISM survey, which has a longer history and has been generally a good gauge of overall U.S. economic activity.

U.S. stock prices fell in light trade, with the Standard & Poor's 500 index stepping back from last Thursday's record closing high. U.S. financial markets were closed on Friday for Good Friday.

The price for the longer-dated U.S. government bond rose, while the dollar fell to a near month low against the yen.

"We are beginning to see where the government spending cuts will reduce demand," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. "In those sectors and parts of the country that will feel the wrath of sequestration, adjustments are being made."

ROBUST FIRST-QUARTER GROWTH EYED

The U.S. Labor Department employment report for March to be released on Friday could shed more light on the U.S. economy's health.

Though factory activity slowed last month, there were pockets of strength. Export orders approached a year high and factory employment was the highest since June.

In addition, both manufacturers and their customers maintained lean inventories, which economists said pointed to a ramping up of activity later this year.

Last month's pullback did not, however, change perceptions that economic growth in the first quarter accelerated after almost stalling in the last three months of 2012.

The upbeat picture for the first quarter was bolstered by a Commerce Department report on Monday showing that construction spending advanced 1.2 percent in February. Spending had declined 2.1 percent in January.

The construction report added to a series of other data that has suggested economic growth accelerated in the first quarter from the fourth quarter's anemic 0.4 percent annual pace.

Data on employment, consumer spending, industrial production and housing have been relatively strong.

Some economists raised their growth estimates for the January-March period in the wake of the construction report.

Macroeconomic Advisers lifted its forecast by one-tenth of a point to 3.6 percent. JPMorgan raised its estimate from 2.7 percent to 3.8 percent. Part of the increase reflected strong consumer spending.

The U.S. Commerce Department released the consumer spending report on Friday, when financial markets were closed.

Construction spending in February was boosted by a 1.3 percent rise in private construction projects. Spending on private residential projects increased 2.2 percent to the highest level since November 2008.

Part of the increase reflected renovations. The housing market is no longer a drag on the economy and residential construction contributed to growth last year for the first time since 2005. It is expected to do so again this year.

"Housing is catching fire," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. "All the conditions are in place for further improvement with housing even with lingering risks. Housing will keep the economy going forward even with the fiscal constraints."

Spending on private nonresidential structures rose 0.4 percent after declining 5.9 percent.

Public sector construction spending increased 0.9 percent, rising for a second straight month. Outlays on federal government projects fell 1.1 percent.

State and local spending, which is far larger than federal projects, rose 1.1 percent. It was the second straight month of gain in state and local government outlays.

(Additional reporting by Luciana Lopez, Steven C. Johnson and Richard Leong in New York; editing by Neil Stempleman, Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/manufacturing-sector-expansion-slows-march-ism-140720404--business.html

go daddy Tom Kenny Long Island Medium Alfonso Ribeiro adam sandler College Football Scoreboard nfl scores

It's a Girl for Beverley Mitchell!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/its-a-girl-for-beverley-mitchell/

mike d antoni resigns holes ncaa brackets 2012 odd lamar d antoni fashion star

Senate group resolves key issues on immigration reform: lawmakers (reuters)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295796145?client_source=feed&format=rss

deron williams jarhead montrose marshawn lynch earthquake bay area clear channel drexel

Kwame Harris, Ex-NFL Player, Comes Out as Gay

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/kwame-harris-ex-nfl-player-comes-out-as-gay/

hoodie hoosiers temperance world bank kim kardashian flour bomb hunger games box office xavier

Star Caught Circling Black Hole at Record-Breaking Speed

Astronomers have spotted a star in our galaxy that races around a black hole at a breakneck speed, orbiting once every 2.4 hours, scientists say.

The?black hole?in the spinning duo is known as MAXI J1659-152 and is at least three times more massive than the sun. The star, meanwhile, is a red dwarf with a mass just one-fifth that of the sun and is just 620,000 miles (1 million kilometers) from the black hole, according to the European Space Agency, which announced the discovery on Tuesday (March 19).

"The companion star revolves around the common center of mass at a dizzying rate, almost 20 times faster than Earth orbits the sun," astronomer Erik Kuulkers, of ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre in Spain, said in a statement. "You really wouldn't like to be on such a merry-go-round in this galactic fair!"

The two objects orbit a common center of mass. Because the star is the lighter, it has a larger orbit and has to travel at a remarkable speed of 1.2 million mph (2 million km/h), making it the fastest moving star ever seen in an X-ray binary system. The black hole, meanwhile, orbits at about 93,000 mph (150,000 km/h), ESA officials said. The space agency created a video animation of the black hole and ultra-fast star to illustrate the odd setup.

The pair was initially thought to be a gamma-ray burst when NASA's Swift space telescope first spotted it on Sept. 25, 2010.? Japan's MAXI telescope on the?International Space Station?also observed a bright X-ray source at the same place on that same day.

More observations revealed that the X-rays came from a black hole siphoning material from a tiny star companion. From dips in these X-ray emissions during a 14.5-hour observation with ESA's XMM-Newton space telescope, astronomers calculated that the star's orbital period was just 2.4 hours. This orbital period smashes the previous record of 3.2 hours, held by Swift J1753.5?0127.

The newfound pair lies high above the galactic plane, meaning it is out of the main disc of?our spiral Milky Way galaxy?? a characteristic shared by only two other black-hole binary systems, including Swift J1753.5?0127.

"These high galactic latitude locations and short orbital periods are signatures of a potential new class of binary system, objects that may have been kicked out of the galactic plane during the explosive formation of the black hole itself," Kuulkers said.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?and?Google+. Original story at SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/star-caught-circling-black-hole-record-breaking-speed-150432317.html

Aaron Craft school closings powerball ariana grande gonzaga lyme disease temple university

Egypt issues arrest warrant for TV satirist

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's state prosecutors ordered the arrest Saturday of a popular television satirist for allegedly insulting Islam and the country's leader, in a move that government opponents say is aimed at silencing critics of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The arrest warrant for against Bassem Youssef, who has come to be known as Egypt's Jon Stewart, followed an order earlier this week by the country's top prosecutor to arrest five prominent pro-democracy activists in what the opposition has characterized as a widening campaign against dissent.

The acceleration in legal action targeting protesters, activists and critics comes against a backdrop of continued unrest in the country. Political compromise between the well-organized Islamists in power and their vocal liberal and largely secular critics remains elusive, while the country's economy is in near free fall, which has increasingly fueled popular frustration.

The opposition charges that Morsi, in office for nine months, and the Brotherhood have failed to tackle any of the nation's most pressing problems and are trying to monopolize power, breaking their promises of inclusiveness. Morsi blames the country's woes on nearly three decades of corruption under his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, and accuses the opposition of stoking unrest for political gain.

The warrant against Youssef is the latest in a series of legal actions against the comedian, whose widely-watched weekly show, "ElBernameg" or "The Program," has become a platform for lampooning the government, opposition, media and clerics. He has also used his program to fact-check politicians.

The fast-paced show has attracted a wide viewership, while at the same time earning itself its fair share of detractors. Youssef has been a frequent target of lawsuits, most of them brought by Islamist lawyers who have accused him of "corrupting morals" or violating "religious principles."

Prosecutor Mohammed el-Sayed Khalifa told Al-Ahram online that he has heard 28 plaintiffs accusing Youssef of insulting Islam, mocking prayers, and "belittling" Morsi in the eyes of the world and his own people.

In one episode of the show, Youssef mocks former militants who are now part of the mainstream political scene in Egypt. At a recent rally, some former radicals who were imprisoned for taking part in the assassination of late President Anwar Sadat in 1981, accused the opposition of using violence at anti-Morsi protests.

In the program, Youssef ridicules an Islamist who said the militants had repented by fasting for three months for mistakenly killing others with Sadat.

"What a message," Youssef says. "Anyone can form a group in the name of religion, assassinate in the name of religion, and then oops! Repent and fast for three months, and it will too pass in the name of religion."

The comedian has faced several court cases in the past accusing him of insulting Morsi. One of Youssef's attorneys, Gamal Eid, said however that this is the first time an arrest warrant has been issued for the comedian.

In a post on his official Twitter account, Youssef said he will hand himself in to the prosecutor's office Sunday. He then added, with his typical sarcasm: "Unless they kindly send a police van today and save me the transportation hassle."

Eid said the warrant fits into a widening campaign against government critics, media personalities, and activists, saying "the prosecution has become a tool to go after the regime's opposition and intimidate it."

A call to a top aide to the country's chief prosecutor, Hassan Yassin, for comment went unanswered.

The other recent arrest warrants for five high-profile activists were issued over allegations that they instigated violence last week near the Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo, where nearly 200 people were injured in clashes between anti-government protesters and supporters of the Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails.

Morsi responded by harshly criticizing his opponents, calling them hired thugs out to derail Egypt's democracy. The Brotherhood also blamed privately-owned media for fanning the violence.

The criticism was followed by a two-day protest by dozens of Islamists outside the studios of TV networks critical of Morsi. The protesters pelted police and prevented some talk show hosts and guests from entering or leaving the complex.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called the escalation of anti-press "rhetoric" by Morsi and his supporters and the sit-in outside the media city were "deeply troubling."

The series of prosecutions and arrest warrants come amid a legal challenge to the chief prosecutor, Talaat Abdullah, whose appointment by Morsi last year was declared void by a court ruling earlier this week.

On Saturday, Abdullah said he will appeal the court ruling, saying it is "in violation of the constitution and the law," Egypt's state news agency reported. The decision signals a protracted legal battle is likely to ensue, further confusing the legal scene in Egypt.

In the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, an Egyptian rights group said Saturday that police detained 13 people, including five lawyers, and accused them of assaulting police. The arrests inside the police station mark a rare instance in which lawyers face potential criminal charges.

The Haqanya Center for Rights said the 13 are accused of insulting security officials, attempting to free other detainees at the police station and illegal assembly.

The arrests prompted an angry response from lawyers at Cairo's Bar Association, who demanded an apology from the police.

Those detained include prominent lawyer and pro-democracy activist Mahienour el-Masry. Several dozen Cairo protesters held a rally outside the chief prosecutor's office, dismissing his orders as void, locking up the gates to his office with chains and demanding the release of the lawyers and activists.

Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, an attorney, said the lawyers and activists were beaten and assaulted at the station, where they had been since Friday to represent three opposition members reportedly detained and taken to the police by members of a political party affiliated with the Brotherhood.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-issues-arrest-warrant-tv-satirist-132500262.html

marques colston golden state warriors free agents nfl 2012 milwaukee bucks bear grylls us news law school rankings gael

Women Wrestlers Hit the Mat for Breast Cancer | KTXL FOX40

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://fox40.com/2013/03/29/women-wrestlers-hit-the-mat-for-breast-cancer/

avatar the last airbender david wright cory booker cubs cj wilson ellsbury brad pitt and angelina jolie