Stocks stall on tepid US economic growth

NEW YORK (AP) ? The stock market stalled Friday after the U.S. economy didn't grow as much as hoped and earnings from a handful of big companies failed to rev up investors.

The economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, the government said. That was below the 3.1 percent forecast by economists.

The shortfall reinforced the perception that the economy is grinding, rather than charging, ahead. Investors have also been troubled by reports in the last month of weaker hiring, slower manufacturing and a drop in factory orders. Many economists see growth slowing to an annual rate of around 2 percent a year for the rest of the year.

U.S. government bonds, where investors seek safety, rose after the report.

"There are some concerns as we head into the summer," said JJ Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist for TD Ameritrade. "In the last three weeks, we've seen numbers that weren't exactly what you'd love to see."

Corporate earnings this week have also contained worrisome signs. Many companies missed revenue forecasts from financial analysts, even as they reported higher quarterly profits. For example, Goodyear Tire slipped 3.3 percent to $12.51 Friday after revenue fell short of analysts' estimates, hurt by lower global tire sales.

Of the companies that have reported earnings so far, 70 percent have exceeded Wall Street's expectations, compared with a 10-year average of 62 percent, according to S&P Capital IQ. But 43 percent have missed revenue estimates. Just over half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported quarterly results.

The S&P 500 index dropped 2.92 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 1,582.24.

The Dow rose 11.75 points, or 0.1 percent, to 14,712.55. The index got a big lift from Chevron. Profit for the U.S. oil company beat expectations of financial analysts in the first quarter, pushing shares up 1.3 percent to $120.04.

Three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange.

Both indexes were up for the week and remain slightly below their all-time highs reached April 11. The Dow index rose 1.1 percent this week while the S&P gained 1.7 percent.

The market has been bolstered by the Federal Reserve's easy money policy. The disappointing growth figure for the economy will ensure that the Fed sticks with its stimulus policy, providing support for stocks, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital.

"The economic data that we've been getting points to no early exit for the Fed's stimulus," Cardillo said.

The Nasdaq composite fell 10.72 points to 3,279.26, a decline of 0.3 percent. The index is 2.3 percent higher this week.

The tech-heavy index has lagged the Dow and the S&P 500 this year, but it led the way higher this week, boosted by Microsoft. The software giant, which makes up 5.3 percent of the Nasdaq, recorded its biggest weekly gain since January of last year ? up 6.8 percent. It reported earnings April 19 that beat Wall Street expectations. The company also began an aggressive push into the computer tablet market.

Apple, the largest stock in the Nasdaq, also had a good week. The stock rose 6.8 percent to $417.20, its best weekly gain since November, despite posting a decline in quarterly profit Tuesday. Apple accounts for 7.6 percent of the Nasdaq composite.

Among other big names investors focused on:

Amazon.com fell 7 percent to $254.81 after the company warned of a possible loss in the current quarter. The online retailer also reported lower income for the first quarter as it continued to spend heavily on rights to digital content.

Expedia fell 10 percent to $58.56 after the online travel company reported a quarterly loss.

Homebuilder D.R. Horton surged 8.7 percent to $26.66 after its income nearly tripled thanks to a continuing recovery the housing market. The results handily beat the forecasts of financial analysts who follow the company.

J.C. Penney jumped 12 percent to $17 after the billionaire financier George Soros disclosed that he had taken a 7.9 percent stake in the struggling company.

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to its lowest rate of the year, 1.67 percent, from 1.71 percent the day before. The yield has fallen from 2.06 percent six weeks ago as traders move money into lower-risk investments.

The dollar weakened against the euro.

The European currency bought $1.3029 at the end of day, compared with $1.3002 the day before. The ISE dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a group of other world currencies including the Japanese yen and the euro, dropped 0.3 percent, to 82.48.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-stall-tepid-us-economic-growth-195845422.html

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Select images from Bangladesh building collapse

(Ends first round) NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - Selections in the first roundof the 2013 NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday (picknumber, NFL team, player, position, college): 1-Kansas City, Eric Fisher, offensive tackle, Central Michigan 2-Jacksonville, Luke Joeckel, offensive tackle, Texas A&M 3-Miami (from Oakland), Dion Jordan, defensive tackle, Oregon 4-Philadelphia, Lane Johnson, offensive tackle, Oklahoma 5-Detroit, Ezekiel Ansah, defensive end, Brigham Young 6-Cleveland, Barkevious Mingo, linebacker, LSU 7-Arizona, Jonathan Cooper, guard, North Carolina 8-St. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/select-images-bangladesh-building-collapse-063137805.html

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Business Management Daily announces the winners of its ...

A big thanks to everyone who participated in our Administrative Professionals Week celebration! We're delighted we could give you a little something here and there as a tribute to everything you do. The giveaways that we offered to celebrate this special week are still available:

Below are the winning responses?and just a few of our other favorites?to our Tuesday survey! The winners will each receive a $25 American Express gift card.

Question #1. If you were granted one superpower to help you do your job better on a day-to-day basis, what would it be, and why?

The runners-up:

"Wonder Woman's lasso of truth, that way they can tell me what they want the first time around."

"My choice for superpower would be ultrasonic hearing. So much ...(register to read more)

To read the rest of this article you must first register with your email address.

Source: http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/35366/business-management-daily-announces-the-winners-of-its-administrative-professionals-week-survey

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Emma Watson Recalls 'Awkwardness,' Hermione Granger With MTV Trailblazer Award

Eddie Redmayne, Logan Lerman and Jonah Hill team up to present Watson with the honor at MTV Movie Awards.
By Katie Calautti

Emma Watson accepts her Trailblazer Award at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards
Photo: Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705648/emma-watson-trailblazer-award-movie-awards-2013.jhtml

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Death toll rises to 35 in Somalia court attack

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) ? The death toll rose Monday to at least 35 killed in the most serious Islamic extremist attack in years on Mogadishu, a government official said.

Islamic radicals from al-Shabab launched a multi-pronged attack against the country's Supreme Court complex on Sunday. The interior minister said nine militants launched the attack, and that six exploded their suicide vests. A car bomb later exploded near the airport.

Dahir Amin Jesow, a Somali legislator who heads a security committee in parliament, said Monday that the toll from the attacks could rise even further because of the number of seriously wounded. Dozens were hurt, he said.

Al-Shabab once controlled almost all of Mogadishu. African Union and Somali forces pushed the Islamic militants out of the city in 2011, but the fighters have continued to carry out bomb attacks. The violence Sunday was the largest and most coordinated attack since al-Shabab was forced out of the city.

Abdirashid Hashi, the deputy director of the Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, said the attack shows that al-Shabab can strike the government at will and that the group could come quite close to "decapitating" a vital government arm. The Supreme Court was in session when the attack occurred.

"What happened ... in downtown Mogadishu will force the government to revisit its priorities," Hashi said by email. "Because if it fails to provide security to the citizens in the capital, it will have difficulties justifying its demands in extending its writ to other parts of the country."

Hashi noted that Somalia's intelligence agency and foreign governments had predicted a major al-Shabab attack. Britain's Foreign Office released a statement on Friday saying it believed a terror attack was imminent.

The top U.N. official for Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, said he was shocked and outraged by the attack. Mahiga said the total number of dead wasn't clear, but that reports indicated that "many innocent civilians were killed including women and at least one child."

The attack on the Supreme Court complex began at around 12:30 p.m. Sunday, sparking running battles with police and army forces. One car bomb detonated outside the court, and gunmen were seen on the roof of a court building firing shots.

On a Twitter feed believed to belong to the militants, al-Shabab appeared to take credit for the attack. A posting said five militants from the "Martyrdom Brigade" took part in the "daring" attack.

Somali security forces have moved outside of the city to confront al-Shabab militants on Mogadishu's outskirts, but that deployment has left somewhat of a security vacuum in the city itself, a vacuum that the militants exploited on Sunday, a Western official who demanded anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be quoted said on Sunday.

Despite intermittent attacks from al-Shabab, Mogadishu is generally considered more peaceful today than most of the previous seven years.

___

AP reporter Jason Straziuso contributed from Nairobi, Kenya.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-rises-35-somalia-court-attack-091204255.html

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Two blasts hit Boston Marathon finish line, at least two killed

By Scott Malone and Tim McLaughlin

BOSTON (Reuters) - Two explosions hit the Boston Marathon as runners crossed the finish line on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring 23 on a day when tens of thousands of people pack the streets to watch one of the world's best known marathons.

Pictures from the scene showed blood stains on the ground and several people knocked down. Massachusetts General Hospital was treating victims of the explosion in its emergency room but information about their condition was not immediately available, a spokeswoman said.

Police reported at least one explosion and witnesses said there were two, which hit as spectators were cheering on people finishing the Boston Marathon, which was first run in 1897.

Reporters in the media center heard two blasts.

Boston police said two people were killed and 23 injured.

Scores of people, some bloody, wandered the streets around the finish line, though their numbers were thinning as police, some carrying heavy weaponry, tried to clear the area and a pungent smell hung in the air.

Mike Mitchell of Vancouver, Canada, a runner who had finished the race, said he was looking back at the finish line and saw a "massive explosion."

Smoke rose 50 feet in the air, Mitchell said. People began running and screaming after hearing the noise, Mitchell said.

"Everybody freaked out," Mitchell said.

Ambulances, fire trucks and dozens of police vehicles converged at the finish line.

U.S. President Barack Obama was notified and directed his administration to provide whatever assistance was necessary, the White House said.

"Blood everywhere, victims carried out on stretchers. I saw someone lose their leg, people are crying," the Boston Globe's Steve Silva reported from the citing, the Globe said on Twitter.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators typically line the 26.2 mile race course, with the heaviest crowds near the finish line. The blasts occurred more than five hours after the start of the race, at a time when most top athletes were off the course but slower amateur marathoners were still running.

The transit agency shut down all service to the area, citing police activity.

Ambulances arrived on the scene within minutes and runners and spectators could be seen crying and consoling each other.

The Boston Marathon has been held on Patriots Day, the third Monday of April, since 1897. The event, which starts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and ends Boston's Copley Square, attracts an estimated half-million spectators and some 20,000 participants every year.

Earlier on Monday, Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa and Kenya's Rita Jeptoo won the men's and women's events, continuing African runners' dominance in the sport.

The New York Police Department stepped up security around landmarks in Manhattan, including near prominent hotels, in response reports out of Boston, said Paul Browne, deputy commissioner of the NYPD.

New York police were redeploying counterterrorism vehicles around the city, Browne said.

(Reporting by Scott Malone, Tim McLaughlin, Edith Honan, Frank McGurty and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Grant McCool)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-marathon-headquarters-locked-down-blasts-heard-190213267--spt.html

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New bird flu strain found outside eastern China

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese capital Beijing reported on Saturday its first case of a new strain of bird flu, state news agency Xinhua said, the first time it has been found in a human outside of eastern China.

The seven-year-old child is in a stable condition in a Beijing hospital, the report said.

Two people who have had close contact with the child have shown no signs of being infected so far, Xinhua added.

A total of 11 people have died of the H7N9 bird flu strain since it was confirmed in humans for the first time last month, with 44 infections in all having been reported to date.

Shanghai and the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui had been the only confirmed locations of infection until the Beijing case.

The source of infection remains unknown, though samples have tested positive in some birds in poultry markets that remain the focus of investigations by China and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

The new virus has caused severe illness in most of the people affected, leading to fears that if it becomes easily transmissible, it could cause a deadly influenza pandemic, though there has been no indication of that happening.

In a bid to calm public jitters over the virus, Chinese authorities have detained a dozen people for spreading rumors about the spread of bird flu.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beijing-reports-first-suspected-case-bird-flu-strain-010730629.html

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