Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and may make it harder for many to get health, educational and social services, a new analysis suggests.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46063004#46063004
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The main reasons for street lighting is to make obstacles and pedestrians more visible to motorists, to allow pedestrians to move around without carrying a torch, and to make them feel safer.
In this case, they'd closed the roads around the town for this stunt, so no need for worrying about cars, and a good fraction of the population of the town was out on the street, so there were fewer empty dark back alleys down which to get stabbed (plus it's a small rural town; if it's anything like mine crime is generally livestock related...), and everyone there knew about it months in advance, so I'd expect they were stocked up on torches and batteries. It was just a shame it was so cloudy!
If you have never seen the stars without light pollution, go to somewhere in the middle of nowhere and have a look. It's quite hard to do in the UK, as our population density (and thus light pollution) is many times that of the US, so there aren't many really empty places left. It's a real tragedy that for a little convenience and marginal extra safety we've given up our window seat at the edge of the rest of the universe.
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FILE - In this April 22, 2011 file photo, two pedestrians pass eBay headquarters in San Jose, Calif. EBay Inc. reports quarterly financial results Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, after the market close. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
FILE - In this April 22, 2011 file photo, two pedestrians pass eBay headquarters in San Jose, Calif. EBay Inc. reports quarterly financial results Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, after the market close. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? EBay reported on Wednesday that its net income grew sharply in the fourth quarter, helped by a gain from the sale of its remaining investment in Skype. Its results beat Wall Street's expectations, boosted by strong holiday sales at its namesake website and growth at PayPal, its online payments business.
Investors sent eBay's stock higher in after-hours trading. The company gave a first-quarter outlook that was shy of analysts' estimates. However, its guidance for the full year was stronger than expected, suggesting robust earnings momentum later in 2012.
CEO John Donahoe called 2011 an "inflection point for shopping." This means the lines between online and offline shopping are blurring, as even people who shop in retail stores are increasingly using their mobile devices to compare prices, check for deals or search for products.
If all goes as planned, that's where eBay comes in.
"For consumers and retailers, we intend to make shopping more locally convenient and more globally accessible," he said in a conference call with analysts. "This means enabling retailers of all sizes to reach consumers when, where and how those consumers want to shop."
EBay's long-term plan is to transform into a commerce company that melds the online and offline shopping worlds. As part of this effort, it has been expanding PayPal's reach beyond the Web, to mobile devices and tablets. The company is also testing a service that will let people use their PayPal accounts to shop in brick-and-mortar stores, though the program is still in the early stages.
The company earned $1.98 billion, or $1.51 per share, in the October-December quarter. That's up from $559 million, or 42 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier. Excluding special items such as the Skype gain, eBay Inc. says it earned 60 cents per share in the latest quarter, above the 57 cents that analysts were expecting.
Revenue grew 35 percent to $3.38 billion from $2.5 billion.
On average, analysts polled by FactSet expected revenue of $3.32 billion.
The e-commerce and online payments company said its PayPal business continued to grow, ending the quarter with more than 106 million active accounts. That's up 13 percent from a year earlier. Revenue jumped 28 percent to $1.24 billion and the business processed $33.4 billion worth of payments during the quarter. That's up 24 percent from a year earlier.
As more people used their smartphones and tablets to buy things online, payments made through mobile devices accounted for $4 billion of the total payments processed through PayPal ? a more than fivefold increase from the prior year.
The company's marketplaces business, which includes eBay.com and other e-commerce sites and businesses, saw its revenue grow 16 percent to $1.77 billion. Marketplaces' gross merchandise volume, an important metric that measures all items sold on eBay excluding vehicles, rose 10 percent to $16.5 billion.
EBay's outlook for the current quarter fell shy of expectations. The company expects adjusted first-quarter earnings of 50 cents to 51 cents per share on revenue of $3.05 billion to $3.15 billion. Analysts are predicting earnings of 54 cents per share on revenue of $3.16 billion.
For all of 2012, the company is forecasting adjusted earnings of $2.25 to $2.30 per share on revenue of $13.7 to $14 billion. Analysts are expecting $2 per share in earnings and $11.59 billion in revenue.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company's stock climbed 60 cents, or 2 percent, to $30.94 in after-hours trading after closing down 19 cents at $30.34.
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PRETORIA, South Africa ? The U.S. is calling on South Africa to help prevent a humanitarian disaster in Sudan.
Speaking Wednesday in South Africa, Princeton Lyman, the special U.S. envoy on Sudan, said civilians caught up in fighting in Sudan's Blue Nile and South Kordofan states are running out of food and medicine. Lyman says South Africa should pressure Sudan to allow in international humanitarian agencies.
Lyman says he fears "the prospect of hundreds of thousands of people dying with no access to food or medicine."
Fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels who want to topple the Khartoum government started last year in the states. Groups in both states, which border the new country of South Sudan, sided with the south during a lengthy civil war but remain part of the north.
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COLUMBIA, S.C. ? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is rolling out his closing appeal for votes in Saturday's South Carolina primary with an ad that takes swipes at President Barack Obama's economic policies and makes tough-to-keep promises.
The ad shows Romney giving his victory speech in New Hampshire's primary two weeks ago with his family in the background and mixes images from campaign stops on factory floors around the country.
"President Obama wants to fundamentally transform America," Romney says. "I stand ready to lead us down a different path. This president has enacted job-killing regulations; I'll eliminate them. He lost our triple-A credit rating; I'll restore it. He passed Obamacare; I'll repeal it."
Romney promises in the ad to cut, cap and balance the federal budget. "If you believe that the disappointments of the last few years are a detour, not a destiny," he says, "then I am asking for your vote."
The ad is a stark contrast to the harsh messages Romney and a political action committee supporting him have been using for weeks in South Carolina, a state whose Republican primary winner has gone on to win the nomination each time since 1980. South Carolina's primary is expected to thin the field before candidates rush to delegate-rich Florida, which holds its primary Jan. 31.
Television ads, mailers and phone messages have been rough. Mail pieces, for instance, have called challenger Rick Santorum a hypocrite for raising his pay while in the Senate and said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich launched an attack on America's free enterprise system by questioning Romney's business deals.
Romney's ad sets up several challenging policy initiatives for a Romney administration. Cutting the deficit, much less balancing the federal budget and capping spending, has been an elusive goal for a deeply partisan Congress. While Romney and other candidates complain about regulations killing jobs, businesses have cited the overall economy and slow consumer demand more frequently than regulations as the top problems. That suggests that rolling back regulations may not easily lead to job creation.
When Standard and Poor's downgraded the nation's AAA debt rating last year, it came after months of warnings about gridlock in Congress over dealing with the nation's financial problems. In a time of rising economic challenges, S&P said the U.S. had weakened "effectiveness, stability and predictability" in its policymaking and political institutions. It is far from clear when and how those shortcomings will be repaired.
The new federal health care law that Obama pushed through over GOP objections will have key elements tested in the Supreme Court this year. Even if those elements fail, facets of the health care law are popular and may never be repealed, including ending lifetime maximum policy limits and extending coverage under a parent's health insurance policy to children until they're 25.
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Follow Jim Davenport on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jimdavenport_ap
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MILAN (Reuters) ? The International Monetary Fund expects the euro zone economy to contract by 0.5 percent this year and warns that tensions arising from the bloc's debt crisis threaten global growth, Italian news agency ANSA reported on Thursday quoting a draft of the World Economic Outlook (WEO).
The figure is 1.6 percentage points lower compared with the IMF's September forecast, ANSA said.
The IMF is due to publish next week its latest WEO report.
ANSA said the IMF saw a growth of just 0.3 percent in Germany this year, accelerating to 1.5 percent next year.
Similarly, France was expected to grow by 0.2 percent this year and 1 percent the next.
Both Italy and Spain, according to the draft document, would record two years of negative growth. The Italian economy was expected to shrink by 2.2 percent this year, the Spanish by 1.7 percent.
The GDP contraction should slow to 0.6 percent next year in Italy and to 0.3 percent in Spain, ANSA said.
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