Yesterday around 9:40PM local time, a group of idiots destroyed the largest Lego helicopter in the world, the 100,000-piece Erickson Air-Crane. Built by Ryan McNaught over the course of six weeks, the pieces alone are valued at $25,000.
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By Katya Golubkova
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian state oil major Rosneft
Chief executive Igor Sechin said that Rosneft was not a "charity fund" when it bought TNK-BP and did not intend to buy out minority shareholders, raising complaints from them and questions from international investors about corporate governance in Russia.
Following the TNK-BP deal, Rosneft became the world's No. 1 oil producer by output, pumping 4.5 million barrels per day - nearly half of Russia's total - but its capitalization of $74 billion is a fraction of U.S. ExxonMobil's
"They have had increasing pressure from minorities and there is clearly a lot of feedback that it is damaging the wider Russia franchise," said one trader at a Western bank in Moscow.
Rosneft Vice President Igor Maidannik said that while the company has no legal obligations towards TNK-BP shareholders, the state-owned giant's shares are sensitive to the situation.
"We don't have any obligations. It would be a voluntary offer or, if a decision on a reorganization is taken, a conversion. We will see," he told reporters at TNK-BP's annual shareholders meeting.
Maidannik said he preferred the idea of a share swap, because buyouts "usually don't lead to the desired result".
GLIMMER OF HOPE
Maidannik's comments offered a glimmer of hope for smaller shareholders of TNK-BP, the listed unit of the Anglo-Russian venture bought by Rosneft for $55 billion, will not end up empty-handed. British oil major BP
Based on TNK-BP's market capitalization of $21.6 billion, down 57 percent since October when the deal was announced, a buyout of about 5 percent owned by minorities would cost Rosneft approximately $1 billion. TNK-BP shares rose up 1.8 percent.
Minority shareholders welcomed the idea with caution, as Sechin has previously rebuffed such calls.
"I support the idea. Maidannik made a good move. He allowed everyone to express their views and gave hope. But I wanted to hear it from Sechin, given that the decision should be taken not by Maidannik alone," said Gennady Osorgin, a shareholder since 2005.
Maidannik, Rosneft's legal counsel, played down expectations that shareholders - including several leading global emerging markets equity funds - could expect a big payout.
"It has been obvious since the deal was announced that TNK-BP's capitalization would fall," said Maidannik. "Someone might have dreamed that a buyout could happen at the deal's price, but in my opinion that was a gamble."
Earlier this month, Rosneft recommended waiving 2012 dividends for TNK-BP, saying its own policy of paying out 25 percent of earnings as dividends could only be extended to TNK-BP after the deal closed on March 21.
Investors have shown concern that subsequent deals by Rosneft could treat minorities the same way.
Shares of Bashneft have fallen by 4 percent since Tuesday, when Russian business daily Vedomosti reported that Rosneft was interested in buying the company, which produces 300,000 barrels of oil a day, from Sistema .
The report, denied by Sistema's majority owner Vladimir Yevtushenkov, has also sent Bashneft's non-voting preferred shares down by 15 percent.
Gathered at a central Moscow hotel on Thursday, TNK-BP minority shareholders grabbed sandwiches as they anticipated a tightening of purse strings from Rosneft.
"Today we are being fed but at the next meeting we may not be offered even a cup of tea," said Viktor Alexeevich, 65, while putting ham sandwiches and pies into a bag.
"I'm very disappointed that they (BP) left us - they set an example to the locals on how to do business. The dividends they paid proved that."
(Writing by Katya Golubkova and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Megan Davies)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rosneft-may-offer-buy-convert-tnk-bp-shares-104546222.html
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Replicon, the developer of a cloud time tracking and expense management application, has raised $20 million Series A funding led by The Social + Capital Partnership and Emergence Capital Partners. This is actually the first time in the company's 17-year history of raising money from institutional investors.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/A7qOI5RLK7Y/
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APThe Atlanta Falcons? plans for building a $1 billion replacement for the Georgia Dome are running into a bit of a roadblock.
According to WXIA-TV in Atlanta, negotiations to purchase the land necessary for the new building have reached a standstill. The city has been in talks with Friendship Baptist Church over the price of the land occupied by the church just south of the Georgia Dome that is needed for the new stadium. However, disagreements over the price to be paid have ended progress toward a solution.
Per the report, the city offered $13.5 million for the land and later raised their offer to $15.5 million. However, the church is asking for $24.5 million to agree to move. The end result is a stalemate devoid of progress.
Lloyd Hawk, Friendship Baptist Church?s board of trustees chairman, said the church needs to be compensated fairly for the price of land and the costs of relocating.
?We?re not going to incur new debt to do that and we?re not going to diminish our savings to do that,? Hawk said.
The church has asked for a mediator or in-person meeting with the mayor to attempt to find a suitable deal for both sides but the city currently seems unwilling to do so. In the meantime, the church?s focus is on serving their patrons first and not the wants of the Falcons.
?If they feel five or six million dollars makes a difference in a billion dollar project, that?s their prerogative,? Hawk said.
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June 26, 2013 ? The blockbuster battles between good and evil are not just on the big screen this summer. A new study that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.
"We're trying to tease apart a largely unknown area of biology," said systems biologist Josh Adkins and team lead at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Infection changes the populations of bacteria in the gut with resulting inflammation. We want to understand the interplay between these events."
Out this week in PLOS ONE, the study shows that Salmonella Typhimurium might use the sugar fucose either as a sign that it has found a good place to reproduce or use fucose to sustain itself during infection, or both. This was the first time researchers saw fucose as an important player during Salmonella infection.
"We were taken completely by surprise with the fucose results," said Adkins. They also saw other sugars that normally are eaten by resident bacteria going untouched. "By knowing what the bacteria eat, we can try to promote the good bacteria and throw off the battle."
The Mice
Food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria hits more than 40,000 people every year. One of the common types that infect people, Salmonella Typhimurium, doesn't usually get mice sick, so Adkins and colleagues used mice uniquely sensitive to Salmonella infection. After infecting mice with the disease-causing bacteria orally, the researchers could follow the course of the illness by analyzing what came out of the other end of the mice.
"In most studies, researchers clear out the resident bacteria with antibiotics before introducing infectious bacteria," said microbiologist Brooke Deatherage Kaiser. "In this study, we could watch Salmonella knock out the commensal organisms and then watch them come back. Following the interactions through time is not something we've been able to do before."
The story they put together shows how Salmonella usurps microbes that normally populate the gut. Known as commensal bacteria, resident bugs perform important functions such as breaking down carbohydrates and sugars that people and mice can't. Using advanced instruments and techniques, the researchers identified which populations of bacteria dominated as infection progressed and mice recovered, as well as changes in the gastrointestinal tract, such as the presence of inflammation and available nutrients. Some of the experiments were performed in EMSL, the DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on PNNL's campus.
The Sugars
While many events the team witnessed were expected, such as infection causing inflammation in the gut, some were not. One unexpected change was in the kinds of sugars available for bacteria to eat. A handful of sugars that good bacteria normally chow down on lay around the gut untouched.
This stockpile of unusual sugars likely occurred because the good bacteria had, by that point, been overtaken by Salmonella and another bacterial variety, Enterococci. Enteroccoci are normally found in the gut, but can take advantage of opportunities to overgrow their welcome.
Unexpectedly, several lines of evidence suggested that Salmonella might use the sugar fucose as a food source. This study showed that the bacteria produced proteins that specifically help it digest fucose, which was the first time these researchers observed fucose proteins during Salmonella infection.
Although additional research will be needed to flesh out the role of fucose in the infectious cycle of Salmonella Typhimurium, this observation may help to control or prevent gastrointestinal infection in the future by a better understanding of nutrient sources and signals in the gut.
Overall, the study allowed the PNNL researchers to follow the rise and fall of the infecting bacteria, the fall and rise during recovery of the commensal bacteria, and changes to the gut as the mice fended off the infection. Future research will focus on what happens in other areas of the intestine to get a handle on the difference between the type of illness this study represented, acute gastrointestinal disease, and more systemic infection.
This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/qykLA4Mup3c/130626183927.htm
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By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for gay rights on Wednesday by forcing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal and paving the way for it in California, the most populous state.
As expected, however, the court fell short of a broader ruling endorsing a fundamental right for gay people to marry, meaning that there will be no impact in the more than 30 states that do not recognize gay marriage.
The two cases, both decided on 5-4 votes, concerned the constitutionality of a key part of a federal law, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), that denied benefits to same-sex married couples, and a voter-approved California state law enacted in 2008, called Proposition 8, that banned gay marriage.
The court struck down Section 3 of DOMA, which limited the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal benefits, as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The ruling was a victory for President Barack Obama's administration, which had decided two years ago it would no longer defend the law in court. Obama applauded the DOMA ruling and directed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review all relevant federal laws to ensure that it is implemented.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, 76, appointed to the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988, was the key vote and wrote the DOMA opinion, the third major gay rights ruling he has authored since 1996.
In a separate opinion, the court ducked a decision on Proposition 8 by finding that supporters of the California law did not have standing to appeal a federal district court ruling that struck it down. By doing so, the justices let stand the lower-court ruling that had found the ban unconstitutional.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Proposition 8 opinion, ruling along procedural lines in a way that said nothing about how the court would rule on the merits. The court was unusually split, with liberals and conservatives in both the majority and the dissent.
By ruling this way on Proposition 8, the court effectively let states set their own policy on gay marriage. This means a debate is set to continue in various states via ballot initiatives, legislative action and litigation potentially costing millions of dollars on both sides of an issue that stirs cultural, religious and political passions in the United States as elsewhere.
The rulings come amid rapid progress for advocates of gay marriage in recent months and years. Opinion polls show a steady increase in U.S. public support for gay marriage.
'SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS'
Gay marriage advocates celebrated outside the courthouse. A big cheer went up as word arrived DOMA had been struck down. "DOMA is dead!" the crowd chanted, as couples hugged and cried.
Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo, a gay couple from Burbank, California, who were two of the four plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case, were both outside the courthouse.
"We are gay. We are American. And we will not be treated like second-class citizens," Katami said.
He turned to Zarrillo, voice cracking and said: "I finally get to look at the man I love and say, 'Will you marry me?'"
Before Wednesday, 12 of the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia recognized gay marriage. Three of those dozen - Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island - legalized gay marriage this year. California would become the 13th state to allow it.
About a third of the U.S. population now lives in areas where gay marriage is legal, if California is included.
"We are a people who declared that we are all created equal, and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," Obama, the first sitting president to endorse gay marriage, said in a written statement.
While the ruling on DOMA was clearcut, questions remained about the meaning of the Proposition 8 ruling for California. Proposition 8 supporters vowed to seek continued enforcement of the ban until litigation is resolved. But California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, said the justices' ruling "applies statewide" and all county officials must comply with it.
"We are now faced with this unusual situation where we have some uncertainty," said Andrew Pugno, one of the Proposition 8 proponents' lawyers. He expressed satisfaction that the Supreme Court had "nullified" a San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that, if left intact, could have had set a precedent for other Western states in its jurisdiction.
FEDERAL BENEFITS
By striking down Section 3 of DOMA, the court cleared the way for legally married couples to claim more than 1,100 federal benefits, rights and burdens linked to marriage status.
Kennedy wrote for the majority that the federal law, as passed by Congress, violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity," Kennedy wrote.
The law imposed "a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states," he said.
Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia both wrote dissenting opinions in the DOMA case.
Roberts went out of his way to state that the court was not making any big pronouncements about gay marriage. The court, he said, did not have before it the question of whether states "may continue to utilize the traditional definition of marriage."
Scalia accused the majority of ignoring procedural obstacles about whether the court should have heard the case in order to reach its desired result.
"This is jaw-dropping," he said of Kennedy's analysis.
As a result of the DOMA ruling, Edith Windsor of New York, who was married to a woman and sued the government to get the federal estate tax deduction available to heterosexuals when their spouses die, will be able to claim a $363,000 tax refund.
The ruling was a win also for more than 200 businesses, including Goldman Sachs Group, Microsoft Corp and Google Inc, that signed on to a brief urging the court to strike down DOMA. Thomson Reuters Corp, owner of the Reuters news agency, was another signatory.
"Today's decisions help define who we are as a people, whether or not we are part of the group directly affected," said Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chief executive.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE
Numerous public figures including former President Bill Clinton, who in 1996 signed the DOMA law, and prominent groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics have come out this year in support of same-sex marriage and gay civil rights.
Individual members of Congress - Democrats and Republicans - also voiced new support for gay marriage this year.
Even with recent developments, there is still significant opposition among Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who had ordered the House to intervene in the DOMA case in defense of the law. Boehner said in a statement he was "obviously disappointed in the ruling" and predicted that a "robust national debate over marriage" would continue.
While more developments lie ahead, the legal fight over gay marriage already constitutes one of the most concentrated civil rights sagas in U.S. history.
Just 20 years ago, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that its state constitution could allow gay marriage, prompting a nationwide backlash and spurring Congress and a majority of states, including Hawaii, to pass laws defining marriage as between only a man and woman.
In 2003, when the top court of Massachusetts established a right to same-sex marriage under its constitution, the action triggered another backlash as states then adopted constitutional amendments against such unions. Five years later, the tide began to reverse, and states slowly began joining Massachusetts in permitting gays to marry.
The cases are United States v. Windsor, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-307 and Hollingsworth v. Perry, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-144.
(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York and Daniel Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Howard Goller and Will Dunham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-due-set-legal-course-gay-marriage-050417451.html
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