Relationship Recital: How We Met | Weddingbee

In order to better understand how lucky we were that we met, I will start by saying that Sparky grew up in St. Louis, went to college in Indiana (Purdue, like Miss Scooter!), and nearly moved to Chicago upon graduation. (He ended up moving to Seattle for a job instead.) I grew up in Seattle and have lived here my whole life with the exception of the few months I studied abroad.

Thirty-one hours driving, according to Google Maps

In the summer of 2006 I was getting used to being back in the country (having arrived home from three months abroad). That summer was rough; my grandfather died and the father of the guy I was dating at the time also died, both within two weeks of each other. I was very close to my (now ex) boyfriend?s dad, and both deaths hit me hard. I had already begun to realize that I wasn?t wonderfully happy in my relationship, but I kept thinking maybe things would get better. After his dad died I promised myself I would be strong and supportive and our relationship would fix itself.

During that rough time, we were arguing a lot. On one particular day we had been invited to a party at the home of one of my best friends from college. I hadn?t intended to go, but then we argued so I decided to go to the party on my own.

Approximately one week before meeting Sparky. Please excuse my ridiculous 20-year-old self. / Personal photo

At the party, I walked in and immediately found myself a place on the couch. There was a guy there that I?d never met before, and he proved to be very funny and interesting. I spent hours chatting and laughing with him, and when I eventually left the party many hours later I was so glad that I had gone.

Little did I know that the guy at the party had seen me the moment I entered the party and had decided that he wanted to know me. He thought I was cute and, after talking for hours, thought I was smart and sweet.

We became friends and started hanging out fairly frequently. I knew he was a good guy because less than two weeks after making my acquaintance he helped me move. As our friendship developed, I learned that this guy had gone to high school with my college friend and had run into her randomly on the street in downtown Seattle. Not that big of a deal when you?re from the city, but quite impressive when you realize that they both grew up in the Midwest.

Backing up: Sparky graduated college in May of 2006. Earlier that year he had been offered a position here in Seattle, and it was pretty much exactly what he wanted. He made the decision to accept the offer and make the move to the West Coast. One day, after moving to his new home, Sparky was exploring downtown Seattle. Across the street he thought he saw someone he knew from St. Louis. He wasn?t sure enough to call out to her at that point but instead looked her up on Facebook when he got home. (What would we do without Facebook?) After asking how likely it was that she was at this corner at this time, she replied that yes, it was in fact her! Not only that but she was having a housewarming party and thought Sparky should come so they could catch up and reconnect.

Well, they didn?t really get the chance to reconnect or catch up at that party because Sparky spent the entire time in conversation with yours truly. We hit it off, we clicked, and we became great friends.

First picture of us taken together on 4/2007 / Personal photo

We went to Seattle U soccer games, we tried new restaurants, we went to Mariners games, and we played video games. Sparky?s apartment happened to be a block from my school and work, so I spent a lot of time there. We really connected and it wasn?t very long (read: October) before I had to admit to myself that I had feelings for him.

One problem: we both were dating other people.

Anyone else meet the guy of their dreams only to find that he was already spoken for?

Source: http://www.weddingbee.com/2013/04/28/how-we-met-stories-47/

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How does pregnancy reduce breast cancer risk?

Apr. 28, 2013 ? Being pregnant while young is known to protect a women against breast cancer. But why? Research in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research finds that Wnt/Notch signalling ratio is decreased in the breast tissue of mice which have given birth, compared to virgin mice of the same age.

Early pregnancy is protective against breast cancer in humans and in rodents. In humans having a child before the age of 20 decreases risk of breast cancer by half. Using microarray analysis researchers from Basel discovered that genes involved in the immune system and differentiation were up-regulated after pregnancy while the activity of genes coding for growth factors was reduced.

The activity of one particular gene Wnt4 was also down-regulated after pregnancy. The protein from this gene (Wnt4) is a feminising protein -- absence of this protein propels a fetus towards developing as a boy. Wnt and Notch are opposing components of a system which controls cellular fate within an organism and when the team looked at Notch they found that genes regulated by notch were up-regulated, Notch-stimulating proteins up-regulated and Notch-inhibiting proteins down-regulated.

Wnt/Notch signalling ratio was permanently altered in the basal stem/progenitor cells of mammary tissue of mice by pregnancy. Mohamed Bentires-Alj from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, who led this study explained, "The down-regulation of Wnt is the opposite of that seen in many cancers, and this tightened control of Wnt/Notch after pregnancy may be preventing the runaway growth present in cancer."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BioMed Central.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Fabienne Meier-Abt, Emanuela Milani, Tim Roloff, Heike Brinkhaus, Stephan Duss, Dominique S Meyer, Ina Klebba, Piotr J Balwierz, Erik van Nimwegen and Mohamed Bentires-Alj. Parity induces differentiation and reduces Wnt/Notch signaling ratio and proliferation potential of basal stem/progenitor cells isolated from mouse mammary epithelium. Breast Cancer Research, 2013 (in press) [link]

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/M01wkIKwjeM/130428230427.htm

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Syrian rebels, troops clash at 3 air bases

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad fought intense battles with his troops on Sunday to try to seize control of three military air bases in the country's north and curtail the regime's use of its punishing air power, activists said.

Rebels, who have been trying to capture the air fields for months, broke into the sprawling Abu Zuhour air base in northwestern Idlib province and Kweiras base in the Aleppo province on Saturday. Fighting raged inside the two facilities Sunday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least seven fighters were killed in the fighting in Abu Zuhour, in addition to an unknown number of soldiers. The group, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said the Syrian air force conducted an airstrike on Abu Zuhour village during the fighting to ease pressure on government troops inside the base.

Rebels control much of Idlib and Aleppo provinces, which border Turkey, although government troops still hold some areas including the provincial capital of Idlib province and parts of the city of Aleppo, Syria's largest urban center.

The Aleppo Media Center said rebels also seized 60 percent of the Mannagh helicopter base near the border with Turkey. Rebels from the Islamist al-Burraq Brigades announced that fighters from multiple factions in northern Aleppo have launched a large-scale offensive to seize full control of the facility.

Government troops regularly shell nearby areas from the Mannagh base, including a rocket attack overnight on the town of Tal Rifaat near the border with Turkey that killed at least four people, including two women and a child.

Syria's conflict started with largely peaceful anti-government protests in March 2011 but eventually turned into a civil war. More than 70,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.

The Obama administration said Thursday that intelligence indicates that government forces likely used chemical agents against rebels in two attacks.

Washington's declaration was its strongest on the topic so far, although the administration said it was still working to pin down definitive proof of the use of chemical weapons. It held back from saying Damascus had crossed what President Barack Obama has said would be a "red line" prompting tougher action in Syria.

Both sides of the civil war accuse each other of using the chemical weapons.

The deadliest such alleged attack was in the Khan al-Assal village in the Aleppo province in March. The Syrian government called for the United Nations to investigate alleged chemical weapons use by rebels in the attack that killed 31 people.

Syria, however, has not allowed a team of experts into the country because it wants the investigation limited to the single Khan al-Assal incident, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged "immediate and unfettered access" for an expanded investigation.

The state-run al-Thawra newspaper on Sunday accused the U.N. secretary general of being a "tool" for the United States and accused him of "bowing to American and European pressures."

In neighoring Lebanon, Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV reported that Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met Saturday night with the pro-Syrian militant group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. No details emerged of the late night meeting.

The Shiite Muslim group has been drawn into the fighting in Syria and is known to be backing regime fighters in Shiite villages near the Lebanon border. The Syrian opposition accuses fighters from the group of taking part in the Syrian military crackdown inside the country.

At a Sunday morning at a news conference in Beirut, Bogdanov called for a diplomatic solution to Syria's civil war based on the Geneva Communique of June 2012. The communique is a broad but ambiguous proposal endorsed by Western powers and Russia to provide a basis for negotiations.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-troops-clash-3-air-bases-145501269.html

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2014 Corvette Stingray Price Will Start Just Under $52,000, Car Will Go On Sale This Summer, GM Says

DETROIT -- General Motors said Friday that a base model of the 2014 Corvette Stingray will start at just under $52,000.

Considering everything that GM put into the newest Corvette, the $1,400 price increase over the current model seems pretty modest.

The 2014 Corvette goes on sale this summer. The latest version was completely redone, and shares only two parts with the current model, which is nine years old.

The car was the talk of the Detroit auto show in January because of the dramatic changes GM made to it.

The 1,000-person team at GM made the 2014 version lower and sleeker, saving weight by replacing the steel structure with aluminum. The hood is made of lightweight carbon fiber. The interior gets a more modern look with new touch screens.

Under the hood, the car gets a new 450-horsepower, 6.2-liter V-8 engine that can go to four cylinders on the highway to save fuel. A new seven-speed manual transmission is standard. Even the base model can go from zero to 60 mph in under four seconds, a few tenths of a second faster than the current model.

Dealers say customers already are putting down deposits.

"Every day you have someone coming in wanting to know about the new Corvette," says Bill Perkins, owner of two Chevrolet dealerships in the Detroit suburbs. "You have a lot of enthusiasts out there. You have a lot of people that have purchased Corvettes before. A lot of people come in wanting to know the price, how soon they can get one."

A $1,400 increase is "not that much of a change when you look at everything that's happened to the car," said John Fitzpatrick, marketing manager for Chevrolet performance cars.

The car performs similar to a Porsche 911, yet a comparably equipped 911 would cost $100,000, Fitzpatrick said.

When pricing the Corvette, GM knew it had to avoid giving sticker shock to younger buyers, who should like all the new features. The average Corvette buyer is a male around 50 years old, Fitzpatrick said.

"We want to retain that loyal Corvette customer. We also realize that we do have to attract a younger buyer and do things that make the car aspirational to them."

The car's gas mileage will be released later, but GM says it will do better than the current Corvette's 26 mpg on the highway.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/2014-corvette-stingray-price_n_3164854.html

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Urgent English speaking Technical Helpdesk Agent - CPL ... - Jobs.ie

My Client is looking for a Technical Helpdesk agent to join a new Team based in Tallaght.

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? To provide best in class service to all our customers by achieving service standards

? To make call backs to customers when required and ensure compliance scripting is used for outbound calls.

Job Dimensions and Responsibilities

• Demonstrate a professional telephone manner
• Demonstrated a high quality performance
• Strong customer focus track record and proven commitment to the customer excellence standards at all times
• Accuracy and attention to detail is required in all aspects of the job
• Ability to work as part of a team
• Ensure all emails are responded to in a timely fashion and within compliance and procedural directives
• Maximise Telephone availability and effectively manage call duration and after call work.
• To contribute to Teamwork
• To provide best in class customer service
• To be flexible and open to change

Key Performance Measures.

• Customer satisfaction ? both external and internal
• Quality Service
• Service Accuracy as required within goals
• Contribution to Performance Management Targets
• Compliance ? ensuring that all BOI group policies are adhered to

Key Competencies

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Please contact Cormac on (01)6146177 or email cormac.loughlin(at)cpl.ie?with our CV today!!

Location ? Co.Dublin Payment 21,000 Category Call-Centre / Customer Service. Terms Permanent, Full-time Last updated 24/04/2013 Contact CPL Language Jobs Team

Source: http://www.jobs.ie/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=1257403

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Johnson set for abdominal injury surgery

Alexander Tamargo / Getty Images Contributor

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

By Josh Grossberg, E! Online

The Rock is taking this "no pain, no gain" thing to heart. Dwayne Johnson announced he's set to undergo surgery next week for an abdominal injury.

"Saw my Dr who had to push my intestines back thru the tear in my abdomen. Kinda romantic," the pro-wrestler-turned-movie star tweeted on Sunday. "Surgery is next week. #BringItOn."

VIDEO: Michael Bay talks Dwayne Johnson's baby oil routine

As it happened, Johnson was MIA for last night's Hollywood premiere of his new action flick, the Michael Bay-directed "Pain and Gain" costarring Mark Wahlberg.

A rep for the 40-year-old thesp was unavailable for comment.

But news of the operation comes after Johnson got back in the ring earlier this month to take on rival John Cena at Wrestlemania 29, a title match he subsequently lost.

"Pain and Gain" hits theaters this Friday.

PICS: Here are some other celebs not feeling too hot these days

More in TODAY Entertainment:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/23/17878045-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-to-undergo-surgery-for-abdominal-injury?lite

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Sales disappoint, but tax gain lifts Amgen profit

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Tax credits helped biotech giant Amgen report first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street's expectations, but sales growth disappointed investors.

Amgen Inc. benefited from an overall tax gain of $13 million for the latest quarter, as it booked a federal research and development credit for 2012 and resolved an audit for fiscal 2007 to 2009, which cut its tax rate considerably. That compared with paying out over $200 million in income taxes in the prior-year period.

Overall drug sales rose 6 percent, driven by growth of Enbrel for psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis and Prolia for osteoporosis. But those gains were partially offset by the continued slide of anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen, which have faced limits on dosing and insurance payments due to safety concerns. Aranesp sales fell 10 percent to $168 million, while Epogen declined 2 percent to $435 million.

Shares fell $7.25, or 6.4 percent, to $105.51 in after-hours trading.

The company said Tuesday that its net income rose 21 percent to $1.43 billion, or $1.88 per share, from $1.18 billion, or $1.48 per share, in the prior-year period. Adjusting for one-time expenses, the company would have earned $1.96 per share, better than the $1.84 average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue rose 5 percent to $4.24 billion, missing analysts' average estimate of $4.37 billion. Operating expenses rose 9 percent, to $2.67 billion.

Despite continuing declines for anemia drugs, those products could get a boost in coming months after a major setback for a rival product. In late February, Affymax Inc. and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. pulled their anemia drug Omontys off the market after several people taking it died and about 50 had severe allergic reactions.

Omontys, Aranesp and Epogen compete fiercely for patients who develop anemia while undergoing dialysis for chronic kidney disease. Those pricey drugs, injected once a week or once a month, boost the blood's production of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen throughout the body. That reduces the need for blood transfusions.

Amgen has a promising pipeline of experimental drugs, but it will be a few years until they hit the market ? if they are approved. The company said it will present preliminary results from a late-stage study of its experimental drug for the skin cancer melanoma at a meeting for cancer specialists in June.

Amgen expects profit to come in toward the upper half of its adjusted earnings guidance for the year, a range of $7.05 and $7.35 per share. It maintained a revenue outlook of $17.8 billion to $18.2 billion. Analysts expect earnings of $7.21 per share on revenue of $18.05 billion, on average.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sales-disappoint-tax-gain-lifts-amgen-profit-231041657--finance.html

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Scientists provide 'new spin' on emerging quantum technologies

Apr. 23, 2013 ? An international team of scientists has shed new light on a fundamental area of physics which could have important implications for future electronic devices and the transfer of information at the quantum level.

The electrical currents currently used to power electronic devices are generated by a flow of charges. However, emerging quantum technologies such as spin-electronics, make use of both charge and another intrinsic property of electrons ? their spin ? to transfer and process signals and information.??

The experimental and theoretical work, carried out by researchers from York?s Department of Physics, the Institute of Nanoscience in Paris and the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA, could have important implications for spintronics and quantum information technologies.

The team looked at semiconductors? structures ? the base of current electronic devices and of many spintronic device proposals - and the problems created by internal fields known as spin-orbit fields. In general, these tend to act differently on each electronic spin, causing a phenomenon referred to as ?spin-decoherence?. This means that the electronic spins will behave in a way which cannot be completely controlled or predicted, which has important implications for device functionalities.

To address this problem, the scientists looked at semiconductor structures called ?quantum wells? where the spins can be excited in a collective, coherent way by using lasers and light scattering. ?????

They demonstrated that these collective spin excitations possess a macroscopic spin of quantum nature. In other words, the electrons and their spins act as a single entity making them less susceptible to spin orbit fields, so decoherence is highly suppressed.

The theoretical work was led by Dr Irene D?Amico from York?s Department of Physics, and Carsten Ullrich, an Associate Professor from Missouri-Columbia?s Department of Physics. The project began with their prediction about the effect of spin Coulomb drag on collective spin excitations, and developed into a much larger international project spanning over three years, which was funded in the UK by a Royal Society grant, with additional funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Dr D?Amico said: ?This work has developed into a strong international collaboration which has greatly improved our understanding at fundamental level of the role of many-body interactions on the behaviour of electron spins.

?By combining experimental and theoretical work, we were able to demonstrate that through many-body interactions, a macroscopic collection of spins can behave as a single entity with a single macroscopic quantum spin, making this much less susceptible to decoherence. In the future, it may be possible to use these excitations as signals to transport or elaborate information at the quantum level.?

After reporting their results in the journal Physical Review Letters last year, the team of scientists confirmed and extended the results by considering different materials and type of excitation. The second set of experiments, were recently reported in Physical Review B (Rapid Communication) and highlighted by the Journal as an ?Editor?s Suggestion?.

Dr Florent Perez, who led the experimental work with Florent Baboux, at the CNRS/Universit? Paris VI, says the results strongly suggest that the quantum nature of the macroscopic spin is universal to collective spin excitations in conductive systems.

He said: ?The collaboration with Irene D?Amico and Carsten Ullrich has been particularly powerful to disentangle the puzzle of our data. In our first joint work we constructed an interpretation of the phenomenon which was confirmed in a second investigation carried out on a different system. This paved the way for a universality of the effect.?

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of York, via AlphaGalileo.

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Journal References:

1. F. Baboux, F. Perez, C. A. Ullrich, I. D?Amico, J. G?mez, M. Bernard. Giant Collective Spin-Orbit Field in a Quantum Well: Fine Structure of Spin Plasmons. Physical Review Letters, 2012; 109 (16) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.166401
2. F. Baboux, F. Perez, C. A. Ullrich, I. D'Amico, G. Karczewski, T. Wojtowicz. Coulomb-driven organization and enhancement of spin-orbit fields in collective spin excitations. Physical Review B, 2013; 87 (12) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.121303

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/FO4fPwHMdsc/130423091030.htm

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Apple?s Q1 smartphone market share reportedly sinks as Samsung dominates

Samsung Galaxy S III

While most market research firms will want to wait for Apple to post iPhone numbers on Tuesday before releasing their Q1 smartphone market share estimates, China-based firm TrendForce is confident enough in its sources that it went live with its numbers on Monday morning. While some analysts think iPhone sales during the March quarter came in as low as 33-34 million units, TrendForce?s chip division DRAMeXchange suggests Apple shipped 37.5 million iPhones in the first quarter this year. The figure would represent only modest growth compared to the 35.1 million iPhones Apple sold in the same quarter last year, but investors might be happy with any growth from Apple in light of the ridiculous estimates we?ve seen leading up to the company?s earnings report.

[More from BGR: ISPs warned to ignore Google Fiber at their own peril]

[More from BGR: Google chairman Eric Schmidt warns of ?the dark side of the digital revolution?]

In terms of market share, TrendForce says Apple?s iPhone lineup accounted for 17.3% of the worldwide market in the first quarter this year, down 1.2% sequentially. Again, any decline is bad news for Apple but it certainly could be worse.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Apple?s top rival Samsung shipped 65 million smartphones during the first quarter, according to the research firm. That massive figure is good for nearly 30% of the global smartphone market by TrendForce?s count, which would be about flat compared to the same quarter last year.

Samsung pre-announced Q1 earnings last week and said that it took in about $7.7 billion in profit ? up 50% over the year-ago quarter ? on sales totaling $45.9 billion.

Elsewhere in the smartphone market, TrendForce says Nokia had a 4.3% share in Q1, down 0.9%, while HTC topped Nokia but slid three-tenths of a point to 4.4% and Sony gained three-tenths of a point to take 3.8% of worldwide smartphone shipments.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-q1-smartphone-market-share-reportedly-sinks-samsung-115017558.html

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Stocks slip on weak earnings

Stocks fell on Wall Street Thursday after?disappointing earnings from a range of companies.?Commodities stocks held steady following a wild couple of days.

By Matthew Craft,?AP Business Writer / April 18, 2013

The US flag hangs outside the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks sank Thursday after the release of weak quarterly results.

Brendan McDermid/Reuters/File

Enlarge

Disappointing earnings from a range of companies pushed the?stock?market lower on Thursday, giving major indexes their third loss this week.

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The?stock?prices of Morgan Stanley, UnitedHealth Group and others sank after they turned in weaker quarterly results. Prices of commodities held steady following a wild couple of days. Government bond yields remained near their lowest point of the year as investors sought safety.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 10.40 points to close at 1,541.61, a decline of 0.7 percent.

Compared with the steep drops earlier this week, the losses on Thursday looked tame. The S&P 500 lost 2 percent on Monday, its worst day of the year, when a slowdown in China's economic growth set off a rout in prices for gold, oil and other commodities and pummeled the?stocks?of companies that make them. After reaching a record high a week ago, the index has now slumped 3 percent.

One reason behind the market's sudden turn might simply be that investors wanted to take some of their winnings off the table, said Joseph Tanious, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds. At the start of April, the S&P 500 was already up 10 percent for 2013, more than investors can expect to get in a whole year.

"For a while there, it seemed like all the headlines were 'stock?market hits all-time high,'" Tanious said. "When they see things like that, investors get nervous and look for reasons to sell."

Profit slipped at Morgan Stanley as the bank made less money from trading bonds and commodities, a common theme for many investment banks this earnings season. Morgan Stanley lost 5 percent to $20.31.

UnitedHealth's profit fell short of analysts' estimates, and the country's largest health insurer said it expects federal budget cuts to pressure its earnings this year. Its?stock?lost 4 percent to $59.69.

EBay fell 6 percent to $52.82 after the online auction company cut its forecast for profit in the current quarter.

The market didn't get any help from economic news Thursday. Investors pointed to reports that more people applied for unemployment benefits last week and manufacturing slowed in the mid-Atlantic region. That followed several recent signs of weakness in the economy, including a sharp slowdown in hiring last month and poor retail sales.

The market's drop was tempered by better profits at Verizon, Pepsi and Union Pacific. Verizon Communications' profit beat analysts' predictions as wireless revenue kept rising at a rate of 9 percent, the envy of the industry. Profit and sales for Pepsi also surpassed estimates.

Verizon's?stock?gained 3 percent to $50.91, while Pepsi's climbed 3 percent to $81.25.

Higher shipping rates pushed Union Pacific's profit up 11 percent, and the railroad said it expects to ship more goods later this year. Union Pacific rose 4 percent to $142.46.

Analysts have set a low bar for first-quarter earnings. They predict that companies in the S&P 500 will report that earnings climbed just 1.5 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago, a slowdown from the 7.7 percent growth in the fourth quarter, according to S&P Capital IQ.

So far, companies are easily topping the estimates of Wall Street analysts. Of the 61 companies that turned in results through Wednesday, 39 of them have exceeded forecasts.

In other trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 81.45 points to 14,537.14, down 0.6 percent. The Nasdaq composite lost 38.31 points to 3,166.36, down 1.2 percent.

In the market for U.S. government bonds, Treasury prices rose and their yields fell as traders moved money into low-risk assets. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped back to 1.68 percent, matching its lowest level of the year. The yield was 1.70 percent late Wednesday.

Commodities prices held steady following sharp falls earlier this week. Crude oil rose $1.05 to $87.73 a barrel and gold edged up $9.80 to $1,392.50 an ounce.

Crude had lost $10 a barrel over the past two weeks as the outlook for the global economy weakens and oil supplies remain high. On Monday, Gold fell 9 percent, its biggest plunge in 30 years, as inflation in the U.S. remained weak.

"Earnings are always important," said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at the brokerage Charles Schwab. "But this week they've taken a back seat to all the other headlines, like slower growth in China, the sharp sell-off in gold and then the bombing in Boston."

For the week, the Dow is down 2.2 percent and the S&P 500 is down 2.9 percent.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/060lH3Qh4PU/Stocks-slip-on-weak-earnings

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As US talks up diplomacy, NKorea takes hard line

TOKYO (AP) ? The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks with North Korea if the saber-rattling country lowered tensions and honored past agreements, even as it rejected South Korea's latest offer of dialogue as a "crafty trick."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find "ready partners" in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program.

Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, also demanded a resolution to a dispute concerning Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korean officials.

The diplomats seemed to point the way for a possible revival of the six-nation talks that have been suspended for four years.

China long pushed has for the process to resume without conditions. But the U.S. and allies South Korea and Japan fear rewarding North Korea for its belligerence and the endless repetition of a cycle of tensions and failed talks that have prolonged the crisis.

Kerry's message of openness to diplomacy was clear, however unlikely the chances appeared that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's government would meet the American's conditions.

"I'm not going to be so stuck in the mud that an opportunity to actually get something done is flagrantly wasted because of a kind of predetermined stubbornness," he told U.S.-based journalists.

"You have to keep your mind open. But fundamentally, the concept is they're going to have to show some kind of good faith here so we're not going to around and around in the same-old, same-old," he said.

Tensions have run high on the Korean Peninsula for months, with North Korea testing a nuclear device and its intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

The reclusive communist state hasn't stopped there. It has issued almost daily threats that have included possible nuclear strikes against the United States. Analysts and foreign officials say that is still beyond the North Koreans' capability.

While many threats have been dismissed as bluster, U.S. and South Korean say they believe the North in the coming days may test a mid-range missile designed to reach as far as Guam, the U.S. territory in the Pacific where the Pentagon is deploying a land-based missile-defense system.

Japan is the last stop on a 10-day trip overseas for Kerry, who visited Seoul and Beijing as well in recent days.

In South Korea, he strongly warned North Korea not to launch a missile and he reaffirmed U.S. defense of its allies in the region. In China, he secured a public pledge from Beijing, the lone government with significant influence over North Korea, to rid the North of nuclear weapons.

Before flying back to the United States, Kerry told students Monday at the Tokyo Institute of Technology that the important thing was staying united on North Korea. He then met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

So far, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have largely backed the Obama administration's efforts on North Korea.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told CBS' "Face the Nation" that he was encouraged by Kerry's China visit and that he hoped "we can get the Chinese to care more about this issue.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona suggested on CNN's "State of the Union" that the U.S. make a counter-threat by using missile interceptors to hit any North Korean missile that is test-fired.

At each stop along his trip, Kerry stressed that the United States wanted a peaceful resolution of the North Korea situation six decades after a cease-fire ended the Korean War.

But North Korea on Sunday served a reminder of the difficult task ahead. Its Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said the government had no intention of talking with Seoul unless the South abandons its confrontational posture, as the North called it.

Seoul had pressed North Korea to discuss restarting operations at a joint factory park on the border and President Park Geun-hye has stressed peace opportunities after taking power from her more hard-line predecessor, Lee Myung-bak. The presidency expressed regret with North Korea's rebuttal Sunday.

At a news conference in Tokyo, Kerry stressed that gaining China's commitment to a denuclearized North Korea was no small matter given its historically strong military and economic ties to North Korea.

But he refused to say what the Chinese were offering to do concretely to pressure the North into abiding by some of the conditions it agreed to in a 2005 deal that required it to abandon its nuclear program.

"They have to take some actions," Kerry said of North Korea. "How many or how much? I'd have to talk to folks back in Washington about that. But if the Chinese came to us and said, 'Look, here's what we have cooking,' I'm not going to tell you I'm shutting the door today to something that's logical and might have a chance of success."

In remarks to U.S. journalists, Kerry said that under the right circumstances, he even would consider making a grand overture to North Korea's leader, such as an offer of direct talks with the U.S.

"We're prepared to reach out," he said. Diplomacy, he added, required risk-taking and secrecy such as when President Richard Nixon engaged China in the 1970s or U.S. back-channel talks were able to end the Cuban missile crisis a decade earlier.

Given their proximity and decades of hostility and distrust, Japan and South Korea have the most to fear from the North's unpredictable actions.

Kerry clarified a statement he made Saturday in Beijing, when he told reporters the U.S. could scale back its missile-defense posture in the region if North Korea goes nuclear-free.

It appeared to be a sweetener to coax tougher action from a Chinese government which has eyed the increased U.S. military presence in its backyard warily, but which has done little over the years to snuff out funding and support for North Korea's weapons of mass destruction program.

Kerry said America's basic force posture wasn't up to debate. "There is no discussion that I know of to change that," he said.

But he said it was logical that additional missile-defense elements, deployed specifically in response to the Korean threat, could be reversed if that threat no longer existed.

"I was simply making an observation about the rationale for that particular deployment, which is to protect the United States' interests that are directly threatened by North Korea," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-talks-diplomacy-nkorea-takes-hard-line-160454630--politics.html

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