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Showing posts with the label interest news

Eastern NC tornadoes damage homes, injure a dozen

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MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (AP) — Residents, meteorologists and emergency officials in eastern North Carolina were surveying the damage Saturday from multiple tornadoes that damaged more than 200 homes the previous day and sent more than a dozen people to the emergency room. Meteorologists said Saturday that tornadoes with winds of more than 111 mph touched down in Pitt and Beaufort counties on Friday, and they were continuing to investigate storm damage. Elsewhere, Texas, Oklahoma and other states in the Plains and Midwest were bracing for severe storms expected to start Saturday and continue overnight. There, the main threat will be large hail and damaging wind gusts. In North Carolina, Beaufort County Emergency Management Director John Pack said 16 people were taken to the emergency room when the storms passed through around 7:25 p.m. Friday. Pack said 200 homes were either heavily damaged or destroyed. Pictures on news websites showed residents salvaging items from crushed mobile homes, a...

Looming, creeping landslide splits home in Wyoming

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JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A slow-motion disaster is unfolding in the Wyoming resort town of Jackson as a creeping landslide that split a hillside home in half inches toward more houses and businesses below. The ground beneath the 100-foot hillside has been giving way an inch at a time since the movement was discovered on April 4.Assistant Town Administrator Roxanne Robinson said by Friday, the rate of movement was doubling every day.Officials say the hillside is unlikely to suddenly collapse like the March 22 landslide in Oso, Wash., that killed 39 people. But the threat is real and authorities are enforcing an evacuation order in hopes of avoiding injuries. The area has been graded for roads and businesses in recent years, possibly weakening the hillside and setting the stage for the landslide.

Styllish And Elegant Frocks Designs

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Frocks have been integrated into eastern clothing to a great extent. No function or party is considered completed unless frocks are used as dresses. Asian frocks are very popular world wide for their diversity and culture. Hundreds of frocks designs are available according to every occasion. Bridal frocks are heavy and full of work. Party frocks have usually light work. Zari, kora dabka, motifs,  stones and embroidery are used. These works make the look of frocks beautiful and attractive. Most commonly design used for frock is Anarkali style. Other styles are also popular including Air line, Umbrella etc. Dress designers keep bringing in new styles of frocks with time. Following are some beautiful and attractive frock designs. You can follow these designs to create a stylish dress for yourself.

Learn the secret codes to shopping success

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NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) - As superstore pricing mysteries go, it's not the equivalent of "The Da Vinci Code," but there's still something deliciously elusive about the so-called "Costco Code" that has set the tongues of shopping mavens wagging for the past several months. At least the plot line is direct enough: If you can interpret what the various sequences of digits and asterisks mean on Costco Wholesale Club price signs, you're on your way to scoring serious bargains. Here's how it works, according to Costco shoppers spreading the word online: If a price at Costco ends in .99, you're paying full price. But if it ends in, say, a .97, it represents a deal with a special price decided by the manager. And if you happen to see an asterisk in the upper right corner of the sign, then the item is on its way out of the store-and probably at the lowest price you're going to see. "That asterisk, that's the holy grail," says Kyle J...

In a cloning first, scientists create stem cells from adults

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 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientists have moved a step closer to the goal of creating stem cells perfectly matched to a patient's DNA in order to treat diseases, they announced on Thursday, creating patient-specific cell lines out of the skin cells of two adult men. The advance, described online in the journal Cell Stem Cell, is the first time researchers have achieved "therapeutic cloning" of adults. Technically called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning means producing embryonic cells genetically identical to a donor, usually for the purpose of using those cells to treat disease. But nuclear transfer is also the first step in reproductive cloning, or producing a genetic duplicate of someone - a technique that has sparked controversy since the 1997 announcement that it was used to create Dolly, the clone of a ewe. In 2005, the United Nations called on countries to ban it, and the United States prohibits the use of federal funds for either reproductive or thera...

Captain not at helm of capsized Korean ferry

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Jindo (South Korea) (AFP) - The captain was not at the helm of the South Korean ferry that capsized two days ago, investigators said Friday, as anger spread over stalled rescue efforts for hundreds of missing passengers trapped by the submerged vessel. Related Stories     S. Korea ferry rescue stalls as anger spreads AFP     South Korea investigates capsized ferry crew as rescue hampered by tides Reuters     Survivors still alive on South Korean ferry: father Reuters     Divers struggle in search for South Korean ferry survivors Reuters     Divers search for hundreds missing after Korean ferry accident Reuters More than 48 hours after the 6,825-tonne Sewol suddenly listed and then sank, a small of army of more than 500 exhausted divers -- battling powerful currents in almost zero visibility -- have yet to obtain any access to the ferry's interior. The confirmed death toll rose overnight to 25, but the focus of co...

School Apologizes for Sending the Wrong Message About Bullying

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A Nebraska school is facing criticism for what many are calling an ill-intentioned effort to deal with bullying. Fifth-grade students at Zeman Elementary School in Lincoln were recently given pamphlets containing what may be considered tone-deaf advice, shaming the victim and sending the wrong message to bullies. More on Yahoo: Bullying Injuries in Schools Dip, but Still ProblematicThe pamphlet, which was posted to sites such as Reddit and Jezebel, features nine "rules" for students dealing with bullies.  One rule states: "Do not tell on bullies.""The number one reason bullies hate their victims, is because the victims tell on them," the flyer reasons. "Telling makes the bully want to retaliate. Tell an adult only when a real injury or crime (theft of something valuable) has occurred. Would we keep our friends if we tattled on them?"This goes against most antibullying advice, which encourages young people to get a trusted adult involved in the si...

Are we facing another housing bubble?

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In a housing or real estate bubble, home prices inflate because of overly optimistic speculation that they'll keep rising. When people can't afford to keep up, the bubble bursts. Demand for homes decreases, while supply goes up and home prices drastically drop.Today, certain markets across America are seeing home prices go up so quickly that people are starting to worry about another bubble. So where do we stand?From 2000 to 2006, home prices were skyrocketing. Why? It was fueled by overly-optimistic speculation on real estate, careless lending standards and very low mortgage rates. At the height of the bubble, homes were overvalued by 39%. Also see: Shark Tank Secrets of Success -- Building an Untouchable Career Built on that shaky foundation, when prices cooled millions of people defaulted on their mortgages and the bubble didn’t just burst, it exploded, creating the biggest real estate and credit crisis in modern history. Fast-forward to the present day, and we’re still in r...

911 calls capture chaos after truck-on-bus crash

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ORLAND, Calif. (AP) — With shrieks in the background, a shocked passenger struggled to recount to an emergency dispatcher how a FedEx tractor-trailer smashed into a tour bus carrying high school students. In other 911 calls released Thursday, other witnesses described explosions after the fiery wreck that left 10 people dead. Related Stories     NTSB: No evidence of pre-impact fire in CA crash Associated Press  Drivers in California crash had clean records Associated Press     Investigators probe deadly FedEx crash with bus MarketWatch     California fatal bus crash: Was FedEx truck cargo involved? Christian Science Monitor     Investigators focus on wreckage in deadly California crash Reuters The California Highway Patrol released the recordings as investigators returned to the scene about 100 miles north of Sacramento to reconstruct aspects of the crash. Dozens of injured students escaped through windows before the bus e...

App Claims It Can Help Couples Conceive Girls

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From artificial insemination to in vitro fertilization, there's no shortage of ways that technology is helping couples who want to have children. But a new iPhone and Android app called StorkDiet/Girl claims that it can people have a baby girl for a fee of just $9.99. Alain Hanash, who created the app, used data from a study conducted by two British universities that tracked the eating habits of 740 women who were pregnant for the first time. The study found that 56 percent of the women who followed a low-sodium, low-calcium diet had baby girls. The app, following that approach, tailors a nine-week diet for women who are hoping to get pregnant with a girl.  “It is a natural and scientific based guide that includes a specific maternal diet and conception timing program," according to the app's description. More on Yahoo Shine: 7 crazy myths for predicting your baby's gender But Dr. Gilbert Webb, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, is...

When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue

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Might downloading a 50-cent coupon for Cheerios cost you legal rights? General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.Instead, anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.In language added on Tuesday after The New York Times contacted it about the changes, General Mills seemed to go even further, suggesting that buying its products would bind consumers to those terms.“We’ve updated our Privacy Policy,” the company wrote in a thin,...

Young designers experiment with exuberant homes the size of parking spots

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Imagine an urban parking garage, emptied of its cars and filled instead with dozens of parking-spot-size homes. It’s the vision of a group of more than 80 students, alumni and educators from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. They have been experimenting with these car-sized homes, called SCADpads, that could be plunked into any parking garage and instantly provide housing in overpriced downtown areas of major cities. The units are prototypes for urban housing, but students will live in them first to test out the concept. “We’re targeting decks built in the middle of the 20th century, located in the heart of a city,” says Christian Sottile, dean of the school of building arts at SCAD. “Many of these were built as fallout shelters and will basically be there until the end of time.” For its experiment, the folks at SCAD built their beta SCADpad neighborhood in the college’s midtown Atlanta parking garage, with incredible views of the city’s sprawling skyline. They took ov...

Crafts Retailer Michaels Confirms 2.6 Million Credit Cards Compromised by Security Breach

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Michaels Stores, the biggest U.S. arts and crafts retailer, on Thursday confirmed that there was a security breach at certain systems that process payment cards at its U.S. stores and that of its unit, Aaron Brothers. The company said in January that it was working with federal law enforcement officials to investigate a possible data breach. Michaels Stores said the breach, which took place between May 8, 2013, and Jan. 27, 2014, may have affected about 2.6 million cards, or about 7 percent of payment cards used at its stores during the period.The company said about 400,000 cards were potentially impacted at its Aaron Brothers unit by the breach, which occurred between June 26, 2013, and Feb. 27, 2014.There was no evidence that data such as customers’ names or personal identification numbers were at risk, Michaels Stores said in a statement.This is the second known data breach since 2011 at Michaels.Michaels, whose major investors are Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LP, said cyber...

What Have I Done? Baby Boomers Reveal Their Deepest Financial Regrets

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Over 50, underfunded, and ill-prepared for retirement. Unfortunately, that’s an all-too-common scenario for the Baby Boomer generation – those born between 1946 and 1964 -- many of whom are still smarting from the economic downturn and are now looking back at their earlier financial choices with regret. Should they have bought that house at the height of the housing bubble? Should they have taken out that student loan? Should they have pursued a higher-paying career field? But doubts like these are just part of the new reality for today’s Boomers, says Stan Hinden, author of “How to Retire Happy and a widely published columnist on retirement issues.I think Boomers are somewhat disappointed in the way things have turned out in recent years he says and I think they have a right to feel that something unfair has taken place. You can’t any longer buy a CD or invest in a money market fund and get any kind of respectable return, because interest rates are so low and have been so low and will...

Morgan Freeman mistaken for Mandela in India billboard gaffe

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New Delhi (AFP) - An Indian owner of a billboard dedicated to Nelson Mandela was red-faced on Thursday after the discovery that a photo of actor Morgan Freeman was used instead of one of the anti-apartheid hero. The billboard was erected on the side of a road in the southern city of Coimbatore as part of memorials across India and the world to Mandela, who died on December 5. But Freeman's face loomed large in the billboard over small images of rights icons Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi.We should be proud that we were part of an era when they lived," read the Tamil-language condolence message on the board. Cloth merchant Chandrashekhar, who paid for the board in a private capacity as a mark of respect to the former South African leader, said it was a mistake by the designer. "We will replace it with the correct picture of Mandela," the merchant, who uses one name, told AFP by telephone from the state capital Chennai, adding that he did not know...

Guy Creates Video Game to Help Him Pop the Question

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It’s the stuff that gamer dreams are made of. Boy meets girl.Girl loves to play video games as much as he does. They become friends, sharing their passion for gaming and stories of childhoods spent with joysticks in hand. Boy eventually gets girl. Two and a half years later, he pops the question, gamer style, by designing a video game to propose to his girlfriend and catching her tear-jerking reaction on video. The most challenging part of building the game was keeping it a secret Robert Fink, 24, a 3D artist from Portland, Oregon, tells Yahoo Shine, adding that he had been telling his girlfriend, Angel White, 24, that he was working late at the office, to cover for the fact that he was actually at a friend’s house designing the game. All told, the project took five months to create from start to finish. When it came time to execute on the plan, Fink, who works at SuperGenius, an art and animation support studio for video game developers that's based in Oregon City, Oregon, asked W...

McDonald's Has To Get Rid Of 10 Million Pounds Of Mighty Wings

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McDonald's has 10 million pounds of Mighty Wings it needs to sell soon. The wings, which represent 20% of the chicken wings produced for a promotion, are in frozen storage writes Julie Jargon at The Wall Street Journal. McDonald's was unable to sell enough according to Jargon. Earlier this year, CEO Don Thompson said that the chicken wings aren't the smash success it had hoped for. While Mighty Wings apparently met internal targets, the item "was not strong enough to offset" weak sales trends, Thompson said on a conference call. Here are some of the reasons they flopped.     Price:  In McDonald's terms, Mighty Wings are a premium product. The wings come in packs of three for $3.69, five for $5.59, and 10 for $9.69. Thompson said the prices, which are similar to Buffalo Wild Wings, were  not the most competitive.Spice:  Thompson said the wings were too spicy for many customers' tastes.     Appearance:  The Mighty Wings looked too much li...

Hyundai ranks as most fuel-efficient U.S. automaker for 2013 — but the EPA won’t say so

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In an industry that fights for every last sale, claiming the title for being the most fuel-efficient automaker in the country has traditionally been a huge win. Even in times like these when gas prices have eased, shoppers often compare mileages as much as horsepower, and when gas prices soar — as they inevitably will — having that message at the ready gets more tire-kickers into dealerships.In the United States, it's a federal report that typically determines which automaker may call itself the most fuel-efficient. Yet this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency went out of its way to deny that accolade to the automaker with the highest average efficiency from vehicles it sold in the 2013 model year: Hyundai. The South Korean automaker has itself partly to blame: After touting its fuel efficiency for years, the company admitted in November 2012 that it had incorrectly measured the fuel economy of 900,000 Hyundais and Kias, forcing it to write down the MPG val...

Meet Margot Robbie, Scene-Jacking Breakout Star of 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

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If there's one more thing to know about "The Wolf of Wall Street" before its release next week, it's that you should be ready to remember scene-stealing, Australian-born newcomer Margot Robbie, who plays Jordan Belfort's (Leonardo DiCaprio) manipulative second wife, Naomi (aka "The Duchess"). Robbie — who generated some buzz (and tabloid headlines) earlier this year while filming "Focus" with Will Smith — makes a very good impression upon Belfort and his pals when she walks into one of their outlandish parties in the Hamptons. Coincidentally, Robbie made a similarly striking impression upon DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese during the "Wolf" audition process, due in part to her mastery of the Brooklyn accent, but more so because she was so into their scene she slapped DiCaprio. Watch an exclusive clip from 'The Wolf of Wall Street': Yahoo Movies recently caught up with Robbie to talk about all the trappings that come with...