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MONTGOMERY, Alabama ? Retired Alabama Supreme Court Justice Gorman Houston gave Republican Roy Moore a campaign donation when he ran for chief justice in 2000 and donated toward his moving expenses after he got elected. He's not repeating that in Moore's new campaign.
"I'm voting for Bob Vance in a big way," Houston said in an interview.
Houston said Vance is a well-respected circuit judge who has drawn praise from plaintiff and defense lawyers. For Houston, a Republican, backing Vance means crossing party lines.
The 79-year-old retired justice said Moore's actions when they served together are preventing him from supporting Moore's bid to regain the office he got kicked out of in 2003. Houston said those actions include Moore disobeying a court order even though the state's Cannons of Judicial Ethics say "a judge should respect and comply with the law."
Moore said he's surprised Houston would support Vance since he contributed to President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. "If Gorman is led to support the Democrat platform of taxpayer-funded abortions, same-sex marriage, and the exclusion of God, then he is certainly free to do so, but I will continue to acknowledge God and stand for morality under the law," Moore said in a statement Friday night.
He also released a handwritten letter Houston sent him on Dec. 18, 2002, to say thanks for a Christmas gift of fruitcake. The letter was written before Moore lost his job for defying a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building.
Houston wrote: "I enjoy serving with you on the Court. I have served on 12 different courts, and I enjoyed all of them. However, some were more enjoyable than others, and the present Court is the most enjoyable of all. You are a man of great faith and great principle, and I respect that very much."
Houston also noted in the letter that earlier in his career, he considered disobeying a court order, but didn't after reading Scripture in Romans about submitting to governing authorities.
"I do hope that you will not have to defy a court order, because that could put the Court in great chaos," Houston wrote.
At the time of Houston's letter, a federal judge had set a Jan. 3, 2003 deadline for Moore to comply with an order to move the monument.
Vance said Friday he was honored by Houston's support. "Justice Houston does a service by reminding us what we went through 10 years ago," he said.
Houston became the court's senior member when Moore took office in 2001. He said previous chief justices he served with were consensus builders, but Moore was not. He said Moore's handling of budget issues strained relationships with circuit judges, legislators and other elected officials. He said he worries that could happen again if Moore is elected to a second term Nov. 6.
Houston's views about Moore are not something developed for the chief justice campaign. Much of what he said in the AP interview is also discussed in his personal papers that he filed with the state law library and state archives more than seven years ago.
Houston served on the Supreme Court from 1985 until his retirement in 2005. In the Republican primary for chief justice in 2000, Houston voted for fellow Justice Harold See, who finished second to Moore. Houston said he later went to visit Moore at the courthouse in Gadsden, where Moore developed a reputation as Alabama's "Ten Commandments judge" for displaying a handmade plaque of the commandments in his courtroom.
After a three-hour visit, Houston decided to support Moore over Democratic challenger Sharon Yates in the general election. He also gave Moore a $1,000 campaign donation, which is reflected in Moore's campaign finance reports.
After Moore won, Houston said friends of Moore's told him that the new chief justice needed help with moving expenses. Houston said he made a personal donation. He can't remember the exact amount, but believes it was $200.
Their relationship began to sour when Moore moved a granite monument of the Ten Commandments into the rotunda of the state judicial building late at night on July 31, 2001. Houston saw the 2.5-ton monument when he arrived for work in the morning.
"None of the eight associate justices knew anything about the monument until it was in place in the rotunda," he said.
He said Moore told him that he didn't tell the other justices because he was the lessee of the building in state records and he didn't want to get the other justices involved in any litigation that might arise. Houston said Moore also assured him in person that day and in a letter later that he did not anticipate the monument costing the state any money.
Lawsuits did follow. The people who sued won a federal court order requiring Moore to move the monument from public view. Moore refused. A state judicial court suspended him in August 2003 and then unanimously kicked him out of office three months later for not abiding by the court order.
Houston said he tried to keep the case from getting that far. He offered to let Moore turn over his duties to him temporarily and let him remove the monument to comply with the court order. But Moore declined and wrote: "The members of the court have not taken the time or consideration to understand my position in this matter. They render their opinion without an understanding of the United States Constitution or their obligations thereunder."
After the state Court of the Judiciary suspended Moore, Houston became acting chief justice and had the monument moved. He said he acted because the federal judge was threatening to fine the state $5,000 a day for each day the monument remained, with the fine doubling each week. Even though the state missed the judge's deadline for moving the monument, the federal judge didn't levy a fine.
Houston said Moore always insisted he was acknowledging God, but he couldn't find any judge to overturn the court order to remove the monument or to put him back in office. "Not a single other judge has agreed with Judge Moore," Houston said.
Source: http://blog.al.com/wire/2012/09/retired_gop_judge_backing_demo.html
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Halloween is around the corner, scary ghosts and goblins abound. ?While my son does not fear these seasonal monsters, ?he does fear the flu shot. Believe me, he is not the only one.
As a doctor, I have a plea. Please vaccinate yourself and your family against the flu this year.? Just now, a grandparent declined the flu shot here in my office. The flu shot is needed to protect her from the flu, and it is also needed to protect any spread of infection to her grandchildren and her cancer-stricken mother.
For a physician, it is sometimes difficult to comprehend some of the personal medical decisions of our patients.? Please understand, I try to understand your choices as well, but due to my professional training and knowledge, I am very opinionated.
I hate to say it, but the flu shot is what my children call a ?no-brainer?.? It is a killed virus and can NOT give you the flu.? If you get the ?flu? at the time you receive your flu shot, it is because you picked up another bug about the same time.? While I won?t argue with your persistence that your ?flu? is from the flu-shot, I will quietly disagree with your opinion.? I can also refer you to a good resource: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/flushot.htm, which will confirm the facts.
Are you still a nonbeliever? Are you concerned about side effects?? The most common side effect is tenderness at the site of the injection.? The soreness from the injection certainly beats the pain and suffering associated with the flu virus.? Trust me; it just takes one time for you to get the flu before you decide to proceed with annual flu vaccination.
Can you still get the flu after the flu shot? ?After receiving the vaccine, it takes about 1-2 weeks for immunity to occur.? Even with full immunity, there are several new unexpected strains of the flu that arrive every year. It is an ever-changing virus and thus the need for annual immunizations.? There are also many flu-like illnesses every winter that are NOT covered by the flu shot.
Contraindications to the flu shot? ?(That is an entirely different blog!) Refer to the cdc.gov web site for full information.? The flu shot is a killed virus and not active, but the coveted intranasal vaccine is an ?altered? live virus and is contraindicated in many conditions where immunity may be low.
What you need to know: If you have young infants (<6months of age), elderly parents (>65 years of age) or anyone with a low immune system (i.e. cancer) or respiratory problems such as asthma, it is YOUR responsibility to protect THEM against the flu.? At my clinic, if we (employees) don?t get the flu shot, we must wear surgical masks in order to protect our patients from our own contagion. Perhaps you should consider the great responsibility you have for family and friends and protect them from the flu by immunizing yourself.
Afraid of the shot? ?Ask my son and he will tell you, ?it?s not all that bad?
Source: http://healthblog.dallasnews.com/2012/09/frightened-by-the-flu-shot.html/
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Source: http://www.makebetterfood.com/recipes/homemade-ravioli/
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I grew up in West Texas so I know about living in an arid region. In recent years, that drier lifestyle is something that many more folks across the rest of the Lone Star State have had to learn to live with.
Texas, like much of the rest of the United States, has been dealing with drought conditions for years. Late September data from the National Drought Mitigation Center show that 54.77 percent of the country is in moderate drought or worse, the largest percentage so far recorded at that level and a slight increase from the previous week's percentage.
Remnants of a Pacific tropical storm system are sending some much needed rain Texas' way today. But it's probably too little too late this year for many folks, especially farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods are largely at Mother Nature's capricious mercy.
Drought effects on, IRS help for businesses: With feed crops reduced because of the lack of rain, many livestock owners were forced to sell cattle before they planned.
Cows in Marathon, Texas, October 2007; photo by Kay Bell
Now, however, they getting a break from the Internal Revenue Service.
They now have more time in which to replace the livestock and defer tax on any gains from the forced sales, the Internal Revenue Service has announced.
Farmers and ranchers who, due to the drought, sell more livestock than they normally would, typically get to defer tax on the unplanned for extra capital gains from those sales as long as they replace the sold livestock within four years.
The IRS is now giving them an extra year to buy more horses or cattle.This one-year extension of the replacement period generally applies to capital gains realized by eligible farmers and ranchers on drought-prompted sales of livestock held for draft, dairy or breeding purposes. Sales of other livestock, such as those raised for slaughter or held for sporting purposes, and poultry are not eligible.
The tax relief is provided to qualifying agriculture operations in a county, parish, city or district that is listed as suffering exceptional, extreme or severe drought conditions by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) during any weekly period between Sept. 1, 2011, and Aug. 31, 2012.
This covers farmers and ranchers in all or part of 43 states. Any county contiguous to an NDMC-listed county also qualifies for this relief, according to the IRS.
This means the qualifying farmers and ranchers whose drought sale replacement period was scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2012, will in most cases now have until the end of next tax year.
Because of previous drought-related extensions affecting some of the localities in the most recent IRS announcement, the replacement periods for some drought sales before 2008 also are affected. Additional extensions will be granted if severe drought conditions persist.
And because no one can really predict the weather (just ask your local TV weathercaster!) the IRS is authorized to extend this period if the drought continues.
More details, including a complete list of eligible drought areas, are in IRS Notice 2012-62.
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Ultimate Collection Of Self Improvement Ebooks ? 19 Sites To Promote!
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Source: http://www.hypnotic-therapies.com/ultimate-collection-of-self-improvement-ebooks-19-sites-to-promote
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ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2012) ? University of California, Berkeley, scientists have sequenced nearly all the genes in an underground community of microbes at a contaminated uranium mill site in Rifle, Colo., providing information that could help scientists better manipulate the microbes that remediate heavy metal contamination or those that take up and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Each of the 150,000 genes from the sample was assigned to one of 80 different microbes in the soil, an unprecedented computational feat made possible by new genomic tools developed at UC Berkeley.
The findings could help improve clean-up at hundreds of sites around the United States where microbes are nurtured to convert toxic metals, including arsenic and mercury, into chemical forms that will not leech into aquifers and streams, the scientists said. It may be possible, for example, to add nutrients that would create the ideal mix of microbes to immobilize the metals, instead of just feeding all the microbes already present.
"In order to make this goal a reality, it is critical not to just detect the relevant genes in subsurface microorganisms, but to know enough about the lifestyles of the organisms with genes of interest so that manipulation of the system enriches specifically for that organism," said study leader Jill Banfield, UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science and of environmental science, policy and management.
The information in the genomes of the 80 microbes located 10 feet or more beneath the surface could also lead to improved methods for stimulating the uptake of carbon from the atmosphere by soil bacteria to reduce greenhouse gases.
"Our study turned upside down what we thought was happening at the bioremediation site," said lead author Kelly C. Wrighton, a UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow who specializes in the physiology of microbes. "What these genomes have given us is amazing in terms of being able to look under the hood at the machine of these organisms that we never really knew anything about, except that we saw them in certain types of environments."
Wrighton, Banfield and colleagues at UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), report their metagenomic analysis in the Sept. 28 issue of the journal Science. Banfield is also a member of the Earth Sciences Division at LBNL.
The metagenomic analysis proves that methods developed by Banfield at UC Berkeley to take a jumble of sequenced genes and assign them to specific microbes works even when there are nearly 100 bacteria and Archaea in the sample. Most metagenome analyses generally leave the genes unassigned to organisms, which gives scientists little idea of the role specific microbes play.
"The techniques developed in Jill's lab for doing metagenomics of very complex microbial communities is giving us a much more accurate look at what the microbes are doing and how we can modify them to get them to do more effectively what we want them to do, which is reduce uranium to form a solid," said Philip E. Long, an LBNL geologist who manages research at the Rifle study site. "We are finding out from these studies that the subsurface microbial economy is different from what we thought."
The "dark matter" of biology
The microbes came from groundwater samples taken at a site once used to process vanadium and, during and after World War II, uranium. The site borders the Colorado River, which means that rain can carry dissolved metals into the groundwater and eventually into the river. Some microbes "breathe" the metals like we breathe oxygen, chemically altering them so they become insoluble and remain in the sediment, Wrighton said.
Banfield refers to microbe communities like these as the "dark matter" of biology, an analogy to the missing mass in the universe that has stumped astronomers for decades. The bacterial tree of life can be divided into about 60 phylum-level branches, but essentially nothing is known about half of them, she said.
"This new study provides new knowledge about the ecology as well as the evolution of a significant chunk of what could be considered the dark matter of the microbial world," she said.
Before now, Banfield had performed metagenomic analyses of eight microbes coexisting in highly acidic underground streams in a former California mine and current Superfund clean-up site. Such an analysis involves grinding up all organisms in a sample, sequencing all the genes and then matching each with a unique microbial species.
The new study involved the genomes of 10 times more organisms. All are anaerobic -- they don't breathe oxygen like most organisms on Earth -- and most, while not new to science, are totally unstudied because they cannot be cultured in the laboratory. Many are only a few hundred nanometers across, making them among the smallest known microbes.
Scientists at the Rifle site spread acetate -- essentially dilute vinegar -- in the subsurface to feed the underground bacteria that convert soluble metals to insoluble metals. They had assumed that they were culturing a colony comprised mostly of Geobacter bemidjiensis, a well-known metal-reducing bacterium.
Instead, Wrighton said, analysis of three samples obtained within 10 days of acetate application showed a healthy population of Geobacter, but a throng of other bacteria presumably feeding on dead Geobacter and other carbon in the soil from previous additions of acetate. These organisms use or ferment complex carbon, such as dead plants and dead microbes, and produce hydrogen, small organic carbon compounds and carbon dioxide.
"The fermenters producing hydrogen after multiple additions of acetate may be more important to the underlying microbial community than we once thought," Long said.
"What we found was like a microbial zoo," Wrighton said. "We thought that the respiring organisms -- those breathing metals and making carbon dioxide -- were our heavy lifters, but we found that fermentative organisms probably underpin their metabolism. These organisms produce as a bi-product acetate, lactate and ethanol as well as hydrogen and those are all components that these respiring organisms can use."
Wrighton, Banfield and their team are continuing metagenomic analyses of samples from the Rifle site, including some obtained before nutrients are added to determine what the natural population looks like. This will provide a comprehensive view of the metabolic potential of the subsurface that ultimately can be harnessed for bioremediation, Banfield said.
"Our research has lifted a veil on a large portion of bacterial life and enabled us to probe in great depth and detail these unknown and uncultured bacteria," said Wrighton, who hopes to use this information to raise the microbes in the laboratory. "We now have information, which is encoded in their genomic DNA, pertaining to what they look like, how they make their living in the environment, and the interactions they have with other organisms."
The work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Biological and Environmental Research program. Coauthors of the paper include Brian C. Thomas, Itai Sharon and Christopher S. Miller of UC Berkeley; Long, Cindy J. Castelle and Kenneth H. Williams of LBNL; Nathan C. VerBerkmoes and Robert L. Hettich of ORNL; and Michael J. Wilkins and Mary S. Lipton of PNNL.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Berkeley. The original article was written by Robert Sanders.
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When it comes to the poaching of endangered species, elephants, tigers and rhinos tend to corner the limelight. But a new report sets out to plug the information gap on a different species that is imperiled by a tide of demand related to rising affluence in Asia: leopards.
In India alone, an average of at least four leopards have been poached each week over the past 10 years, according to Traffic, an organization that monitors the trade in endangered wildlife around the globe and issued the report. That?s more than 2,000 in one decade.
The estimate is based on a review of seizures of spotted leopard skins and other body parts. While most of the items seized were skins, other body parts, particularly bones, are prescribed as substitutes for tiger parts in traditional Asian medicine, Traffic said.
?Even though reports of illegal trade in leopard body parts are disturbingly frequent, the level of threat to leopards in the country has previously been unrecognized and has fallen into our collective ?blind spot?,? said Rashid Raza, the lead author of the report, which was released on Friday in New Delhi.
There are no reliable estimates of how many leopards exist in India. The animals are notoriously wary of humans and are spread out over large areas, so tracking their numbers is difficult.
Yet the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which categorizes leopards as ?near threatened? on its so-called red list of species, says that leopard populations have become extinct in some parts of the world and dwindled to tiny numbers in others. Although they dwell widely in the forests of the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and China, they are ?becoming increasingly rare outside protected areas,? the organization says.
Divyabhanusinh Chavda, president of the W.W.F.?s India chapter, said that concerted national action was needed. ?Without an effective strategy to assess and tackle the threats posed by illegal trade, the danger is that leopard numbers may decline rapidly, as happened previously to the tiger,? said
Government estimates put the number of tigers in India at little more than 1,700.
Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/148691/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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We recently reviewed an article authored by Ms. Julie Bolt, 10 Disruptive Enterprise Tech Companies (http://www NULL.businessinsider NULL.com/10-disruptive-enterprise-tech-companies-2012-9?op=1), which was published on September 25, 2012 on the Business Insider web site. We confess that we tweeted about this article before we read it, which, in retrospect, we ought not to have done. The fact is that we do not agree with some of the points in this article, and, further, we are cautious about the type of sweeping statements that we found throughout the article.
The point here is what are present standards, to use a tech phrase, ?best of breed? techniques as regards MARCOM for enterprise IT ISVs? This publication, Business Insider is, admittedly, not connected to any one tech software provider, but, nevertheless, the 10 firms that are discussed in this article are, to some extent, implicated in what we can?t help but take to be quite a bit of hyperbole. Here?s an example: ?Cloud computing has put unlimited computing power in the hands of everyone at very low cost.? (quoted from ?10 Disruptive Enterprise Tech Companies? as published on Business Insider web site and written by Ms. Julie Bort). Here?s another: ?Software-as-a-service has become a safe and reliable alternative to on-premise software?(ibid). Here?s just one more: ?Google generates about $1 billion a year on its five enterprise products. That?s a drop in the bucket compared to its full revenue stream, but it?s had a significant impact on competitors like Microsoft?(ibid).
For the record, we question each one of these three assertions. The last is particularly troubling. We, ourselves, took a look at Google?s 10-Q as filed with the US SEC on June 30, 2012 and could not find a single specific mention of these ?enterprise? products. We DID find mention of $434 Million in sales of ?other? products in the revenue statement, but no specific mention of these ?enterprise? products.
But we are not looking at this article as an opportunity to contest someone else?s truth; rather, we are looking at this article as an example of what we take to be an unfortunate enterprise IT ISV MARCOM trend, which works to create market movement through editorial content that exaggerates small kernels of potentially factual information into great big snow balls of vaporware.
We are cautious, at best, about this trend, and, at worst, concerned at its present proliferation. We think there is enough factual, positive, meat to the bones of the businesses portrayed in this article to make for an informative article without all the exaggeration. Hopefully someone will make the effort required and tell us something we really need to know about each of this businesses.
? IMB Enterprises, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2012 All Rights Reserved
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BERLIN (AP) ? Germany's jobless rate fell to 6.5 percent in September thanks to a traditional seasonal improvement, official figures showed Thursday.
Still, the underlying trend continued to drift higher, underlining concerns that Europe's biggest economy is slowing down as economic problems around the euro area dent demand for German exports.
The Federal Labor Agency said the unadjusted jobless rate was down 0.3 percentage points compared with August, and that the number of people registered as unemployed was 2.788 million ? the lowest overall jobless figure for September since 1991.
The figure was 117,000 lower than the previous month and 7,000 lower than September last year.
When adjusted for seasonal factors the unemployment rate remained steady at 6.8 percent, where it has stood for several months, and the number of jobless rose 9,000 over August, the sixth straight rise.
The end of the summer holidays usually sees a batch of new hirings.
"The weaker economic development is affecting the job market, though overall the job market remains robust," the head of the labor agency, Frank-Juergen Wiese said.
Many analysts think unemployment could edge up over the coming months as the manufacturing sector, the heart of the German economy, struggles in the face of waning demand around Europe.
"Vacancies continue to drop, the share of temporary jobs in total vacancies is increasing and several companies have reintroduced short-time work schemes," said Carsten Brzeski, an economist with ING in Brussels. Such government-subsidized programs, which allow employers to reduce production without cutting their workforce, were credited with keeping unemployment down during the 2008-9 financial crisis.
Germany is still doing far better than many other countries in the 17-nation euro area. Unemployment is above 20 percent in Spain and Greece.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/germanys-jobless-rate-falls-6-5-percent-083202338--finance.html
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KHALILABAD, India (Reuters) - Like millions of Indians, Jag Ram Chaudhary invested with the Sahara conglomerate - 1,300 rupees ($24) a month in his case - to put away money for a rainy day.
"My wife had an accident some years back. I don't have much savings, so I thought I'll be able to save some money by putting in a small amount every month," said Chaudhary, an office helper at a construction company in Uttar Pradesh state.
On August 31, India's Supreme Court ruled that finance schemes run by two Sahara companies were illegal and ordered it to repay as much as $4.5 billion to up to almost 30 million mostly small investors, plus interest. The final figures are still to be determined as some clients have already redeemed their investments, lawyers on both sides of the matter said.
The case has shone a rare light on the unlisted giant whose interests range across finance, housing, media and entertainment
Sahara has accumulated a string of trophies in recent years, including a stake in a Formula One motor racing team and ownership of Grosvenor House hotel in London. In July, it agreed to buy a controlling stake in New York's Plaza Hotel.
But its core client base is the towns and villages away from the shiny cities of modern India. There, Sahara sells investment products to often poor people in amounts as small as 2 rupees (4 U.S. cents) a day. The company is a household name in India through its lead sponsorship of the national cricket team.
"Banks take eight years to pay what I get from Sahara in five years," Chaudhary, 40, said in Khalilabad, a town in Sant Kabir Nagar district in northern India. Like several Sahara customers interviewed nearly two weeks afterwards, he had not heard of the court ruling.
SPENDING POWER
Critics, including activist groups, say Sahara's investment products are designed to evade oversight by financial regulators and that it lacks transparency on the source and use of its funds, selling products to investors who do not understand the risks and plowing the proceeds into real estate projects.
Under the scheme rejected by the Supreme Court, two firms owned by Sahara had offered bonds to small investors, promising, in some cases, to return three times the face value after 10 years.
The court ruling that it raised money by "dubious" means follows another rebuke in 2008, when the central bank ordered a Sahara company to stop taking deposits from the public.
In a country where "black money", or undeclared wealth, is rampant, Sahara's size and spending power have long fuelled speculation over how the company operates.
Sahara, headed by Subrata Roy Sahara, its chairman and self-described "managing worker", says it helps small investors outside the banking system and that it has never defaulted on them.
"Sahara agents motivate people who would otherwise spend the money on liquor, gambling, etc," said Guddu Pandey, a school teacher and Sahara agent in Uttar Pradesh state, echoing an argument made by Sahara after the court verdict.
The company did not respond to several attempts by Reuters to get answers to written questions. Roy was not immediately available to be interviewed, Sahara said.
Sahara has not said how it will refund the money to investors, although it has said it is healthy and investors need not worry.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
The company's full name is Sahara India Pariwar, or family. Roy, 64, refers to himself as the guardian of the world's largest family, and espouses a philosophy of "collective materialism".
At its headquarters in the city of Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh, staff greet visitors by putting their right hand to their chest and saying "Sahara Pranam". Pranam is a respectful version of hello.
Roy, often photographed wearing a black necktie and vest over a white shirt, is based nearby at the showpiece Sahara Shaher, a sprawling gated complex of low white buildings and lawns where he lives and where the group holds an annual mass wedding for 101 couples who could otherwise not afford it.
Starting with capital of 2,000 rupees in the late 1970s, Roy built Sahara into a giant that, according to its website, had assets of more than $21 billion as of April 2011.
Roy is often described as a billionaire but he is not on the Forbes list of rich Indians. Sahara's website says no dividend has been paid for 34 years and no profit has been taken out of the company.
From its north India base, Sahara has become a cashed-up global investor in hotels, sports and entertainment.
Last year, Roy teamed up with liquor baron Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher beer fame, paying $100 million for 42.5 percent of his Force India Formula One auto racing team. It paid $370 million for a franchise in cricket's Indian Premier League.
In 2010, Sahara considered buying English Premier League soccer club Liverpool and held talks to buy the debt of film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Neither deal happened.
Still, Roy is not typically bracketed with a corporate elite led by Indian families such as the Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis.
"If you look at the orthodox business community, they have kept him at arm's length," said Ashok Prasad, a physician, lawyer and academic who taught overseas before returning to Gorakhpur, the Uttar Pradesh city where Roy started out.
Instead, Roy is associated with Bollywood celebrities and, like many tycoons, is seen as having good political connections.
Last year, K.M. Abraham, then a board member of India's capital markets regulator, which had ordered that the bonds be refunded in the case that ultimately went to the Supreme Court, wrote to the prime minister alleging "undue pressure" from the then-finance minister and his office to deal leniently with high-profile cases, including Sahara's.
The Finance Ministry and the regulator denied the allegations.
SAHARA-SIZED
Sahara says its land holdings in India are more than 33,600 acres. Although not all is majority-owned, it amounts to more than any listed Indian developer.
The group has two small listed units, Sahara One Media and Entertainment Ltd and Sahara Housingfina Corp Ltd, whose combined market capitalization is $48 million.
In 2009 another group company, property developer Sahara Prime City Ltd, filed a draft prospectus for an IPO to raise up to 34.5 billion rupees ($645 million). The deal never took place but it came back to haunt Sahara when the prospectus attracted the attention of India's securities regulator to the fund-raising scheme ultimately banned by the Supreme Court.
While an IPO of that size in India would typically see top-tier investment banks scrambling for a piece of the action, it was managed by four local brokers and Japan's Daiwa Securities SMBC, a small player in India. Several bankers at global institutions said they would not work with Sahara given concerns about governance and transparency.
"Their business model is not transparent. There are some grey areas," said the CEO of a large Indian bank, who like many people interviewed for this story declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
"Sahara has a lot of cash but we don't know where all this cash is coming from."
Not that it seems to need bankers. Unlike many big, acquisitive groups, Sahara's in-built funding sources mean it does not rely on bank loans.
"Have you ever seen Sahara's balance sheet? Nobody has seen it," said a senior executive at another major Indian lender.
THE PEOPLE
Among many poorer residents of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, Sahara has substance. Its sponsorship of the Indian cricket team in a country mad about the sport adds to its credibility in small towns.
"Sahara bank? That way," an elderly tea stall operator in Harraiya said when asked for the location of the Sahara branch office, erroneously referring to it as a bank.
The branch itself, up a flight of stairs in a nondescript grey concrete building, was bustling on a recent day.
Sahara customers interviewed in Uttar Pradesh said they trusted the company, which has been around more than 30 years. Some had reinvested in Sahara products when they matured.
Sahara operates through nearly a million agents, who sign up clients and collect payments, sometimes on a daily basis.
"I have never been to a Sahara office. The agent comes, does all the paperwork, and collects the money," said Anil Tripathi, a travel agent who said he had doubled his money with Sahara.
Sahara has built a large niche in a country where 90 percent of the workforce is informally employed, half of households do not have bank accounts and loan-sharking is rife.
"The smallest of the small, the poorest of the poor - the banking industry is not able to cater to them," said Arvind Mohan, a Lucknow University economist.
THE RULING
The issue with Sahara is transparency and regulation, critics and regulators say.
For example, it does not always publicize its investment plan terms. A newer scheme, Q Shop Plan H, which is built around the group's new initiative to sell household goods directly to consumers, promises returns of about 135 percent after 6 years, according to a term sheet that does not mention Sahara. Some agents said they were asked to try and convert holders of the outlawed bonds to the new plan.
Asked if the details of the scheme banned by the court were explained to customers, a long-time Sahara employee in Uttar Pradesh said: "We don't have to explain all that. The depositor only wants to know how much he would be paying and how much he will get back on maturity."
The court ordered the money be repaid within 90 days, with 15 percent annual interest, prompting speculation over how Sahara will scrape that kind of money together.
Sahara responded with a rambling, full-page newspaper ad assuring investors their money was safe. It also condemned any suggestion it had raised any so-called "black money" or sought any undue favor from any authority.
"People cannot accept Sahara's super-fast growth. All along we have been getting beatings and beatings from all authorities, whereas we should be appreciated," it said. ($1 = 53.5100 Indian rupees)
(Additional reporting by Sharat Pradhan in LUCKNOW and Sumeet Chatterjee and Swati Pandey in MUMBAI; Editing by John Chalmers, Alex Richardson and Dean Yates)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-indias-sahara-massive-splashy-mysterious-052513462--sector.html
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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/49184755/
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2 hrs.
Our?pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.
Thousands of images from Australia's Great Barrier Reef and other coral locales are being stitched together into an eye-popping array of 360-degree panoramas for Google Maps' Street View feature?? but this million-dollar-plus project isn't just about pretty pictures. It's about sharing the wonders and the woes of the world's coral reefs with people around the globe. Pretty!
Speaking of Google, the?search giant will release Google Maps app for iOS later this year... in case you can't bear Apple's Maps.
Meanwhile,?Apple tells us that the iPhone 5 offers "even longer battery life" than any of its predecessors, but can the new smartphone keep up ?with ?? or beat ? the competition??Let's find out!
In other iPhone 5 news,?complaints about the propensity of the?device's paint?job to scratch and chip are flooding in ... Apple says such cosmetic issues are "normal."
Oh, and?Apple's?iPhones and other products are so popular in New York City they're flying off shelves ? and into the hands of thieves.
Twitter is most active in China ... a country where it's banned.?
Driverless cars just got the green light in California.
Here's a startup that lets you text people blocking your driveway.?
In other inevitable robot overlord news, Japan just made one that can take exams.?
In closing,? Austrian artist has coerced some hermit crabs into adopting shells created by a 3-D printer ? shells in the shape of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Check it out!
Compiled?by?Helen A.S. Popkin,?who invites you to?join her on?Twitter?and/or?Facebook. Also,?Google+. ?
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UREKI, Georgia (AP) ? Georgia's richest man, billionaire and philanthropist Bidzina Ivanishvili seems to have it all ? a head-spinning fortune, the respect of his country and gleaming, art-filled palaces across the globe, including one where zebras and pink flamingoes roam.
What else could he want?
Political power, it turns out, and that has put him on a collision course with President Mikhail Saakashvili ? his onetime close friend and ally.
Since announcing his ambitions a year ago, Ivanishvili has been stripped of his Georgian citizenship and hit with fines of tens of millions of dollars. But he is undeterred in leading his Georgian Dream party into parliamentary elections next week that he hopes will make him prime minister, set to become the country's most powerful job after legislative changes next year.
The outcome of will have profound consequences for this small but strategically located South Caucasus nation, which has been the West's most loyal ally in a troubled, energy-rich region.
The 56-year-old Ivanishvili, worth an estimated $6.4 billion, was an early supporter of Saakashvili after he came to power following the 2003 Rose Revolution demonstrations that drove out the corruption-riddled regime of Eduard Shevardnadze. But Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, gradually became disenchanted and began to fear that his disagreements with Saakashvili could imperil his future.
In an interview with The Associated Press, he suggested that his entry into politics was at least partly to shield him from government pressure.
"When you enter politics, it gives you some kind of protection," he said in his residence outside the Black Sea resort of Batumi. But he insists that his rags-to-riches story also points to a deeper drive to help his country: "A smart, gifted person can do things for himself, but also for his friends, for his village, for his country."
Ivanishvili was the youngest of five children in a hilltop village so poor and remote that a rickety old truck brought supplies just once a month. He often had no shoes and dreamt of owning a bicycle. After earning an engineering degree in the capital Tbilisi, he moved to Moscow, where he received a Ph.D. in labor economy.
When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched his perestroika campaign and gradually allowed private entrepreneurship, Ivanishvili and a friend seized the spirit of the times. They began importing personal computers ? rarities in the Soviet Union that cost the equivalent of two or three cars. Sometimes he would approach foreigners at cafes and plead with them to bring computers on their next visit.
In 1990, a year before the Soviet Union collapsed, Ivanishvili and his partners amassed enough money to start a bank, Rossiyskiy Kredit, which became a leading financial institution. Its first office was at a kindergarten, and foreign partners coming for meetings stumbled over miniature toddler toilets. As his bank expanded, Ivanishvili started buying into mining and metals plants across Russia, and then reselling the shares at huge profit.
Skeptics wonder whether it was possible to amass such a fortune honestly, but Ivanishvili insists that he always ran a clean business.
"I never violated any laws," he said, "I never betrayed or deceived anyone."
For years, Ivanishvili was a quiet benefactor of thousands of his impoverished countrymen and also of Saakashvili's government, building schools and hospitals, buying new boots and blankets for the military and, he says, even paying for Saakashvili's inauguration. He also collected art and exotic animals and erected futuristic residences across the country, like a glass-and-steel fortress nestled on a hilltop in the capital Tbilisi.
But Ivanishvili says he broke off ties with Saakashvili after the leader cracked down on opposition protests in 2007, tightened control over media, and Georgia found itself in a brief but disastrous war with Russia in 2008. Saakashvili's government was further tainted in recent days when TV channels funded by Ivanishvili released videos of inmates at a Tbilisi prison being beaten and raped with objects, which sparked angry street protests.
"He has a built a tough, authoritarian government while at the same time trying to prove to Europe and America that he is building democracy," Ivanishvili said. "The people have been deceived, including me."
The two men's feud seems highly personal.
Saakashvili denounces Ivanishvili as a Russian stooge, referring to his Georgian Dream coalition as "forces of darkness." The president's camp also accuses Ivanishvili of corrupting Georgian politics and voters with his wealth ? which is equivalent to roughly half of Georgia's GDP.
Ivanishvili, in turn, portrays Saakashvili as a dim-witted former protege who used to call him a "hundred" times a day to ask for advice on running the country.
An August opinion survey by U.S.-based National Democratic Institute suggested that Saakashvili's United National Movement leads the polls with 37 percent support, while Georgian Dream has 12 percent. But Ivanishvili claims he has momentum on his side, with support surging since the release of the prison rape video.
So far Ivanishvili's political career brought him nothing but trouble.
He was stripped of Georgian citizenship a year ago, shortly after he announced his entry into politics. The official reason was that he also had a French passport ? and Georgia prohibits dual nationality. Even though parliament then adopted a law allowing Ivanishvili to run for office as an EU citizen, Ivanishvili said the loss of Georgian citizenship was deeply upsetting, especially considering the $1.5 billion he says he has spent on charity here.
The government then followed by fining him tens of millions of dollars over campaign funding violations, saying that distributing satellite TV dishes and offering a fleet of cars to his party amounts to vote-buying according to recently passed electoral laws that ban corporate donations to parties.
Some observers said the changes were necessary. Others, including Maina Kiai, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights, said the legislation was aimed at preventing "certain individuals" from running in the upcoming vote ? an apparent reference to Ivanishvili.
Ivanishvili bristles at Saakashvili's accusations that if elected he would serve Russia, not Georgia ? calling such suspicions "laughable." Ivanishvili renounced his long-held Russian citizenship before launching his political career and has sold off his Russian assets to sever his financial ties with Moscow. Most of his assets are now in Western banks and about $1 billion in art.
Some experts agree that he's his own man, pointing to the fact that he had funded Saakashvili, the Kremlin's arch-foe, for years.
"All the evidence suggests that he is no one's project but his own," said Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus expert with the Carnegie Endowment. At the same, time the Kremlin is likely to court Ivanishvili, eager to have someone unseat Saakashvili.
Ivanishvili promises aggressive and quick reforms that would strengthen democratic institutions and prompt foreign and local businessmen to invest in the economy. He intends to pursue a pro-Western policy and one day bring Georgia into NATO, while at the same time unfreezing economic ties with Russia ? something he himself acknowledges would be a very complicated task. "You just need to wait for the right time and without doubt improve relations with Russia," Ivanishvili said.
Ivanishvili vows that he will not be corrupted by power, noting that as a businessman he only promoted those who were not afraid to argue with him. But when describing how he would reform Georgia, he revealed some monarchic overtones.
"In such small countries," Ivanishvili said, "everything depends on one person, everyone else follows immediately."
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Empty energy?with no accompanying nutrients?comes in a wide variety of snack foods high in sugar and sodium. For this reason, any reputable store, online dealer is necessary to have the tea on their selves. This organization is known as a reputable international company that has been working legally in more than 50 countries all around the globe. Today I am taking a look at GNLD to see if it is a real MLM company with real products and services. According to the American Obesity Association, a nonprofit educational and advocacy group, obesity causes some 300,000 premature deaths each year and accounts for an estimated $100 billion in annual health care costs.
All you have to do just use your special skills in direct selling. Green tea has been dubbed as very healthy beverage. He suffered from serious allergy and asthmatic problems. Other research reports the following: if childhood obesity continues unabated many of today?s youngsters will live shorter lives because of the health toll of being heavy at such a young age; minorities will be hit hardest because they have had the greatest increases in obesity rates, coupled with limited health care access. They claim that their products are unique from others and they have a team of members that works diligently for the whole cause.
Thirdly, there?s many other leadership bonuses too but it only happens when you are able to recruit more people. More than five million Americans now meet the definition of morbid obesity; they are so obese that they qualify for a radical surgical technique known as gastroplasty, wherein the stomach is surgically altered so as to keep food from being digested. You don?t have to worry about your profit because it?s simply obvious that people are health conscious and are willing to spend just to attain a perfect health. ? To ensure that I ingest the chain of life daily, I will re-grasp nutrient control. This makes it hard to fake, if it is Wu-Yi tea, and then it is Wu-Yi and no other Tea.
It is a world renowned table beverage with medicinal values. What is money when you?re dying inside? If we are healthy then, money isn?t hard to find. His mothers only way of relief was to add nutritional products in addition to his daily diet. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children?s Hospital in Boston and a renowned pediatric endocrinologist, was quoted five years ago in an USA Today article as saying: ?Childhood obesity is like a massive tsunami headed toward the United States. Their team of workers is not only very knowledgeable but they are also very customer friendly.
Now, I will reduce eating out by 50% immediately and by as much as 90% by the end of the year. Even if its a ?no? then its even better that you came across this review first. The tea is quite valued in various communities across the world like China. On the other side, nutrition has the most important role to play in to get that goal. Suddenly, after 3 years he discovered that sharing good nutrional products could really be big business.
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Source: http://www.healthuse.com/picking-efficient-techniques-of-gnld-international.html
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In this undated handout photo released by the family of Omran Shaaban, Shaaban receives treatment from a doctor at a hospital in France. (AP Photo, Family of Omran Shaaban)
In this undated handout photo released by the family of Omran Shaaban, Shaaban receives treatment from a doctor at a hospital in France. (AP Photo, Family of Omran Shaaban)
MISRATA, Libya (AP) ? One of the young Libyan rebels credited with capturing Moammar Gadhafi in a drainage ditch nearly a year ago died Tuesday of injuries after being kidnapped, beaten and slashed by the late dictator's supporters ? the latest victim of persistent violence and instability in the North African country.
The death of Omran Shaaban, who had been hospitalized in France, raised the prospect of even more violence and score-settling, with the newly elected National Congress authorizing police and the army to use force if necessary to apprehend those who abducted the 22-year-old and three companions in July near the town of Bani Walid.
Libya is battling lingering pockets of support for the old regime, and its government has been unable to rein in armed militias in a country rife with weapons. Earlier this month, a demonstration at the U.S. Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi turned violent, killing four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.
Shaaban was praised as a "dutiful martyr" by the National Congress, although his family says he never received a promised reward of 1 million Libyan dinars ($800,000) for capturing Gadhafi on Oct. 20, 2011, in the former leader's hometown of Sirte. The eccentric dictator was killed later that day by revolutionary fighters.
The Libyan government said it would honor Shaaban with a funeral befitting a hero. His body was greeted at the airport in his hometown of Misrata by more than 10,000 people for a procession to a soccer stadium for funeral prayers.
Photos on social media websites showed a wooden coffin with a glass window that revealed Shaaban's face, with white gauze covering his head.
In the capital of Tripoli, several hundred protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the National Congress to demand that the government avenge Shaaban's death.
Shaaban's family said that he and three friends had been en route home to the western city of Misrata from a vacation in July when they were attacked by gunmen in an area called el-Shimekh near Bani Walid.
Shaaban and his friends, who like many Libyans were armed, fired back, the family said.
Two bullets hit Shaaban, and he was paralyzed from the waist down, his relatives said. The men were captured by militiamen from Bani Walid, a town of about 100,000 people that remains a stronghold of Gadhafi loyalists and is isolated from the rest of Libya.
President Mohammed el-Megarif visited Bani Walid this month and secured the release of Shaaban and two of his companions. A fourth is still being held.
When Shaaban was finally brought home, he was "skin and bones" ? still paralyzed, frail and slipping in and out of consciousness, according to his brother, Abdullah Shaaban.
"It was clear he was beaten a lot," Abdullah Shaaban said. "His entire chest was sliced with razors. His face had changed. It wasn't my brother that I knew."
Omran Shaaban later was flown to France for medical treatment.
Shaaban, the second youngest in a family of nine children, was a member of Libya Shield, a loose coalition of the country's largest militias relied on by the Defense Ministry.
Khalifa al-Zawawi, the former head of Misrata's local council, said the government reneged on paying the reward to Shaaban.
Abdullah Shaaban said his brother did not mind, saying he considered capturing Gadhafi to be his national duty.
Libya's president released a statement Tuesday vowing that those responsible for the violence against Omran Shaaban would be punished.
But apprehending and disarming the militants in Bani Walid are among the most daunting tasks facing the government. The town is heavily armed with rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and artillery left over from last year's civil war.
Residents of Bani Walid say that pictures of Gadhafi are displayed during weddings and youths play his speeches on their cars' stereos. Students refrain from singing Libya's new national anthem and teachers refuse to follow the revised curriculum.
Bani Walid fighters were blamed for many of the sniper attacks, shelling, rapes and other violence against the city of Misrata during the civil war, and there were new calls Tuesday from residents of Misrata for vengeance against Bani Walid.
Shaaban's eldest brother, Walid, insists there will be justice for the family, regardless of whether the government is the one to administer it.
"I plan to pursue his rights legally and join if there is a military incursion. We are going to death, God willing," Walid Shaaban said.
Family friend Abu-Shaala echoed that sentiment.
"If the government does not go in, we are going in," he said. "We are all patient. But our patience has limits."
___
Batrawy reported from Cairo.
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WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key has launched a inquiry into "unlawful" spying by government agents leading to the arrest of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who is fighting extradition to the United States where he faces charges of internet piracy and breaking copyright laws.
The probe may deal another blow to the U.S. case after a New Zealand court ruled in June that search warrants used in the raid on Dotcom's home earlier this year, requested by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, were illegal.
Key has asked the government's Intelligence and Security division to investigate "circumstances of unlawful interception of communications of certain individuals by the Government Communications Security Bureau", his office said in a statement on Monday.
Key's spokesman would not comment on whether the "certain individuals" referred to Dotcom, his three colleagues also arrested and facing U.S. charges, or all of them.
"The Bureau had acquired communications in some instances without statutory authority," Key's statement said.
New Zealand authorities arrested Dotcom and his colleagues at his rented country estate near Auckland in January, confiscating computers and hard drives, works of art, and cars.
The FBI accuses the flamboyant Dotcom, a 38-year-old German national also known as Kim Schmitz, of leading a group that netted $175 million since 2005 by copying and distributing music, films and other copyrighted content without authorization.
"I welcome the inquiry by (Key) into unlawful acts by the GCSB," Dotcom said on his Twitter account.
Dotcom maintains that the Megaupload site was no more than an online storage facility, and has accused Hollywood of lobbying the U.S. government to vilify him.
The raid and evidence seizure has already been ruled illegal and a court has ruled that Dotcom should be allowed to see the evidence on which the extradition hearing will be based.
U.S. authorities have appealed against that ruling, and a decision is pending.
(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nz-launches-inquiry-spying-megaupload-case-030240883.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? South Carolina is in federal court arguing that its new law requiring people prove their identity at the polls won't make voting so tough that it reduces turnout of African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.
A federal panel is to determine whether South Carolina's voter identification law violates the Voting Rights Act by putting heavy burdens on minorities who don't have the identification. Last December, the Justice Department refused to allow South Carolina to require the photo IDs, saying doing so would reverse the voting gains of the states' minorities.
Closing arguments in the case ? which went to trial in August and included several state officials as witnesses ? were scheduled for Monday. South Carolina has said it would implement the law immediately if the three-judge panel upholds it, although a decision either way is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tougher state voter registration and identification laws could factor into this year's election as voters divide along racial lines behind President Barack Obama or GOP nominee Mitt Romney in the presidential contest. About 90 percent of African-Americans and some 64 percent of Hispanic registered voters support Obama, according to the most recent Gallup three-week tracking poll. (Aug 20-Sept. 9). Democrats worry the ID laws may rob Obama and Democratic candidates of votes.
The law allows voters to show a driver's license or other photo ID issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles, passport, military ID with photo or a voter registration card that includes a photo.
The law's route to passage ? after other versions failed in the 2009 and 2010 legislative sessions ? was marked by bitter partisan and intra-party fights. Attempts at compromise by including additional acceptable identification and early voting days imploded. The 2009 House bill triggered a walkout by all but one African-American in the South Carolina House and the 2010 bill died in a filibuster by Senate Democrats.
Republican Gov. Nikki Haley signed the law in May 2011.
In his opening statement at trial, attorney for South Carolina Christopher Bartolomucci said the law was not a direct response to the 2008 record minority turnout that helped put Obama win the White House.
State witnesses said they wanted to instill public confidence in the election system and curb fraud, although they were unable to turn up instances of impersonation fraud that photo ID laws are designed to thwart. But South Carolina lawmakers testified the law would also act as a deterrent to other types of fraud.
South Carolina's population is 64 percent white, 28 percent African-American and 5 percent Hispanic. State election data produced in the trial showed some 178,000 registered voters did not have DMV-issued identification. Of those, 30 percent were white and 36 percent were minority voters. The data did not show if they had the other accepted IDs.
The judges in the case honed in on part of the law allowing voters without the required identification to cast a provisional ballot. But they must sign a statement that says they had a "reasonable impediment" preventing them from obtaining one of the required IDs. The affidavit would have to be notarized.
Marci Andino, South Carolina's State Election Commission executive director, testified poll workers would be encouraged to err on the side of voters in deciding whether the potential voter truly had a "reasonable impediment." Notaries at the 2,100 polling locations would not charge fees, she said. If a notary was not available, affidavits would be accepted anyway, Andino said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has previously upheld Georgia and Indiana voter photo identification laws, which South Carolina officials said served as models and guidance for their law. But those state laws allow voters to show more forms of identification.
Attorneys for the Justice Department and opponents have argued the provision's definition of what qualifies as a reasonable impediment is vague and could be applied differently from county to county. Opponents raised enough questions that South Carolina Attorney General Glen Wilson was compelled to clarify before the trial ended how the law would work.
The judges on the panel hearing the South Carolina case are Colleen Kollar-Kotelly and John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Kollar-Kotelly was appointed by former President Bill Clinton. Bates and Kavanaugh were appointed by former President George W. Bush.
___
The case number is 2012-203
___
Follow Suzanne Gamboa at http://www.twitter.com/APsgamboa
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"Stocks twelve months from now will have outperformed cash and Treasuries once again," predicts Robert Doll, BlackRock senior advisor, offering a plan for investors as the fiscal cliff looms?
By NBC News wire services
Updated at 9:35 a.m. ET: Stocks slipped Monday, extending last week's decline as weak European data caused investors to question the prospects for global growth.
German business sentiment dropped for a fifth successive month in September to its lowest level since early 2010, showing the strongest of Europe's economies is succumbing to a downturn despite the European Central Bank's ambitious bond-buying plan.
Equities have advanced sharply in recent months on expectations for central bank stimulus. On September 6 the ECB announced its bond-buying plan and a week later the Federal Reserve announced a third round of quantitative easing intended to bolster the economy and reduce U.S. unemployment.
With the S&P 500 up more than 7 percent so far this quarter, investors have sought new catalysts to push shares decisively in one direction or the other. Moves have been slight and volume light. The S&P 500 fell 0.4 percent last week, and the session with the biggest move was a 0.3 percent decline in the index.
"We've had such a strong quarter that it's difficult for us to keep moving up, especially since we're so light on economic news to trade on," said Oliver Pursche, president at Gary Goldberg Financial Services in Suffern, New York. "We're maybe in a sideways market without a lot of action for a while."
The composition of the Dow changes on Monday, with the inclusion of UnitedHealth Group. The health insurer replaces Kraft Foods, which is splitting into two companies: Kraft Foods Group and Mondelez International.
Energy stocks will be in focus as crude oil fell 1.3 percent, continuing a drop of more than 6 percent last week as investors question the demand outlook.
"Oil is trending down because of slowing growth, and I wouldn't expect that to change in the short term," Pursche said. "However, I don't think it's so cheap yet that we'll see a real impact on consumer spending."
Apple Inc will look to extend a rally that took the most valuable U.S. company to an all-time high share price. The rally came as Apple launched the latest version of its iPhone worldwide, generating blockbuster sales.
U.S. stocks closed flat on Friday.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: http://marketday.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/24/14067312-stocks-slip-on-global-growth-concerns?lite
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