Baggage worker offered job back after dog debacle (AP)

RENO, Nev. ? The baggage handling contractor that fired a Reno airport worker in a dispute over transporting an unhealthy dog offered the woman her job back with back pay Tuesday, and the company's president praised her courage to stand up for the animal.

Airport Terminal Services Inc. also will contribute an unspecified amount of money to the Nevada Humane Society over the next three years to help "strengthen awareness regarding the mistreatment of animals," said Sally Leible, president and CEO of the St. Louis-based company.

Lynn Jones, who had worked more than five years as a baggage handler for ATS at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, said she was fired about three weeks ago when she refused her supervisor's orders to put the emaciated hunting dog on a plane bound for Corpus Christi, Texas.

Animal welfare workers picked up the animal. It recovered and was eventually returned to its owner.

Jones "was trying to protect the dog, and I think she was courageous in doing that," Leible told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I really, truly hope she will come back."

Lieble said the company would use the incident as a learning tool to educate workers at the 38 U.S. airports ATS serves and renew the company's "commitment to recognize and report animal abuse of any form."

Jones said Monday that she was working in the cargo area last month when she saw the dog in a pet carrier. She said its body was covered with sores and its paws were worn raw.

"It was so thin, it made me cry," she said. She said when she told her supervisor about it, he insisted she load the pointer onto the plane because its paperwork was in order and its condition was none of her concern.

"I kept telling my supervisor, `That dog is going to die if it gets on that plane,'" Jones said.

Leible said would not discuss whether any other employees would face disciplinary action. She told AP she was out of the country last week and returned "to this firestorm" when she came back Sunday.

She said the matter had not previously reached the senior executive level so she asked a vice present to "completely reinvestigate it."

After talking to all the employees involved, "and with the benefit of some hindsight, we looked at it in a fresh and frank way," she said.

"There was just a lot of high emotion at the end of the day," Leible said. "Emotion can be forgiven because you are trying to do the right thing."

As of Tuesday night, Jones had not accepted the job offer, Leible said.

"We're trying to bring it to a resolution. We're not across that finish line yet," she told AP.

Jones, 56, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on Tuesday. She said Monday that she didn't know what she would do if offered her old job back.

"I would have to really think about it," she said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111207/ap_on_re_us/us_airport_worker_fired

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Probe finds elaborate cover-up at "rotten" Olympus

Tatsuo Kainaka, center, former Supreme Court judge who led a panel investigating an accounting scandal at Japan's Olympus Corp., speaks as panel members Hideki Nakagomi, right, and Osamu Sudo listen to him during a press conference in Tokyo, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011. The panel of lawyers and an accountant said Tuesday it found an elaborate scheme to cover up $1.5 billion of investment losses but no evidence of Japanese mafia involvement. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Tatsuo Kainaka, center, former Supreme Court judge who led a panel investigating an accounting scandal at Japan's Olympus Corp., speaks as panel members Hideki Nakagomi, right, and Osamu Sudo listen to him during a press conference in Tokyo, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011. The panel of lawyers and an accountant said Tuesday it found an elaborate scheme to cover up $1.5 billion of investment losses but no evidence of Japanese mafia involvement. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Tatsuo Kainaka, former Supreme Court judge who led a panel investigating an accounting scandal at Japan's Olympus Corp., speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011. The panel of lawyers and an accountant said Tuesday it found an elaborate scheme to cover up $1.5 billion of investment losses but no evidence of Japanese mafia involvement. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

TOKYO (AP) ? A panel probing an accounting scandal at Japan's Olympus Corp. said Tuesday an elaborate scheme to cover up $1.5 billion of investment losses was orchestrated by a group of top executives who were "rotten to the core."

The panel also credited the company's ex-CEO, Michael Woodford, for bringing the deception at the camera and medical equipment maker to light. Woodford, a Briton, was fired in October after questioning the dubious transactions that have become one of Japan's biggest corporate fiascos.

Led by former Supreme Court judge Tatsuo Kainaka, the third-party panel found that as of 2003, Olympus had racked up 117.7 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in investment losses dating back to the 1990s.

"The management was rotten to the core and contaminated what was around it, creating in the worst sense a group mentality of the typical salarymen," the report said in a reference to Japan's culture of corporate loyalty.

It said it found no involvement of "anti-social groups," a euphemism for Japanese criminal gangs, as some news reports have speculated. The panel said it traced the money and the various funds used to cover up investment losses, and no underworld groups were involved.

Olympus initially denied any wrongdoing, but later admitted it had used a $687 million fee for financial advice when it bought British medical instruments maker Gyrus Group, as well as overpayments for acquisitions, to hide losses from past investments gone bad.

Olympus said it took the panel's report "very seriously," but also noted that no new off-book liabilities or gangster involvement had been found.

The company was considering measures to restore confidence, it said. President Shuichi Takayama is scheduled to address the panel's findings at a news conference Wednesday.

The panel identified at least six Olympus employees as part of the scheme, including President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, Executive Vice President Hisashi Mori and auditor Hideo Yamada, all of whom have resigned.

It said other board members were familiar with the cover-up that started from about 2006 and lasted through last year, and recommended they resign too.

It also said that, when scheme management expenses were added, the loss cover-up ballooned to 135 billion yen ($1.7 billion).

It urged Olympus to beef up its corporate governance to prevent future problems, pointing to a small group of people who engineered the deception but were protected from scrutiny so that the dubious accounting could be kept secret for so long.

The panel pointed to one board meeting in which a part of the scheme was approved in just 15 minutes.

Woodford praised the panel for calling for a new board, as he had earlier, and said he wanted to work with shareholders and employees to revitalize Olympus.

"Today's report must be the beginning, and not the end, of our efforts to discover what has happened at Olympus," he said in a statement. "Elucidating the full extent of the wrongdoing cited in the panel's report will require a wide-ranging investigation."

The Tokyo Stock Exchange said it is looking at the panel's report for possible reasons to remove Olympus from the stock market. The company was already at risk of delisting after failing to report its earnings. It was given a new deadline of Dec. 14.

The panel stressed its findings, summarized in a 24-page document released at a press conference at a Tokyo hall Tuesday, were based on voluntary hearings and analysis of company computers, but that it was not authorized to pursue a criminal investigation.

Japanese financial and criminal authorities are investigating the Olympus scandal.

Kainaka, the former judge, said that some Olympus people may face criminal charges, while declining to give names. He said none had pocketed the money for personal gain.

Olympus risks being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange if it doesn't rectify past filings with regulators by reporting revised earnings by Dec. 14.

The company's bookkeeping is now under investigation in Japan, the U.S. and Great Britain. Woodford has met with authorities in all three countries.

The scandal has cast a harsh light on Japanese corporate governance, which has been criticized as lagging global standards.

Last week, Economy Minister Yukio Edano defended Japan, saying its corporate governance standards were on par with the U.S. or even better. He didn't specify any cases, but there have been a string of accounting scandals at major U.S. companies, including Enron and AIG.

Kainaka denied the Olympus scandal exemplified Japan Inc.

"This is not just a Japan problem. It could have happened anywhere in the world," he said.

But others say Japan needs more transparent, accountable and knowledgeable boards at companies.

Nicholas Benes, head of The Board Director Training Institute of Japan, a nonprofit group that specializes in corporate governance training, said the panel was a start but it lacks legal authority under Japanese law.

"I applaud, but obviously its work hasn't been finished," he said.

Tuesday's panel report raps the Olympus board as insular, calling for better outside members.

"Most board members were mere yes-men," it said.

Olympus stock, which at one point lost 80 percent of its value after Woodford's whistleblowing, has recovered over the last three weeks, and surged 9 percent Tuesday amid optimism the company may avoid delisting. The panel released its findings after trading ended in Tokyo.

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-06-AS-Japan-Olympus/id-4c1886ad2b7a462c95abc0d8f20e225b

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China slowdown spreading, HSBC services PMI shows (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? China's services sector cooled in November to its weakest growth in three months, an HSBC purchasing managers' index showed on Monday, the latest data portraying an economy slowing quickly and in need of policy support.

The index fell to 52.5, a sharp decline given that October's reading was 54.1 -- the highest in four months -- though the index remains above the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction in the sector.

Expectations for new business dropped to their lowest level in three months too, but remained firmly above 50.

"With price pressures easing further, Beijing can and should use policies that are targeted on small businesses and service sectors to keep GDP growth at above 8 percent for the coming year," Qu Hongbin, HSBC's chief China economist, said in a statement.

China's official PMI for its non-manufacturing sector, released on Saturday, fell to 49.7 in November from 57.7 in October, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said.

The readings mirror similar weakness in the country's giant manufacturing sector and underline expectations that Beijing will ease monetary policy further to cushion the blows of the global economy.

PMI data in the past week has shown that both domestic and export orders are weakening, helping explain the central bank's decision last week to cut bank reserve requirements for the first time in three years.

The move to free up cash was a signal that the central bank was shifting toward loosening monetary policy to support the economy, which is widely expected to grow next year at less than 9 percent for the first time in a decade, economists said.

Some economists are reluctant to read too much significance into the services indexes given their volatility, lack of seasonal adjustments, simple calculation methodology and their consequently weaker predictive power.

For instance the reading of 49.7 in China's official services PMI for November was an 8 point plunge from October, but smaller than the 9.5 point average since 2007, the starting point for this series, said Tim Condon, head of Asian economic research at ING in Singapore.

Past performance suggests that half that decline will be recovered in December, leaving the index in the mid-50s, though that is well below the near-60 level it has been at for most of the last 18 months and a clear sign of a slowing economy.

"The weakness in the manufacturing sector is spreading to the non-manufacturing economy. We think the policy fine-tuning also will spread," ING's Condon said.

Manufacturing dominates the Chinese economy and made up some 58 percent of activity in 2010. Services accounted for around 38 percent in 2010, losing some share in recent years to manufacturing which benefited from government stimulus programs to help the economy through the global financial crisis.

Factories elsewhere are also feeling the force of the global economic slowdown. A global PMI released last Thursday by JPMorgan, with research and supply management organizations, fell to 49.6, suggesting a contraction in global manufacturing.

Chinese officials have expressed growing alarm at the slide in the global economy as Europe struggles to produce a decisive solution to its debt crisis. China's economic growth has eased for three straight quarters to 9.1 percent in the July-September period.

Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said last week that the world economy faced a worse crisis now than during 2008 and that stimulating growth should be a priority.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan in November said a chronic global recession was certain.

Most analysts say the central bank has room for further cuts in banks' reserve requirements to release cash into the economy given than inflation is less of a concern. Consumer inflation fell back in October to 5.5 percent from a three-year high in July of 6.5 percent.

Before last week's 50 basis point cut in the ratio from a record 21.5 percent for big banks to 21 percent, a Reuters survey had shown analysts expected 200 basis points of cuts in 2012.

Some analysts have now increased their expectations. Kevin Lai, a senior economist at Daiwa Capital Markets in Hong Kong, said he expects 200 basis points of cuts in addition to last week's reduction.

Few analysts expect the central bank to start cutting interest rates anytime soon though. Rates are already below inflation levels, so a cut could encourage savers to pull money out of the banking system in search of higher returns elsewhere and so crimp bank lending.

(Editing by Ken Wills and Neil Fullick)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/bs_nm/us_china_economy

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George McGovern in stable condition after fall

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (AP) ? Doctors say former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern is "alert and resting comfortably" at a South Dakota hospital after falling and hitting his head.

Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center in Sioux Falls released a statement Saturday saying the former U.S. senator was in stable condition after suffering a head injury.

McGovern was flown to the hospital late Friday from Mitchell, South Dakota, where he'd been scheduled to appear on a live C-SPAN interview at McGovern Library at Dakota Wesleyan University.

University officials said the former South Dakota senator fell outside the library about two hours before the interview.

McGovern spent three terms in the U.S. Senate and was a lifelong advocate for U.S. and world food programs. He lost the presidential race to Richard Nixon in 1972.

The Patriot Ledger

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-03-McGovern%20Hospitalized-Fall/id-3e5816eb5ecd47efbacc480822c4bb04

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This Samsung Galaxy S II Started Burning In a Man's Pocket And Almost Blew His Nuts Off [Wtf]

It's not just iPhones that are blowing up these days, this Samsung Galaxy S II almost exploded in a man's pants. Seriously. Could you imagine if your phone caught fire and started burning everything in your nether regions? Ouchouchouch. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Iab_RolAJCo/this-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-started-burning-in-a-mans-pocket-and-almost-blew-his-nuts-off

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Chunk of metal crashes through Mass. warehouse. Did it come from space?

Workers at?Michael's Wholesale Furniture Distributors in Plymouth, Mass. found a three-pound piece of metal lying on the floor Thursday, below a gaping hole in the roof. The FAA says that it does not seem to have come from an airplane? Was it space junk?

A three-pound piece of metal was found lying on the floor of a Massachusetts warehouse on Thursday (Dec. 1). What made this remarkable was the gaping hole discovered directly above it in the roof.

Skip to next paragraph

"We don't know when exactly it fell, but we found it at 11 o'clock [a.m.]," Andrew McWilliams, an employee of Michael's Wholesale Furniture Distributors in Plymouth, Mass., told Life's Little Mysteries.

The chunk of metal appears about the same size and shape as a tall, skinny soda can, but the silvery cylinder has a tarnished look to it.

The workers reported their find to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which promptly sent an inspector to investigate. All parties initially guessed that the piece of metal may have fallen off a passing plane, but the FAA later ruled out that possibility, according to?CBS Boston.

"We have no idea what it is. At this point, we can only speculate. No clue," said Plymouth police Capt. John Rogers. "This would have had to come through with some significant force or velocity to get through the warehouse roof and cause damage." [See the damage]

One possibility is that the metal chunk may have fallen from space. There are approximately 20,000 bits of?manmade space junk?in low-Earth orbit that are as big as or bigger than the chunk that crashed through the warehouse. These usually burn up during re-entry when they fall into Earth's atmosphere, but sizable pieces occasionally make it to the ground.

McWilliams said the FAA "confiscated" the piece of debris and is continuing to investigate its source.

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us onFacebook.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/TdoQKNfR0NM/Chunk-of-metal-crashes-through-Mass.-warehouse.-Did-it-come-from-space

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George McGovern hospitalized after fall in South Dakota (reuters)

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Syncplicity Android app stores and shares in the cloud (Appolicious)

If you haven?t yet explored cloud storage, here?s another chance. The Syncplicity app provides an easy way to store and share files, photos, videos and music from your Android device, and Windows and Mac apps allow you to sync with the same storage from personal computers. With a service like this, moving files and memories between all your computers and devices is simple.

Getting started won?t take long. Download the free app, and launch it. You can create a new account or connect to an existing one on the initial screen. A couple of taps lets you upload files, photos, video or music to designated folders in the cloud, or you can create new folders. The ?sync? part of the app?s title means you can set a folder to synchronize with the cloud automatically whenever you put something new in there.

The personal-computer applications work smoothly, as well. You can right-click files through the Mac?s Finder or the Windows? Explorer, and send them instantly to Syncplicity or set them to sync automatically in the future.

A key difference between this service and some of the other cloud storage services is security. All transfers and storage use encryption to lower the chances of your stuff falling into the wrong hands. If you do want to share,. the service will create an easy shareable link for you to send around.

Out of the box, you get 2GB of free storage. Adding more will cost you.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/appolicious_rss/rss_appolicious_tc/http___www_androidapps_com_articles10327_syncplicity_android_app_stores_and_shares_in_the_cloud/43750617/SIG=1373g93e2/*http%3A//www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/10327-syncplicity-android-app-stores-and-shares-in-the-cloud

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Introducing Memo Touch, a tablet designed for elders with short-term memory loss

Here's a product you don't see every day: a tablet designed specifically for senior citizens -- albeit with rather limited functionality. The Memo Touch is designed as a reminder tool for those who struggle with short-term memory loss, and can be used to deliver gentle cues when its time to take a medication, go to the doctor and the like. It's collaborative, too, as family members may add calendar events, phone numbers and to-do items, or even share photos and personalized messages, all from the product's companion website. Based on the Archos 101, the Memo Touch sells for $299 and requires a six-month ($174) or 12-month ($300) subscription. For those who don't take to the new-fangled gadget, the tablet carries a three month return policy, where purchasers may opt to receive a refund or have the tablet restored to its Android roots. Hey, it's one more way of keeping that rascally parent under your thumb, anyway. Overbearing children will find a full press release after the break. Now, where'd we put that damn tablet?

Continue reading Introducing Memo Touch, a tablet designed for elders with short-term memory loss

Introducing Memo Touch, a tablet designed for elders with short-term memory loss originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/02/introducing-memo-touch-a-tablet-designed-for-elders-with-short/

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