Stocks lower as Italy adds to European fears

JeeYeon Park , CNBC ? ? ? 21 min.

Stocks were sharply lower Wednesday, with the Dow and S&P 500 pulling back from record levels, as political uncertainty in Italy sparked fresh worries over the euro zone and the euro dropped to a four-month low.

(Read More: Early Movers: WMT, CS, BA & More)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled nearly 100 points, dragged by Boeing and JPMorgan.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were also sharply lower. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, jumped above 13.

Major averages ended near their best ever levels on Tuesday, with the Dow posting a new high and S&P 500 finishing less than 2 points from its closing peak.

(Read More:Bulls Revved Up to Take Out Next Stocks Milestone)

All key S&P sectors were firmly in the red, led by materials and industrials.

On the economic front, pending home sales slid 0.4 percent in February, according to the National Association of Realtors. Economists polled by Reuters expected a 0.9 percent decline, compared with a 4.5 percent rise in the prior month.

In Europe, political deadlock continued in Italy as the country's main leadership candidate Pier Luigi's Bersani reportedly said that only an "insane person" would want to govern the nation now, adding that Italy is "in a mess and faces a difficult year ahead."

Bersani made the remark after the anti-establishment "Five Star Movement" party headed by comedian Beppe Grillo again refused to form a coalition government with Bersani, thwarting his latest attempts to form a governing alliance.

(Read More: Hey Euro Zone, You Overrate Yourself: Moody's)

A political stalemate since its inconclusive elections in late February has spiked concerns over how the country will handle its growing debt problems. Italy paid more to borrow over five years than it has since October at its latest auction, indicating worries over its financial situation.

The euro extended its losses below $1.28 against the U.S. greenback, its lowest level since late November.

Elsewhere in Europe, Cyprus is finalizing financial control measures to prevent a run on its banks, which have been shut for a week since the country agreed to a conditional 10 billion euro ($12.8 billion) bailout from international lenders. Cypriots have been lining up to withdraw cash from ATMs, with limits at 100 euros a day for some banks.

"Banks will open on Thursday ... We will look at the best way to limit the possibility of large sums of money leaving, and not imposing punitive conditions on the economy, businesses and individuals," Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris said in an interview on Cypriot television.

"Cyprus is a reason to remind investors that Europe is a source of risk, but I'm not sure Cyprus itself is going to be enough [for a market pullback from the recent run-up]," said Thomas Lee, chief U.S. equity strategist at JPMorgan. "The big picture still points to a major secular bull market being underway, with at least another four years left, led by durable goods."

Trading is likely to be thin ahead of the three-day Easter weekend. U.S. markets will be closed Friday for Good Friday.

Wal-Mart declined after the world's largest retailer said that probes into alleged foreign bribery at its stores are likely to result in a financial loss. Separately, the company said it would start using stores to get Internet orders to shoppers faster, amid growing competition from online rivals such as Amazon.com.

Boeing edged lower as its 787 Dreamliners face a temporary ban on some of the transocean flights, which would be a costly new challenge for the company.

Cliffs Natural Resources plunged to lead the S&P 500 laggards after Morgan Stanley downgraded the iron ore and metallurgical coal producer to "underweight" from "equal-weight." Rivals Alpha Natural Resources and Peabody Energy also traded lower.

Weekly mortgage applications rebounded last week as interest rates pulled back for the first time in three weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Paychex and Red Hat are among notable companies scheduled to report earnings after the closing bell.

Several members of the Federal Reserve are expected to speak throughout the day, including Chicago Fed President Charles Evans and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren.

Meanwhile, crude oil inventories for last week will be released by the Energy Department at 10:30 am ET. Inventories rose by 1.31 million in the prior week.

The Treasury is slated to auction $35 billion in 5-year notes with the results available shortly after 1pm ET.

(Read More: Global 'Triple-A Ratings Club' Shrinks 60 Percent)

?By CNBC's JeeYeon Park (Follow JeeYeon on Twitter: @JeeYeonParkCNBC)

? 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653351/s/2a0d6875/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Cbusiness0Cstocks0Elower0Eitaly0Eadds0Eeuropean0Efears0E2B910A4578/story01.htm

megamillions winners university of louisville louisville ky final four lotto winners mega ball winning numbers baltimore county

Sanford Health in talks to take control of Fairview Health Services (Star Tribune)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/294724713?client_source=feed&format=rss

the talented mr ripley weather new orleans orcl the hartford illinois primary 2012 michael bay zsa zsa gabor

New type of solar structure cools buildings in full sunlight

Mar. 27, 2013 ? A Stanford team has designed an entirely new form of cooling panel that works even when the sun is shining. Such a panel could vastly improve the daylight cooling of buildings, cars and other structures by radiating sunlight back into the chilly vacuum of space.

Homes and buildings chilled without air conditioners. Car interiors that don't heat up in the summer sun. Tapping the frigid expanses of outer space to cool the planet. Science fiction, you say? Well, maybe not any more.

A team of researchers at Stanford has designed an entirely new form of cooling structure that cools even when the sun is shining. Such a structure could vastly improve the daylight cooling of buildings, cars and other structures by reflecting sunlight back into the chilly vacuum of space. Their paper describing the device was published March 5 in Nano Letters.

"People usually see space as a source of heat from the sun, but away from the sun outer space is really a cold, cold place," explained Shanhui Fan, professor of electrical engineering and the paper's senior author. "We've developed a new type of structure that reflects the vast majority of sunlight, while at the same time it sends heat into that coldness, which cools humanmade structures even in the day time."

The trick, from an engineering standpoint, is two-fold. First, the reflector has to reflect as much of the sunlight as possible. Poor reflectors absorb too much sunlight, heating up in the process and defeating the purpose of cooling.

The second challenge is that the structure must efficiently radiate heat back into space. Thus, the structure must emit thermal radiation very efficiently within a specific wavelength range in which the atmosphere is nearly transparent. Outside this range, Earth's atmosphere simply reflects the light back down. Most people are familiar with this phenomenon. It's better known as the greenhouse effect -- the cause of global climate change.

Two goals in one

The new structure accomplishes both goals. It is an effective a broadband mirror for solar light -- it reflects most of the sunlight. It also emits thermal radiation very efficiently within the crucial wavelength range needed to escape Earth's atmosphere.

Radiative cooling at nighttime has been studied extensively as a mitigation strategy for climate change, yet peak demand for cooling occurs in the daytime.

"No one had yet been able to surmount the challenges of daytime radiative cooling -- of cooling when the sun is shining," said Eden Rephaeli, a doctoral candidate in Fan's lab and a co-first-author of the paper. "It's a big hurdle."

The Stanford team has succeeded where others have come up short by turning to nanostructured photonic materials. These materials can be engineered to enhance or suppress light reflection in certain wavelengths.

"We've taken a very different approach compared to previous efforts in this field," said Aaswath Raman, a doctoral candidate in Fan's lab and a co-first-author of the paper. "We combine the thermal emitter and solar reflector into one device, making it both higher performance and much more robust and practically relevant. In particular, we're very excited because this design makes viable both industrial-scale and off-grid applications."

Using engineered nanophotonic materials the team was able to strongly suppress how much heat-inducing sunlight the panel absorbs, while it radiates heat very efficiently in the key frequency range necessary to escape Earth's atmosphere. The material is made of quartz and silicon carbide, both very weak absorbers of sunlight.

Net cooling power

The new device is capable of achieving a net cooling power in excess of 100 watts per square meter. By comparison, today's standard 10-percent-efficient solar panels generate the about the same amount of power. That means Fan's radiative cooling panels could theoretically be substituted on rooftops where existing solar panels feed electricity to air conditioning systems needed to cool the building.

To put it a different way, a typical one-story, single-family house with just 10 percent of its roof covered by radiative cooling panels could offset 35 percent its entire air conditioning needs during the hottest hours of the summer.

Radiative cooling has another profound advantage over all other cooling strategy such as air-conditioner. It is a passive technology. It requires no energy. It has no moving parts. It is easy to maintain. You put it on the roof or the sides of buildings and it starts working immediately.

A changing vision of cooling

Beyond the commercial implications, Fan and his collaborators foresee a broad potential social impact. Much of the human population on Earth lives in sun-drenched regions huddled around the equator. Electrical demand to drive air conditioners is skyrocketing in these places, presenting an economic and an environmental challenge. These areas tend to be poor and the power necessary to drive cooling usually means fossil-fuel power plants that compound the greenhouse gas problem.

"In addition to these regions, we can foresee applications for radiative cooling in off-the-grid areas of the developing world where air conditioning is not even possible at this time. There are large numbers of people who could benefit from such systems," Fan said.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford School of Engineering. The original article was written by Andrew Myers.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Eden Rephaeli, Aaswath Raman, Shanhui Fan. Ultrabroadband Photonic Structures To Achieve High-Performance Daytime Radiative Cooling. Nano Letters, 2013; : 130311121615001 DOI: 10.1021/nl4004283

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/electricity/~3/STQ2QlQf-MY/130327132544.htm

words with friends phlebotomy dog show best in show bret michaels bret michaels pekingese

The Duggar Family to Adopt Baby #20?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/the-duggar-family-to-adopt-baby-number-20/

Canoodle Isaac path Tropical Storm Isaac path Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Isaac Path Isaac Hurricane earthquake san diego

Stress During Pregnancy May Raise Heart Defect Risk ... - Health.com

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) ? Stress in mothers before and during pregnancy may boost the risk of congenital heart defects in their children, more new evidence suggests. But the findings aren?t conclusive, and the effect ? if it exists ? appears to be small.

Still, ?there are several studies now that show an association,? said Dr. Edward McCabe, senior vice president and medical director of the March of Dimes, who is familiar with the results of the large new study. ?It suggests there needs to be continued investigation of this.?

McCabe said he?s not aware of any other research linking stress in mothers to a specific kind of birth defect.

Congenital heart defects, among the most common kinds of birth defect, include conditions such as holes in the heart and other kinds of problems. Most cases aren?t fatal, McCabe said, and physicians can repair some kinds of problems with surgery. In other cases, the defects don?t need to be fixed.

The new study follows up on previous research linking stress to this form of birth defect.

The researchers looked at nearly 1.8 million children born in Denmark from 1978 to 2008 and tried to find out if congenital heart defects were more common in kids born to a specific group of about 45,000 women. These were women who had lost a parent, sibling, child or partner between the approximate time of conception and delivery.

Women in that group were slightly more likely than the other women to give birth to a child with a congenital birth defect, researchers found. Study co-author Dr. Jorn Olsen, professor and chairman of the department of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the findings take into account the possibility that congenital heart defects may run in families and have killed some of the relatives who died.

Why might stress in a mother cause birth defects? Animal studies have shown that stress during the development of a fetus could affect heart development, Olsen said.

It?s also possible, he said, that stress could lead women to do things that are risky to their unborn children, such as changing to a less healthy diet. McCabe said another possibility is that stress alters the DNA of the child in the womb.

In the big picture, Olsen said, ?this and other studies tell us to take care of pregnant women who experience severe stressful events shortly before or while they?re pregnant.?

For his part, McCabe said it?s important for pregnant women under stress to talk to their physicians about quitting smoking, which they may increase because they?re anxious. ?We can?t modify whether stress is going to happen in our lives,? he said, ?but we can modify certain effects of that stress.?

The study appeared online March 25 and in the April print issue of the journal Pediatrics. Although it showed an association between maternal stress and risk of congenital heart defects, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

For more about congenital heart defects, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/03/25/stress-during-pregnancy-may-raise-heart-defect-risk-for-baby/

Dell Levis Fireman Ed Allegiant Air Melissa Rycroft mega millions Cyber Monday Deals 2012

Video: Religious right rioters give fascist salute then attack police in France over gay marriage (Americablog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/294561989?client_source=feed&format=rss

Joey Kovar Expendables 2 Pussy Riot National Hurricane Center Zeek Rewards vanessa bryant vanessa bryant

US-INDUSTRY Summary

Sirius XM to carry new Glenn Beck channel

(Reuters) - Sirius XM has struck a deal to carry a new channel produced by Glenn Beck's media company 'theBlaze', featuring conservative talk shows and news programming that begins airing on Monday. The new channel is the latest effort by Beck, a former Fox News talk show host, to expand his media company which has its roots on the Internet. The channel, dubbed "theBlaze Radio Network", will be available to Sirius XM's nearly 24 million subscribers.

Murdoch attacks British PM David Cameron over press regulation

LONDON (Reuters) - Media mogul Rupert Murdoch sharply criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday for agreeing tougher press regulation, saying the new system was a "holy mess" and that Cameron had disappointed his supporters. Cameron struck a surprise deal on Monday with his junior coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, and the opposition Labour party, that will allow a new regulator to be set up with the powers to levy large fines on newspapers and oblige them to print prominent apologies where appropriate.

Independent News' banks propose debt for equity swap: report

DUBLIN (Reuters) - A syndicate of banks has tabled proposals to reduce Independent News & Media's 420-million-euro ($546 million) debt burden that would see it take a large equity stake in Ireland's largest newspaper group, the Sunday Times reported. Weighed down by debts, falling readership and reduced advertising, INM has been in talks with its lenders since last year in relation to debt maturing in May 2014 in the hope of agreeing what it has described as a "substantial" restructuring.

CBS nears deal to buy half of TV Guide Network: reports

NEW YORK (Reuters) - CBS Corp is nearing an agreement to purchase about half of TV Guide Network, according to various media reports on Friday. The New York-based mass-media company is expected to pay about $100 million to buy out the TV Guide Network stake held by One Equity Partners, the private-equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

HBO CEO mulls teaming with broadband partners for HBO GO

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - HBO could widen access to its HBO GO online streaming service by teaming up with broadband Internet providers for customers who do not subscribe to a cable TV service, HBO Chief Executive Richard Plepler said. Plepler told Reuters on Wednesday evening at the Season 3 premiere of HBO's hit TV show "Game of Thrones." "Maybe HBO GO, with our broadband partners, could evolve."

Fox picks up Big East basketball for 12 years

(Reuters) - Fox Sports has signed a 12-year contract to carry the new Big East basketball conference, the first major sports rights agreement it has entered since announcing its new national cable channel to compete with ESPN. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. A source close to the matter estimated the deal was worth between $500 million and $600 million over the 12 years. Fox, owned by News Corp, has been buying sports rights to showcase on its new cable network, dubbed Fox Sports 1, which will debut in August.

BBC Twitter accounts hacked by pro-Assad online group

LONDON (Reuters) - The Twitter account belonging to the BBC's weather service was hacked on Thursday, the public broadcaster said. The "Syrian Electronic Army", a group of pro-Assad hackers and online activists that has already disrupted the Facebook page of Barack Obama, claimed responsibility for the breach.

Jane's publisher IHS beats first-quarter estimates

(Reuters) - IHS Inc, publisher of Jane's Defence Weekly, reported higher-than-expected first-quarter revenue on a 13 percent rise in subscription income, but said customers continued to delay spending decisions on its non-subscription services. Non-subscription business, including consulting, software licensing and events, accounted for 24 percent of IHS's revenue last year.

Scholastic cuts full-year forecast for second time

(Reuters) - Children's books publisher Scholastic Corp cut its full-year forecast for the second time as sales of its "Hunger Games" trilogy remained lower than last year and customers continued to delay spending on its educational products. Shares of Scholastic, which also publishes the Harry Potter series in the United States, fell 14.4 percent in early trading on the Nasdaq.

Yellow Media says CEO to step down

(Reuters) - Canadian telephone directory publisher Yellow Media Ltd's CEO of about 12 years, Marc Tellier, is stepping down as the debt-laden company struggles to shift its business online. Directory publishers such as Yellow Media and UK-based Hibu Plc have been hit as users switch to online search engines such as Google Inc to find local listings.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-industry-summary-040717419--finance.html

Veterans Day 2012 Nate Silver stock market stock market Obama Acceptance Speech 2012 dow jones Selena Gomez