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BP' problems some industry wide such as the higher cost of oil exploration, and others such as slower work at its Thunder horse production platform in the Gulf of Mexico and refinery outages. Action Tom Hayward is taking to solve these problems such as hiring more engineers and getting more people in the field to work as engineers.

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Microsoft's sale of its 50% stake in MSNBC.com to NBC News in July 2012 for $300 million.

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Benedict Carey provides this fascinating account of one woman's experience in the U.S. Army's mission in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Courtney Wilson served in Kandahar in 2010 and experienced many of the stresses women face to a larger degree than men integrating into what is for the dominant part a male focussed culture. This is increasingly important as women now form about 15% of the force in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are likely to be an even larger part in the future tech driven force. With fewer women in the force Wilson had less opportunity to interact with women, and like other women in the army she felt the emotional bonding that men have with other men in the army is something they lack. Like women in male professions, and men at the margins of the dominant culture in other fields, women feel a higher level of psychic stress.

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Uncertainty in China's stock market with the ban on stock selling by large institutional investors. Goldman Sachs estimates that $184 billion in shares could be put up for sale if the ban was unambiguously lifted. The price swings on the market would be accentuated say analysts because of a decline in trading volume.

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Using the equivalent of 5 nuclear reactors in energy as Altman pushes AI to do means neglecting the needs for climate change action and for education and healthcare priorities. The huge diversion of funds equivalent to the GDP of European nations is absurd. It would put Democracy at risk even more as literacy shrinks as less and less investment in made in childcare, education and increasing access to education to all, and less and less investment is made in healthcare and increasing access to healthcare, as capital markets are pushed into highly and dangerously distorted allocation of our resources. As shown in the Washington Post article below Andrew Van Dam- about 30% of Americans already read no books at all, or lack the access to books and knowledge to participate effectively with civic preparedness. And could throw the Nation into political and economic chaos without the necessary knowledge for effective participation. Catherine Rampell of the Post shows above that every $1 invested in free preschool day care would return $6 in economic benefits, according to Yale Brown universities study, not counting the educated workforce for the Nation's future. ...

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Greece gets strong demand for its bond offering in April 2014. A sale of 3 billion euros of bonds maturing in 2019 attracted 20 billion euros in demand. The yield on the 5 year bond was 4.95%. This is the first longer term bond sale since 2010. The yields on bonds issued during the depths of the eurozone crisis for investors had yields close to 20%. This is a huge turning point for Greece's recovery, and shows tangible progress for the efforts of the Samaras government to stabilize Greece's finances and restore growth. With yields on 10 year U.S. Treasury debt at record lows of 2.64% in April 2014, this brings Greek bond yields to within a little over 2 percentage points of U.S. Treasuries, something that would have been unthinkable only one year ago at this time. It also helps stabilize the entire eurozone, after years of turmoil and riots in Greece created the possibility of Greece's return to the drachma.

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Carolyn Chen, a professor at Northwestern University, who heads the Asian-American Studies program, says efforts to cap enrollment at Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Yale are similiar to efforts to cap Jewish enrollment in an earlier period. Asian Americans make up 5.6% of the population in the U.S. but are now 12-18% of the students at Ivy League schools. Asian-Americans make up 40-70% of students at top public high schools such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Science in New York City, Lowell in San Francisco and Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria, Va. which are merit focussed. These Asian students try to get into Ivy League schools. Yale has a student population that is 58% white and 18% Asian American. The question she poses is whether white and Asian American applications should be viewed through lens such as "individuality," and "uniqueness," on grounds that a wide range of talents should be encouraged, and if this puts Asian Americans at a disadvantage with white applicants.

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A Yale scholar's view of the Obama presidency based on what he sees as a presidency struggling for compromise and consensus.

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Portugal raised 3 billion euros in a 10 year bond sale at 5.67% in May 2013. Portugal had orders of 10.2 billion euros from investors. This is a significant step forward for Portugal to return to bond markets. Portugal's ratings are Ba3 from Moody's, BB from Standard & Poors Investors Services and BB+ from Fitch Ratings.

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The US gets the lowest score among the large industrialized nations- way behind Europe- in its record on greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution policies, agricultural policies, smog, and other environment criteria in a survey done jointly by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities. On regional smog the US has a very poor score.

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Randall Quarles, a Republican Treasury official in both Bush administrations, is the choice for Fed Governor and Fed vice chair for supervision. He will be when nominated the senior person in charge of supervision of banks, a role played by Fed's Daniel Tarullo during the Obama administration. He has supported the view in favor of postcrisis regulations, yet warned against raising the cost of bank credit by requiring a big increase in bank capital. Quarles has worked at the Carlyle group private equity firm, graduated from Yale law school and is a partner at Davis Polk Wardwell law firm.

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Amazon makes an offer to buy the whole of TikTok on April 1, 2025 before a April 1, 2025 deadline. A law passed in Congress in 2024 was upheld by the US Supreme Court requiring the sale of China based TikTok to American buyers for national security reasons or be closed to US users altogether. Amazon has connections to TikTok where TikTok users refer other users to products which can be bought on Amazon with revenue being passed on to influencers who get a cut on the transactions.

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With the effects of the government tax credit fading, Commerce Department numbers show a 33% drop in sales of new single-family homes from 446,000 units in April to 300,000 annual rate in May 2010. The supply of homes for sale went up by 47% to 8.5 months in May from 5.8 months supply in Aprill 2010.

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Efforts in Congress to get the SEC to restore the Uptick Rule that prevented shortselling of stocks unless the price of a stock in its most recent trade was higher than the previous price. In a short sale investors borrow shares and sell them, hoping for the price to fall. Schumer, Barney Frank support the effort.