Land Trusts Article by paul bagorio Land trusts are an excellent tool in the investors arsenal, but the investor must be savvy enough to fully utilize the trusts benefits. Not only will the trust provide the investor the desired level of anonymity, but if used in conjunction with an LLC, it will afford the investor [...]
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Itzcoatl Ocampo’s dress uniform, government military photo, dog tags and a religious medallion that went to war with him lie on display at Ocampo’s home in Yorba Linda, Calif., Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012. Ocampo, 23, who saw combat duty in Iraq, has been named as a suspect in a series of killings of homeless men [...]
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Compulsive eating disorder, which is also referred to as binge eating, is a problem that many people are afflicted by. What happens is a person intakes more food than what is needed by the body for regular, efficient functioning. Consequently, your body tends to pile up some excessive fat on your body. In this article, [...]
Public release date: 30-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michel Wahome mwahome@nyas.org New York Academy of Sciences
WHAT: Finding the Needle in the Data Haystack: The Implications of a Data-Driven Built Environment
WHEN: Feb. 16, 2012, 6pm – 8pm
WHERE: The New York Academy of Sciences
REGISTER: www.nyas.org/builtenvironment
Within the green building industry, there is an increasing focus on policy, standards, and interoperability of building data. Municipalities are requiring energy data disclosure to reduce GHG emissions, real estate companies are looking for performance data to refine building valuation, underwriters are looking past net operating income to accounting for the triple bottom line, tenants are looking to improve employee satisfaction and measure their achievement of sustainability goals, NREL is developing a building data taxonomy, and the USGBC is working to simplify the certification and ongoing monitoring of buildings.
The result is a virtual tsunami of data that without the proper tools, standards, and analytics, can overwhelm potential users, and may frustrate and obscure the market transformation opportunities created by the data’s availability.
Our intent is to look at the potential data pool for the entire industry. From building operations to real estate finance and draw out the value of different data sets in order to help organize data acquisition for greater utility, clarity in the industry, and for the conceptualization of business models that will support market innovation.
The first event in this effort is this discussion, which will outline the state of the industry. The panelists will explore both of the larger move towards data analytics and the current state of data utilization in the real estate industry. We will discuss variations due to building type, the use of environmental data, and municipal efforts to benchmark buildings. We will also take a broader perspective that will present how data analytics is transforming medical research, consumer products, advertising, and other industries in order to inspire a discussion on how this could translate to various sectors of the real estate industry.
This two-hour session on February 16th will be a preparatory event for a full-day conference on Data Analytics in the Built Environment that will be held on April 30th.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 30-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michel Wahome mwahome@nyas.org New York Academy of Sciences
WHAT: Finding the Needle in the Data Haystack: The Implications of a Data-Driven Built Environment
WHEN: Feb. 16, 2012, 6pm – 8pm
WHERE: The New York Academy of Sciences
REGISTER: www.nyas.org/builtenvironment
Within the green building industry, there is an increasing focus on policy, standards, and interoperability of building data. Municipalities are requiring energy data disclosure to reduce GHG emissions, real estate companies are looking for performance data to refine building valuation, underwriters are looking past net operating income to accounting for the triple bottom line, tenants are looking to improve employee satisfaction and measure their achievement of sustainability goals, NREL is developing a building data taxonomy, and the USGBC is working to simplify the certification and ongoing monitoring of buildings.
The result is a virtual tsunami of data that without the proper tools, standards, and analytics, can overwhelm potential users, and may frustrate and obscure the market transformation opportunities created by the data’s availability.
Our intent is to look at the potential data pool for the entire industry. From building operations to real estate finance and draw out the value of different data sets in order to help organize data acquisition for greater utility, clarity in the industry, and for the conceptualization of business models that will support market innovation.
The first event in this effort is this discussion, which will outline the state of the industry. The panelists will explore both of the larger move towards data analytics and the current state of data utilization in the real estate industry. We will discuss variations due to building type, the use of environmental data, and municipal efforts to benchmark buildings. We will also take a broader perspective that will present how data analytics is transforming medical research, consumer products, advertising, and other industries in order to inspire a discussion on how this could translate to various sectors of the real estate industry.
This two-hour session on February 16th will be a preparatory event for a full-day conference on Data Analytics in the Built Environment that will be held on April 30th.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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NEW DELHI ? Two states in northern India with 20 million voters are choosing state assemblies in elections testing the popularity of the national government’s ruling Congress party.
Paramilitary troops patrolled thousands of polling stations for the votes Monday in Punjab and Uttarakhand states.
In Punjab, often called India’s bread basket, the Congress is trying to wrest power from a coalition including the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. Results of the elections are not expected until March 6.
The biggest test for Congress will be elections starting next week in India’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, which are viewed as a make or break moment for Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Gandhi has launched an intense campaign to dislodge the state’s ruling party.
KITAMAAT VILLAGE, British Columbia — The latest chapter in Canada’s quest to become a full-blown oil superpower unfolded this month in a village gym on the British Columbia coast.
Here, several hundred people gathered for hearings on whether a pipeline should be laid from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific in order to deliver oil to Asia, chiefly energy-hungry China. The stakes are particularly high for the village of Kitamaat and its neighbors, because the pipeline would terminate here and a port would be built to handle 220 tankers a year and 525,000 barrels of oil a day.
But the planned Northern Gateway Pipeline is just one aspect of an epic battle over Canada’s oil ambitions ? a battle that already has a supporting role in the U.S. presidential election, and which will help to shape North America’s future energy relationship with China.
It actually is a tale of two pipelines ? the one that is supposed to end at Kitamaat Village, and another that would have gone from Alberta to the Texas coast but was blocked by the Obama administration citing environmental grounds.
Those same environmental issues are certain to haunt Northern Gateway as the Joint Review Panel of energy and environmental officials canvasses opinion along the 1,177 kilometer (731 mile) route of the Northern Gateway pipeline to be built by Enbridge, a Canadian company.
The fear of oil spills is especially acute in this pristine corner of northwest British Columbia, with its snowcapped mountains and deep ocean inlets. People here still remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, and oil is still leaking from the Queen of the North, a ferry that sank off nearby Hartley Bay six years ago.
The seas nearby, in the Douglas Channel, “are very treacherous waters,” says David Suzuki, a leading environmentalist. “You take a supertanker that takes miles in order to stop, (and) an accident is absolutely inevitable.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada’s national interest makes the $5.5 billion pipeline essential. He was “profoundly disappointed” that U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the Texas Keystone XL option but also spoke of the need to diversify Canada’s oil industry. Ninety-seven percent of Canadian oil exports now go to the U.S.
“I think what’s happened around the Keystone is a wake-up call, the degree to which we are dependent or possibly held hostage to decisions in the United States, and especially decisions that may be made for very bad political reasons,” he told Canadian TV.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich quickly picked up the theme, saying that Harper, “who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American … has said he’s going cut a deal with the Chinese … We’ll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity.”
He charged that “An American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country.”
But the environmental objections that pushed Obama to block the pipeline to Texas apply equally to the Pacific pipeline, and the review panel says more than 4,000 people have signed up to testify.
The atmosphere has turned acrimonious, with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver claiming in an open letter that “environmental and other radical groups” are out to thwart Canada’s economic ascent.
He said they were bent on bogging down the panel’s work. And in an unusually caustic mention of Canada’s southern neighbor, he added: “If all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: Sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further.”
Environmentalists and First Nations (a Canadian synonym for native tribes) could delay approval all the way to the Supreme Court, and First Nations still hold title to some of the land the pipeline would cross, meaning the government will have to move with extreme sensitivity.
Alberta has the world’s third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela: more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025, which the oil industry sees as a pressing reason to build the pipelines.
Critics, however, dislike the whole concept of tapping the oil sands, saying it requires huge amounts of energy and water, increases greenhouse gas emissions and threatens rivers and forests. Some projects are massive open-pit mines, and the process of separating oil from sand can generate lake-sized pools of toxic sludge.
Meanwhile, China’s growing economy is hungry for Canadian oil. Chinese state-owned companies have invested more than $16 billion in Canadian energy in the past two years, state-controlled Sinopec has a stake in the pipeline, and if it is built, Chinese investment in Alberta oil sands is sure to boom.
“They (the Chinese) wonder why it’s not being built already,” said Wenran Jiang, an energy expert and professor at the University of Alberta.
In a report on China’s stake in Canadian energy, Jiang notes that if every Chinese burned oil at the rate Americans do, China’s daily consumption would equal the entire world’s.
Harper is set to visit China next month. After Obama first delayed the Keystone pipeline in November, Harper told Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Pacific Rim summit in Hawaii that Canada would like to sell more oil to China, and the Canadian prime minister filled in Obama on what he said.
Jiang reads that to mean “China has become leverage.”
But oil analysts say Alberta has enough oil to meet both countries’ needs, and the pipeline’s capacity of 525,000 barrels a day would amount to less than 6 percent of China’s current needs.
“I don’t think U.S. policymakers view China’s investment in the Canadian oil sands as a threat,” says David Goldwyn, a former energy official in the Obama administration.
“In the short term it provides additional investment to increase Canadian supply; that’s a good thing. Longer-term, if Canadian oil goes to China, that means China’s demand is being met by a non-OPEC country, and that’s a good thing for global oil supply. Right now we are spending an awful lot of time finding ways for China to meet its demand from some place other than Iran. Canada would be a great candidate.”
Pipelines are rarely rejected in Canada, but Murray Minchin, an environmentalist who lives near Kitamaat Village, says this time he and other opponents are determined to block construction. “They are ready to put themselves in front of something to stop the equipment,” Minchin said. “Even if it gets the green light it doesn’t mean it’s getting done.”
Enbridge is confident the pipeline will be built and claims about 40 percent of First Nation communities living along the route have entered into a long-term equity partnership with Enbridge. The communities together are being offered 10 percent ownership of the pipeline, meaning those which sign on will share an expected $400 million over 30 years.
But of the 43 eligible communities, only one went public with its acceptance and it has since reneged after fierce protests from its members.
Janet Holder, the Enbridge executive overseeing the project, says pipeline leaks are not inevitable, new technologies make monitoring more reliable, and tugboats will guide tankers through the Douglas Channel.
At the Kitamaat hearings, speakers ranged from Ellis Ross, chief of the Haisla First Nation in British Columbia, to Dieter Wagner, a German-born Canadian, retired scientist and veteran sailor who called the Douglas Channel “an insane route to take.”
Ross used to work on whale-watching boats, and refers to himself as a First Nation, a term applicable to individuals as well as groups. He testified that the tanker port would go up just as marine life decimated by industrial pollution was making a comeback in his territory.
He held the audience spellbound as he described an extraordinary nighttime encounter last summer with a whale that was “logging” ? the half-doze that passes for sleep in the cetacean world.
“…Midnight I hear this whale and it’s right outside the soccer field. … It’s waterfront, but I can hear this whale, and I can’t understand why it’s so close, something’s got to be wrong.
“So I walk down there with my daughter, my youngest daughter, and I try to flash a light down there, and quickly figured out it’s not in trouble, it’s sleeping. It’s resting right outside our soccer field.
“You can’t imagine what that means to a First Nation that’s watched his territory get destroyed over 60 years. You can’t imagine the feeling.”
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: INFI) today announced interim data from its double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 2 study comparing saridegib (also known as IPI-926) in combination with gemcitabine to placebo plus gemcitabine in 122 patients with previously untreated, metastatic pancreatic cancer. The primary endpoint of the Phase 2 study is overall survival.
While the final analysis is not complete, a preliminary analysis of data from the study that was completed yesterday showed a difference in survival favoring the placebo plus gemcitabine arm due to a higher rate of progressive disease in the saridegib plus gemcitabine arm. The median survival for patients receiving saridegib plus gemcitabine was less than the historical median survival for single-agent gemcitabine of approximately six months1,2, as compared to a median survival for the placebo plus gemcitabine arm of greater than six months. The adverse events observed in both arms were consistent with the known safety profile of each agent, with no unexpected toxicities. Based on this interim analysis, Infinity is voluntarily stopping the trial. The company expects to present the final data after the analyses are complete.
?While the outcome of this study is disappointing, we continue to believe in the therapeutic potential of Hedgehog pathway inhibition. As the Hedgehog pathway plays distinctly different biological roles in myelofibrosis and chondrosarcoma, our Phase 2 trials in these disease settings are ongoing,? stated Julian Adams, Ph.D., president of research and development at Infinity. ?We would like to especially acknowledge the patients and caregivers who have participated in this trial and thank them for their support.?
Infinity is conducting Phase 2 trials of saridegib as a single agent in myelofibrosis, an incurable malignancy of the bone marrow, and in chondrosarcoma, a rare and life-threatening cancer of the cartilage. Infinity expects to report data from its single-arm, exploratory Phase 2 trial of saridegib in up to 45 patients with myelofibrosis in the second half of 2012. The company expects to complete enrollment in its double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of saridegib in approximately 140 patients with metastatic or locally advanced, unresectable chondrosarcoma in the second half of 2012 and to report data from this trial in the first half of 2013.
Infinity has underway six clinical trials across three development programs, including saridegib, retaspimycin HCl (also known as IPI-504), a novel heat shock protein 90 inhibitor, and IPI-145, a potent, oral inhibitor of phosphoinositide-3-kinase delta and gamma. Infinity expects to report data from each of its three development programs in the second half of 2012.
?Despite the disappointment that this news represents, our financial foundation combined with the strength of our pipeline and team enable us to continue to invest in our pipeline of innovative product candidates,? stated Adelene Q. Perkins, president and chief executive officer at Infinity. ?We remain committed to our vision of building a sustainable company that discovers, develops and delivers important new therapies to patients.?
Infinity expects to provide updated financial guidance during its fourth quarter earnings call to be scheduled for later this quarter.
Saridegib Update on January 31, 2012, Cancelled
Infinity?s planned review of the saridegib program on January 31, 2012, at the Hotel Sofitel in New York City has been cancelled.
Conference Call Information
Infinity will host a conference call on Friday, January 27, 2012, at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss these results and provide an update on the company. A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed in the Investors/Media section of Infinity’s website at www.infi.com. To participate in the conference call, please dial 1-877-316-5293 (domestic) and 1-631-291-4526 (international) five minutes prior to start time. An archived version of the webcast will be available on Infinity’s website for 30 days.
About Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Infinity is an innovative drug discovery and development company seeking to discover, develop and deliver to patients best-in-class medicines for difficult-to-treat diseases. Infinity combines proven scientific expertise with a passion for developing novel small molecule drugs that target emerging disease pathways. Infinity?s programs focused on the inhibition of the Hedgehog pathway, heat shock protein 90 and phosphoinositide-3-kinase are evidence of its innovative approach to drug discovery and development. For more information on Infinity, please refer to the company?s website at www.infi.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include the expectation that Infinity will report final data from the Phase 2 trial of saridegib; will report data from each of its development programs in the second half of 2012, including the ongoing Phase 2 trial of saridegib in patients with myelofibrosis; will complete enrollment in the ongoing Phase 2 trial of saridegib in patients with chondrosarcoma in the second half of 2012 and report data from this trial in the first half of 2013; and will provide updated financial guidance during its fourth quarter earnings call later this quarter. Such statements are subject to numerous factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially from the company?s current expectations. For example, there can be no guarantee that Infinity?s strategic alliance with Mundipharma will continue for its expected term or that it will fund Infinity?s programs as agreed, that any product candidate Infinity is developing will successfully complete necessary preclinical and clinical development phases, or that development of any of Infinity?s product candidates will continue. Further, there can be no guarantee that any positive developments in Infinity?s product portfolio will result in stock price appreciation. Management?s expectations could also be affected by risks and uncertainties relating to: Infinity?s results of clinical trials and preclinical studies, including subsequent analysis of existing data and new data received from ongoing and future studies; the content and timing of decisions made by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory authorities, investigational review boards at clinical trial sites and publication review bodies; Infinity?s ability to enroll patients in its clinical trials; unplanned cash requirements and expenditures, including in connection with business development activities; development of agents by Infinity?s competitors for diseases in which Infinity is currently developing its product candidates; and Infinity?s ability to obtain, maintain and enforce patent and other intellectual property protection for any product candidates it is developing. These and other risks which may impact management?s expectations are described in greater detail under the caption ?Risk Factors? included in Infinity?s quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2011, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 8, 2011. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof, and Infinity expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
1 Moore MJ, Goldstein D, Hamm J, Figer A, Hecht JR, Gallinger S, et al. Erlotinib plus gemcitabine compared with gemcitabine alone in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer: a phase III trial of the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group. J Clin Oncol 2007; 25:1960-6.
2 Seitz JF, Dahan L, Ries P. Pemetrexed in pancreatic cancer. Oncology 2004; 18(13 Suppl 8):43-7.
Source: www.newadvent.org — Thursday, January 26, 2012 As the Sabbath evening approached on Jan. 13, Ehud Barak paced the wide living-room floor of his home high above a street in north Tel Aviv, its walls lined with thousands of books on subjects ranging from philosophy and poetry to military strategy. Barak, the Israeli defense minister, is the most decorated soldier in the country?s history and one of its most experienced and controversial politicians. He has served as chief of the general staff for the Israel Defense Forces, interior minister, foreign minister and prime minister. He now faces, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 12 other members of Israel?s inner security cabinet, the most important decision of his life ? whether to launch a pre-emptive attack against Iran. We met in the late afternoon, and our conversation ? the first of several over the next week ? lasted for two and a half hours, long past nightfall. ?This is not about some abstract concept,? Barak said as he gazed out at the lights of Tel Aviv, ?but a genuine concern. The Iranians are, after all, a nation whose leaders have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map.? …
(Reuters) ? Starbucks Corp reported a quarterly profit that topped Wall Street’s view, but its shares fell as investors in the world’s biggest coffee chain focused on softness in Europe rather than strength in the United States.
The company’s shares, up roughly 45 percent from a year ago and hovering near all-time highs, were off 2.2 percent at $47.26 in extended trading after closing at $48.34.
Starbucks and other top-performing restaurant chains like McDonald’s Corp have been on a tear and their stocks often sell off on anything but absolutely pristine results.
Sales from cafes open at least 13 months were up just 2 percent for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, versus the 9 percent gain for the much larger America unit, chiefly from the United States.
Chief Financial Officer Troy Alstead said on a webcast that Starbucks has been underperforming internal targets in Europe — where debt worries and high unemployment weigh heavily on consumers — and that the company has taken steps to improve results there.
Operating margin for the EMEA unit was 6.5 percent in the first quarter, down from 9.7 percent a year earlier.
Starbucks said the margin contraction was primarily due to higher distribution costs related to moving to a consolidated distribution center in its UK market.
Britain’s recovery from the 2008/2009 recession – the deepest since the depression-hit 1930s – has been sluggish.
Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo said results from Europe were weaker than expected, but that they needed to be seen in context.
“A 2 percent comp is still pretty good considering what’s going on over there,” Russo said, referring to Europe’s sales at established restaurants.
Based on its better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results, the company raised the low end of its full-year profit forecast to a range of $1.78 to $1.82 per share from $1.75 to$1.82.
“They’re being conservative. It’s so early in the year,” Lazard Capital Markets analyst Matthew DiFrisco said when asked about the company’s revised fiscal 2012 forecast.
When asked if the company has noticed any evidence of softening consumer demand due to the still volatile economic conditions around the world, CFO Alstead said: “We haven’t seen it.”
Global sales at established Starbucks cafes jumped 9 percent, helped by an increase in customer visits and spending per transaction. That beat the 7.7 percent gain analysts, on average, expected, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Net income was $382.1 million, or 50 cents per share, for the quarter ended January 1. That was up from $346.6 million, or 45 cents, in the year earlier period.
Analysts, on average, were looking for a profit of 49 cents per share in the latest quarter, according to Thomson Reuters
I/B/E/S.
Total revenue rose 16 percent to $3.4 billion.
The Seattle-based company has been raising prices on some drinks to help offset higher costs for commodities like coffee and milk.
Starbucks expects new products to build sales as the year progresses.
In November it started selling its coffee and Tazo tea for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc’s popular Keurig machines, which control about 80 percent of the fast-growing North American single-serve brewing segment.
It then expanded its coffee lineup in January with “Blonde,” the company’s lightest roast to date. That new coffee is widely seen as an answer to McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, which each brew lighter roasts than Starbucks. Those chains also have gone after Starbucks’ core business by introducing drinks such as lattes and frappes.
Starbucks, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Panera Bread Co cater to relatively upscale consumers and have been outperforming the broader restaurant industry, whose overall sales are expected to lag population growth this decade.
(Reporting By Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; editing by Andre Grenon, Phil Berlowitz)
Big changes hit the nation’s airlines today, with new rules going into effect including how they advertise ticket prices. More from Travel and Leisure editor Mark Orwoll.
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) ? A tornado hit Austin, Texas, and thunderstorms pounded San Antonio, Dallas and Houston on Wednesday, bringing the parched Lone Star State drenching rains and destructive winds that knocked out power, flooded streets and kept emergency workers busy rescuing drivers stranded in high water.
The tornado touched down early Wednesday in northeast Austin, tearing across U.S. 290 and into a subdivision, damaging homes along a road called Happy Trail, according to the National Weather Service.
Springlike moisture from the Gulf of Mexico dropped the heaviest rainfall – 6-8 inches – on an area east of Austin and San Antonio and extending south into Houston, it added.
“That’s very unusual for this time of year,” NWS meteorologist Mark Wiley said. “It was just so much rain in such a short period of time. In so many areas, the ground is still fairly dry, but it was just so fast that it didn’t have anywhere to go, especially in the urban areas.”
There were no reports of injuries.
By Wednesday afternoon, the storms were pushing into Louisiana and were expected to head into Mississippi and Alabama on Thursday, the NWS said.
In Bastrop, an area east of Austin heavily damaged by Labor Day weekend wildfires, schools canceled classes on Wednesday. In Pflugerville, north of Austin, school buses were delayed Wednesday morning because the school district’s bus barn was damaged overnight, the district website said. And the Houston Independent School District canceled after-school activities.
Wind toppled an 18-wheeler in on IH-45 in Madison County, between Dallas and Houston, officials said. More than 30 flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Wednesday morning.
In San Antonio, lightning hit an apartment complex on the city’s north side as storms blew through, sparking a fire that forced people into the driving rain and destroyed four apartments, officials said.
Between Austin and Houston, in Brenham, high winds twisted trees and tore the roofs off a couple of buildings in the downtown area, said Ricky Boeker, fire chief and emergency management coordinator.
“It sounded like the world was coming apart — I’m not going to lie,” Boeker told Reuters.
The severe weather in Texas follows damaging storms and tornadoes that swept through Arkansas and Alabama earlier in the week.
In Texas, “while most of the region is still in the grips of a severe drought and very much needs the rain, too much rain too quickly can do more harm than good,” AccuWeather.com meteorologist Mark Miller said in a Wednesday report. “Still, the rain will go a long way in helping to reduce the severity of the drought in exceptionally dry locations.”
Last year was the driest year on record in Texas and the second-hottest, according to the NWS.
CPS Energy, the South Texas electric utility, reported more than 30,000 customers without power as wind snapped electric power lines and knocked out traffic signals during the morning rush hour in San Antonio. In Austin, some 5,000 customers of Austin Energy lost power, the company said. As many as 5,000 homes and businesses in the Dallas area also lost power, according to Oncor Delivery.
As San Antonio resident Johnny Grant surveyed damage to homes in his northwest San Antonio neighborhood on Wednesday, he said of the storm: “It sounded like a freight train to me. It was something terrible.”
(Additional reporting by Jim Forsyth, Lauren Keiper, Deborah Quinn Hensel and Marice Richter. Editing by Paul Thomasch)
MOBERLY, Mo. ? After 19 years running state unemployment offices across northern Missouri, Steve Moore can rattle off the names of shuttered factories in this old railroad town with ease.
There’s Matcor Automotive, a parts manufacturer that at its peak employed 300 workers but closed in June 2010 in response to declining production by General Motors. Textbook publisher Scholastic Inc. is closing its Moberly packaging center, costing the town another 100 jobs.
Then there’s the biggest blow of all: the failed promises of Mamtek U.S. Inc., a Chinese-owned artificial sweetener factory backed by $7.6 million in state tax incentives and $39 million of local bonds that went belly up in 2011 when the company’s bond payments dried up. More than 600 promised jobs went up in smoke, with the deal now facing scrutiny by Missouri lawmakers and a pair of investigations by the state’s attorney general and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“There was a lot of anticipation, and then a lot of disappointment,” Moore said. “Let’s be honest. Everybody had hoped that something was going to come out of it.”
As President Barack Obama again pledged to repair the American economy in his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night, some Moberly residents chalked up his pronouncements as just more rosy rhetoric by a politician ? not unlike the July 2010 day when Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and former Gov. Bob Holden came to the town of nearly 14,000 and hailed the Mamtek project’s potential.
Others blamed an intractable Congress for not working more closely with the president to lift the country’s economy. Still more held out hope that manufacturing companies lured by the region’s low cost-of-living and central location would once again seek out Moberly, a 136-year-old railroad hub that became known as the Magic City in the late 19th century for its seemingly overnight emergence on once-empty prairie.
“We got a promise that he didn’t keep,” said business owner Diane Harlan. “He promised our economy was going to be better, and it’s not. In this small community, we were under the false hope that everything was going to be OK, and it’s not.”
Harlan spent seven years as executive director of Main Street Moberly, which represents downtown business owners, before opening the Darn It Yarn store seven months ago after the business group cut her full-time job to 20 hours a week. She voted for John McCain in 2008 but hasn’t yet made up her mind about the 2012 election.
While vacant storefronts dot downtown Moberly, Harlan said her business has succeeded beyond expectations, allowing her to drop that part-time job starting next week. A handful of similar small businesses have sprouted nearby, from a sewing shop to a secondhand furniture store.
“People are finally figuring out, we can’t depend on our leader to get us out of something that we’ve created,” she said. “We’ve got to go back to the grassroots. More self-sufficiency, doing things on our own, teaching our children, instead of depending on a man sitting in a white castle to take care of us and make things right.”
David Gaines, a vice president with the Moberly Area Economic Development Commission, is among the local officials who helped court Mamtek in a deal given the code name “Project Sugar” before it was publicly disclosed. Count him among those looking for more leadership from those in the audience at Tuesday night’s speech.
“It’s not so much what he says but what they do,” Gaines said, referring to Congress. “They need to quit talking and do something.
“That’s what is holding consumer confidence down, is the inability of Congress on both sides of the aisle to do what the people elected them to do,” he added.
After the speech, Gaines said he was heartened to hear the president urge lawmakers to work together, not against one another.
“I do like the fact that he said it’s time to stop the divisiveness between the two parties,” Gaines said. “If they set the right tone, everyone will follow along. If they don’t, the nation will just drift.”
Political affiliation aside, Moberly residents interviewed Tuesday tended to agree that improving the economy and creating more local jobs are the most important issues facing their community and the country. Look no further than a commuter parking lot along U.S. 63 packed with cars while their owners work 35 miles south in the college town of Columbia. Moberly, in turn, attracts workers from dozens of surrounding rural towns.
“Folks are regularly commuting 40 or 50 or 60 miles to go to work every day,” Gaines said. “When we share that with the folks we talk to in Atlanta and Chicago and LA, they are quite amazed that people are willing to commute that far for a good job. But they have to.”
Elsewhere in Moberly, Obama’s speech was met with disinterest, if not outright scorn. At Nelly’s Someplace Else restaurant, dozens of Republicans filed past a pair of televisions showing the president’s address as the monthly meeting of the Randolph Area Pachyderms Club. Few stopped to listen, though some jeered as they walked past.
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Follow Alan Scher Zagier at http://twitter.com/azagier
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Public release date: 30-Jan-2012
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