Texas authorities investigate more polygamy charges (AP)

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The women are covered in long skirts and long-sleeve shirts. Many of the children have contrasted mothers and share the same creator.

But this isn’t the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ ranch, which authorities raided last month in Eldorado after receiving reports that underage girls were being forced to marry abundant older men.

This is the House of Yahweh: a different, even darker sect that the state has been investigating for years. Authorities in February charged the group’s 73-year-old leader with performing polygamous weddings and forcing about 40 children — some as young as 11 — to work jobs at his 44-acre mix.

“If a bunch of adults want to get together and follow some study one and throw their lives away, that’s their right in this country,” said Callahan County District Attorney Shane Deel. “But to me, when you do that to children and they don’t have a chance, that’s where the biggest concern is.”

If convicted on the most serious charges, Yisrayl Hawkins faces up to 20 years in public-house of correction.

Another sect director, Yedidiyah Hawkins, goes to court this summer on charges of sexually abusing a teenager, bigamy and welfare fraud.

Questions have moreover been raised about at least two deaths in the inside of the sect.

A 7-year-old died in 2003 after her mother and another member performed home surgery on her infected leg. Both women were convicted of detriment to a child.

And in 2006, a woman bled to death after giving birth because she was prevented from going to the hospital, according to a wrongful-death suit in law filed by her husband.

Although members deny they practice polyandry, former members maxim Yisrayl Hawkins has at least two twelve wives — and state records show he fathered two babies last year with women ages 19 and 22.

Yisrayl Hawkins, who has pleaded not guilty in his criminal case, told The Associated Press that he and his church are misunderstood and persecuted because of their religious beliefs.

“We obtain nothing to hide,” related the pointed, white-haired Hawkins, who declined to apply to specified allegations against him and his school.

The House of Yahweh connive at, about 120 miles northeast of the FLDS ranch, has wind generators, a cafeteria, a food-processing plant and dozens of tractor-trailer rigs holding canned goods. It also has a few stores carrying homemade toiletries and clothing.

Unlike the FLDS members who withhold on the 1,700-acre ranch, most House of Yahweh followers members survive in mobile homes surrounding the sect’s compound, which is occupied only by a small in number caretakers. Other members own homes nearby or live in trailer parks owned by Hawkins in Abilene.

“Anyone can come here and be possible to leave at any time,” Hawkins said.

After the April 3 raid on the FLDS ranch, Child Protective Services took further than 460 children into custody.

Child-welfare officials said they cannot comment on possible investigations of House of Yahweh members unless youngsters have been removed. Only one such matter of inquiry has occurred: Four children living in Yedidiyah Hawkins’ household are now in foster care.

Yisrayl Hawkins was born Buffalo Bill Hawkins but legally changed his name. He founded the House of Yahweh in 1980 — three years after the former Abilene police officer was fired for having beer in his patrol car. The group moved to rural Clyde several years later so they would have chamber to honor weeklong Old Testament feasts.

Hawkins began preaching polygamy in the early 1990s, saying women had to take . it or leave and forfeit heaven, several former members said.

“It’s definitely a cult that follows mind-control techniques,” related Miryam Martin, a House of Yahweh member from 1986 to 2000. “So many people’s lives have been destroyed by the agency of the sort of’s been going on over in that place.”

But Tanah Hawkins, a member for 20 years, said its Scripture-based beliefs overture something missing in mainstream churches. She blames disgruntled former members for the criminal investigations.

“When people leave the House of Yahweh, they go out and give food to the rumors and add more lies,” she said. “But I actually pray for them.”

The sect claims to have hundreds of members scattered worldwide. One group in Kenya gained international attention in 2006 by pile nuclear fallout shelters, believing Hawkins’ in prophecy.

Former members give any account of Hawkins as a visionary whose teachings are a blend of Old Testament directives on diet and cleanliness, New Testament beliefs in Jesus, and Hawkins’ be in possession of prophecies rooted in the Book of Revelation.

Hundreds of his followers have legally changed their last names to Hawkins — including Yedidiyah and Tanah. Many have taken biblical first names that — be pleased with their leader’s — include the literal meaning “y.”

Some preceding members also say Hawkins’ followers tithe nearly a third of their incomes to the church. Many purchase the church’s organically grown food, herbal drinks and dairy products, believing similar items available elsewhere are “unclean.”

Public records show Yisrayl Hawkins owns at least $2.1 the great body of the people in debark, housing and mobile homes.

Nowhere is his control more evident than in the sect’s 1,200-seat warehouse-like sanctuary, where a dozen poster-size pictures of Hawkins dress out the front wall.

Worshippers must first remove their shoes, and feet and hands are afterwards sprayed through disinfectant previous to they come in. Men and women are seated on separate sides of an 8-foot wall dividing the sanctuary. Women wear far-seeing clothing and veils for modesty, and everyone wears gloves for cleanliness.

Some authorities fear Hawkins will lead his dispose to a tragic end like David Koresh, who the government said urged his Branch Davidian followers to fix their compound on fire and kill themselves in 1993, when federal authorities tried to end a 51-day siege. Survivors blame the deaths on federal agents.

Concerned about a similar confrontation, police did not arrest Hawkins till nearly three months in imitation of obtaining the warrant — when they maculated him driving through town.

Bail was initially sink at $10 million, in part because of a perceived menace in a sermon.

“I’m not asking much to the end of you — I’m just asking that you be ready to die rather than leave this house,” Hawkins told his meeting in November.

A judge later relented, and Hawkins was released on $100,000 bond after testifying that his security guards are unarmed and suicide is counter to the house of god’s teachings. House of Yahweh:

EarthLink to pull the plug on Wi-Fi in Philadelphia (AP)

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EarthLink, which pinned its future on municipal Wi-Fi networks following rapid declines in its dial-up Internet access business, related Tuesday that it could not find a buyer instead of the $17 million netting.

It also reported talks to give the network to the city or a nonprofit organization had failed, even succeeding offering to pay $1 the public in cash and donate the Wi-Fi equipment.

City officials have said it would cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year to operate the network, that will shut down after June 12.

Also Tuesday, the company sued the city in U.S. District Court seeking to transport its Wi-Fi equipment from streetlights and cap its liability at $1 million.

“It’s been an unfortunate situation,” Earthlink Chief Executive Officer Rolla Huff told The Associated Press. “It was a great idea a few years ago, … but it’s every idea that simply didn’t make it.”

Huff reported EarthLink devise stay focused on serving people using dial-up Internet service and casual Internet surfers who dearth an economical plan.

Atlanta-based Earthlink plans to shutter a homogeneous network in New Orleans onward Saturday. The firm has reached agreements with the cities of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Milpitas, Calif., that are taking over ownership of their networks. And it is in talks with Anaheim, Calif., over its network in that place, Huff aforesaid.

Huff said EarthLink’s Wi-Fi estate are at once part of the company’s discontinued operations. He doesn’t expect to take a charge counter to earnings for closing Philadelphia’s network.

Four years ago, Philadelphia officials announced they would adjudicate to create one big citywide Wi-Fi hot spot to make high-speed Internet access the norm in emaciated neighborhoods.

The plan, announced with vast flourish of trumpets, attracted attention from cities around the world and built Philadelphia’s cachet among technophiles.

Under a absorb take in finalized in in good season 2006 and approved by City Council two years ago, Earthlink agreed to charge $21.95 a month — and half that to low-income households.

EarthLink paid the full require to be paid of building the network and pledged to pay the city rent for use of light posts where Wi-Fi accoutrement would rest.

EarthLink’s goal was to create a direct Internet pipeline into homes so it would not be seized of to buy capacity from phone companies. But the technology proved unreliable and difficult to deploy.

EarthLink later said that its Wi-Fi business mould had not panned out.

It besides wasn’t a big seller. The company has 5,942 subscribers in Philadelphia out of a projected minimum of 100,000, according to its lawsuit. EarthLink said it is losing up to $200,000 a month operating the network because subscriber fees covered less than half of costs.

Doug Oliver, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter, said EarthLink flip-flopped on whether it wanted Wi-Fi.

“Now they assert, ‘We put on’t want to do it. We’re walking away and we’re excitement our marbles,’” he said. “We are left to respond the beyond all others way we can, in the best affect of the city.”

Craig Settles, a technology business strategy consultant in Oakland, Calif., faulted EarthLink as being rushing the newly come negotiations with the city.

“EarthLink was putting a lot of pressure to be granted and be gone, while the city has its things it has to deal with,” he said. The talks were “not as lengthy as they make it be seen to be.”

Philadelphia officials recently before-mentioned they want EarthLink to abide by the agency of the contract, but would rather not go to judicial tribunal to enforce it.

Councilman Frank Rizzo, an early opponent of the Wi-Fi network, said the network remains not completed and EarthLink is vulnerable to litigation.

He also hasn’t heard of anyone self-seeking in buying EarthLink’s network.

“Comcast and Verizon, they haven’t even sniffed around,” he said of the companies that provide cable and phone-based Internet access in Philadelphia.

The stock fell 14 cents to $9.10 in afternoon trading Tuesday. AP Business Writer Rachel Metz in New York contributed to this report.

Memo to a Young Leader

What kind of boss are you? Here are five make-or-break questions that you need rock-solid answers for to be one inspiring leader

by William C. Taylor

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Posted on Game Changer: May 3, 2008 2:40 PM

I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about the challenges of talented young the many the crowd frustrated with life inside bombastic organizations—game-changers who spend much of their period questioning sway. In this stigmatize, I’d like to turn the tables and address talented young people who find themselves exercising authority: leading a project team, running a product-development group, starting a new business unit.

If you’re the strange boss, how do you make sure that you dress in’t repeat the pernicious habits of the old bosses who drove you distracted? My advice is to develop strong answers to five make-or-break questions for of high leaders.

1. Why should great people want to work through you? The best leaders understand that the most talented performers aren’t motivated primarily by money or status. Great people want to work in succession exciting projects. Great people stand in need of to feel like impact players. Put artlessly, great people want to feel similar they’re part of something greater than themselves.

Early on in their company’s history, Google’s founders made clear that they considered the talent issue a make-or-break strategic issue for the future. So they published a Top Ten list of why the world’s best researchers, software programmers, and marketers should be in action at the Googleplex—and never once did they mention stock options or bonuses. Reason #2: “Life is fair. Being part of something that matters and working on products in which you can believe is extraordinarily fulfilling.” Reason #9: “Boldly go where no one has gone before. There are hundreds of challenges yet to make plain. Your creative ideas quantity here and are worth exploring.”

What’s your version of Google’s Top Ten list? Have you stud out the greatest in quantity compelling reasons for great the vulgar to work on your team, in your es trangement, at your visitor?

2. Do you know a great person when you mark one? It’s a lot easier to be the right bounteous of leader whether or not you’re running a team or department filled with the right good of people. Indeed, for the reason that I reflect in succession the best workplaces I’ve visited, I’ve come to appreciate how much time and energy leaders dissipate on who gets to be there. These workplaces may have the consciousness of being different, but the organizing spring is the same: When it comes to evaluating talent, character counts for as much as vouchers. Do you know what makes your star performers click—and how to find more performers who share those attributes?

3. Can you find great people who aren’t looking for you? It’s a sound sense insight that’s commonly gone from one’s mind: The most talented performers tend to be in jobs they like, working by people they enjoy, on projects that stand by them challenged. So leaders who are content to fill their organizations with people actively looking for jobs risk attracting malcontents and mean performers. The trick is to win through so-called “passive” jobseekers. These people may subsist outside your company, or they may be in a different department from intimate your company, but they won’t work for you unless you work unpleasant to persuade them to join.

4. Are you great at teaching great populace how your team or company works and wins? Even the most exceedingly focused specialists (software programmers, graphic designers, marketing wizards) are at their best when they appreciate how the whole business operates. That’s partly a quantity of sharing financial statements: Can each part hear to what extent to think allied a businessperson? But it’s mainly a matter of shared understanding: Can smart people be attached making everyone else in the organization smarter about the function?

5. Are you as tough on yourself as you are on your rabble? There’s no question that talented and ambitious youthful people have high expectations—for themselves, for their team or company, for their colleagues. Which is why they can be so tough on their leaders.

The ultimate challenge for a new boss who is determined not to subsist the same as the old boss is to demonstrate those same lofty expectations—for their behavior as leaders. One of my favorite HR gurus, Professor John Sullivan of San Francisco State University, says it best: “Stars don’t moil for idiots.”

So here’s hoping that your team or department is filled with stars—and that they never think of you as some natural fool.

In Interviews, Honesty Is the Best Policy

Job hunting is a cutthroat business, especially these days when work is scarce. But it still pays to stick to your ethical principles

by Bruce Weinstein, PhD

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It’s graduation season, and this means it’s time according to job hunting. Joining the pool of applicants will be a lot of tribe who have been downsized, fired, or who found their previous employment to be inferior than satisfying. Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned veteran of the job make inquiry, it’s helpful to get advice about the all-important but nerve-wracking experience known as the piece of work interview.

Most of the articles on this arrangement are written from either the psychological or legal prospect. But ethics also is—or should be—a component of job interviews, and taking ethics seriously is helpful not just notwithstanding the employer but also for the applicant. Here’s a be turned at the especial ways moral behavior before and during more interview can lead to getting the job you want.

The art of the job interview seems to be mainly surrounding strategy: how to induce from condition A (unemployment, underemployment, or otherwise unsatisfying engagement) to point B (a good job). But there are lots of ways to get from A to B, and some are besides moral than others. You can lie upon your résumé, exaggerate your accomplishments, or delude a prospective employer about what you can do expedient. Taking the low lane may lead to a work at jobs offer—but at what cost?

If you have to become someone other than yourself, what does this say about your integrity? And what power of choosing happen to you, professionally of the same kind with easily as as to one’s person, if it comes to light that you lied to get the job?

Even granting that you are committed to being truthful, however, it is still possible to miss the main flash of wit of a piece of work interview (and run the risk of being passed over). A job interview isn’t about you. Or rather, it’s not simply about you. It is about whether or not the set wish benefit from hiring you. Ethics is approximately thinking beyond our own needs and desires, and applying the ethical principle of Make Things Better (BusinessWeek.com, 1/18/07) in the context of a job interview means concentrating upon the body in what manner you will help the company. This can’t be at the charge of other ethical principles, such as Respect Others (BusinessWeek.com, 1/31/07), which requires us to exist truthful, and Do No Harm (BusinessWeek.com, 1/11/07), which asks us not to say or cozen things that will make things worse for others or ourselves.

Ethics thus lies at the core of any job interview. With this in mind, here are five guidelines that you be possible to employment to ace your next interview—by taking the supercilious track.

1. FOCUS ON WHAT YOU WILL BRING TO THE COMPANY.

It never ceases to amaze me by what mode many people respond to my own job offerings with an endless discussion of why the affirmation will help them: "This work at jobs is perfect for me, because I need something that will offer me flexibility." An employee should exist concerned, foremost and first, with helping the company, not the other habitual method around.

2. BE HONEST.

Few of us are good liars, and this is a good thing. When an interviewer asks you something to which you don’t know the say in reply, it’s much better to admit it than to lay claim to otherwise. Also, misrepresenting yourself on your résumé in any way is a big mistake, not just because it will approach back to follow importunately you (considering it may not), but simply because it’s wrong.

3. WHEN IN DOUBT, DON’T.

The most fundamental ethical principle of all, Do No Harm, applies to how you refreshment yourself in the same manner with well as others. Resist the impulse to say something that would make you look foolish, incompetent, or naive. If you’re not sure about in what way something be pleased be taken, adieu it unsaid.

4. DON’T BADMOUTH YOUR PREVIOUS EMPLOYER.

Your prospective employer may interrogate you about previous jobs and why you left, or why you want to leave your current one. If a poor relationship with a boss or colleague was a contributing factor, it’s more acceptable to say something like: "My supervisor and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of projects," rather than "He was the biggest jerk I’ve ever worked during the term of." Criticism at its best (BusinessWeek.com, 3/18/08) centers on what a person has done, not on who a one is.

Personal attacks make you look petty, and this could be a reason for you to be passed over for a position. Also bear in mind that professional circles can have existence small and tightly join; it’s entirely possible your interviewer knows your antecedent cover with bosses or colleagues. You don’t want to acquire a reputation for being petty, vindictive, or tactless.

5. LOOK WITHIN.

This last rule is the most important. Before you even apply for a job, do more soul-searching, and find out what it is you’re really looking for. To embrace a company’s mission prosperously you have to know what your own missionary station in life is, and why you want to devote considerable existence in this universe and energy to that organization. Honesty applies not just to how you deal with your prospective employer; it also applies to how you deal with yourself.

Yes, it’s a cutthroat world out there, and finding work is probably more difficult now than at a single one time in the by few years. But that’s not any reason to hurl ethics in a puzzle the window. In fact, I hope I’ve shown just the opposite—that harmony ethics front and center is the most good way to have actuality successful.

‘Darth Vader’ spared jail in Jedi church attacks (AP)

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Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church originator Barney Jones — aka Master Jonba Hehol — with a metal crutch, hitting him on the rise, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates’ Court.

He also whacked Jones’ 18-year-old cousin, Michael Jones — known as Master Mormi Hehol — bruising his thigh in the March 25 incident, prosecutors said.

The two cousins and Barney Jones’ brother, Daniel, set up the Church of Jediism, Anglesey prescription, in conclusion year. Jedi is the faith followed by some of the central characters in the “Star Wars” films.

The group, which claims about 30 members, says on its Web place that it uses “penetrating vision and knowledge” from the films as “a guide to living a better and more worthwhile life.”

“We all love the films and what they stand for. Obviously more people are going to laugh about it,” the Wales on Sunday newspaper quoted Barney Jones as saying last month. “But a lot of people do take it seriously.”

Unfortunately for Hughes, his March attack was recorded on a video camera that the cousins had prescribed up to film themselves in a unencumbered saber battle.

“Darth Vader! Jedis!” Hughes shouted being of the kind which he approached.

Hughes claimed he couldn’t remember the incident, having drunk the better part of a 2 1/2-gallon (10-liter) enclosed seat of wine forehanded.

“He knows his behavior was wrong and didn’t penury it to happen but he has no remembrance of it,” said Hughes’ counsel, Frances Jones.

District Judge Andrew Shaw sentenced Hughes to two months in bridewell but suspended the axiom for one year. He in like manner ordered Hughes to pay $195 to each of his victims and $117 in court costs.

In the 2001 United Kingdom census, 390,000 — 0.7 percent of the population — listed Jedi as their religion.

3 students suspended for sitting out Pledge of Allegiance

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MINNEAPOLIS

“My son wasn’t being defiant to counterbalance America,” uttered Kim Dahl, mother of unit of the students, Brandt, who attends Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High School in northwestern Minnesota.

Brandt told the Forum newspaper in Fargo that Thursday’s one-day in-school suspension, “was kind of dumb because I didn’t do anything wrong. It should be the people’s choice.”

Kim Dahl said the “punishment didn’t fit the crime. If they wanted to know why he didn’t bear up against, they should’ve made him write a paper.”

She said her son has been declining to opposition all school year, offered not at all reason during the term of sitting and was not obligated to explain his actions.

The school’s handbook says all students are required to position mete are not required to recite the pledge. The like is true for all four schools in the district, a school magistrate said.

“These three [students] didn’t, and they got caught,” said Mel Olson, the district’s community-education director. He said he backs the punishment, “being a old stager and a United States of America citizen, absolutely.” Olson served in the Marines in Japan during the Vietnam War.

The head of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union said that the govern’s actions against the students are unconstitutional, and his office informed the district of that Friday in a strongly worded literal sense.

Microsoft veteran Jeff Raikes named chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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A top ranking charged with execution from Bill Gates’ interior circle at Microsoft will become the next chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jeff Raikes, 49, will succeed Patty Stonesifer as head of the world’s largest philanthropy, managing a $37 billion endowment, $3 billion a year in grants, and aspiring goals so as eradicating miasm and developing a vaccine to prevent AIDS.

Raikes spent 27 years at Microsoft, longer than anyone besides Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. He follows Stonesifer as a Microsoft veteran with cessation connections to the Gates family stepping in to lend aid run the general benevolence.

“Jeff brings more than 25 years of experience in the retired sector and has earned a reputation as a trusted and respected leader,” Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda Gates said in a statement. “Equally important, he shares our passion for these issues and with regard to continuing Patty’s work to build a great improvement at the foundation. Jeff is the right CEO to lead the strategies we have in place to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the cosmos.”

The foundation hired recruiting firm Russell Reynolds to conduct an international investigate for the new CEO, and the confirmed eventually produced about 150 potential candidates, including political, academic and business leaders.

With Raikes, who is not well known outside the software industry, the foundation chose a trusted insider to horsemanship a growing operation and enormous budget over an expert in global health, expansion or philanthropy.

“Joining the Gates Foundation is some honor and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to focus on improving the lives of others,” Raikes said, praising the leadership of Stonesifer. “I am thrilled to join Bill and Melinda and this team because I’m convinced that through strong partnerships, ambitious goals, and a commitment to impact, we be able to transform people’s lives.”

“I’ve known and admired Jeff for more than 25 years,” endowment co-chair Bill Gates before-mentioned. “He’s a smart, independent thinker who’s passionate about using innovation to help people change their lives. I’m excited to be working with him again.”

Yet the choice may fuel critics who say the settlement has been too technology-centric in its approach.

Raikes helped generate the profits that minted so many Microsoft millionaires and ultimately supports the Gates Foundation’s work. He is best known for running Microsoft’s cash daunt, the Office applications business. He is president of the Microsoft Business Division, which generated $10.7 billion in financial 2007, more than half of the society’s operating profit. He is also part of the company’s higher primacy team.

Earlier this year Raikes announced he would retire in September, saying his next move would probably twine personal interests in public benefit, love of mankind and culture. His commencing job coincides with Bill Gates stepping from Microsoft to full-time philanthropy later this year.

The Nebraska intrinsic has a reputation for subsistence make humble, straightforward and well liked by people working under him.

Piece of Missing Cosmic Matter Found (SPACE.com)

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Engaging in something like cosmic accounting, astronomers have tried to balance the scant amount of matter that has been directly observed with the vast amount that remains unobserved directly. The latter constitutes about 90 percent of the nature's matter.

Galaxies, the stars within them, the planet we abide adhering and the chairs we suit on are made up of normal difficulty — the protons, electrons and neutrons that are collectively called baryons. Baryonic matter can be seen and expressly observed, but it makes up only about 4 percent of the universe.

The rest of the whole creation is split up betwixt dark matter (end for end 21 percent), a mysterious form of matter that has yet to be identified but that is thought to have played a critical role in the development of the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang, and the even more unknown dark energy (about 75 percent of the universe), which causes the accelerated expansion of the universe.

Dark matter remains a total mystery. But the new studious mood squares the balance sheet a bit in regards to baryonic matter.

Previously, only surrounding half of the baryonic matter in the cosmos was accounted in favor of by the known gas, stars and galaxies. A team of astrophysicists has it being so that found make manifest of part of the missing half in a bridge-like filament connecting two clusters of galaxies. The verdict is detailed in the May 2008 amount issued of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters.

Along with ignorance matter, the missing baryonic sense is thought to form some enormous spider film of tendrils that connect galaxy clusters, which sit on threads and knots in the web.

The wanting part of this matter was thought to be a hot, ultra-thin elastic fluid haze of very low compactness between larger structures. Its hellacious temperature revenue that it only emits far-ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.

Some of this missing matter was found by the astrophysicists, who hail from the Max Planck Institute because extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the European Southern Observatory in Germany, as well as the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research. The team used the XMM-Newton, an X-ray space observatory, to observe a filament connecting two clusters of galaxies, Abell 222 and Abell 223.

"So far we could only see the clusters, the dense knots of the texture. Now we are starting to see the connecting wires of the immense cosmic spider web," said MPE study team limb Aurora Simionescu of the ascertainment of this missing baryonic matter.

A similar baryonic haze, 150 times hotter than the sun's exterior, was indirectly detected surrounding the Milky Way and connecting about three twelve other galaxies known collectively as the Local Group in 2003 by astronomers at Harvard and Ohio State Universities.

It is thinking that these hot intergalactic hazes were created from material that did not fall into galaxies when they first formed added than 13 billion years past. Finding and analyzing these filaments could help astronomers more familiar understand what happened after the Big Bang and what forces are dominating the universe today.

Video: X-Ray the Universe Vote: Most Amazing Galactic Images Ever 5 Great Cosmic Mysteries Original Story: Piece of Missing Cosmic Matter Found

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S&P Picks and Pans: AIG, Citigroup, priceline.com, Nvidia, Circuit City, Activision

Analysts’ opinions adhering stocks in the news Friday

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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S&P MAINTAINS HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP (AIG; 44.15):

AIG posts first specific place operating. loss of $1.41, vs. operating EPS of $1.68, worse than our $1.10 loss estimate. Results reject investment losses, FAS 133 charges and impression to market writedowns. We expected weakness in AIG’s outsized, in our view, mortgage-related exposures, and are not surprised by AIG’s plan to heave $7.5 billion in capital. But we are troubled by that that we view as a pretty significant deterioration in a number of core insurance underwriting lines. We keep our 2008 operating EPS view of $2.50, but this forecast assumes underwriting results improve. We think AIG is long overdue with respect to a major restructuring. -C. Seifert

S&P MAINTAINS HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF CITIGROUP (C; 24.30):

At today’s meeting, Citigroup targets a $400 billion reduction in legacy assets (almost 20%), 9% revenue growth over 2-3 years, a 58% efficiency fixed relation, ROE of 16-18%, and a continuing focus on Wealth Management and Latin American and Asian shooting. While we believe the company’s forfeiting life position is in addition sound following the recently announced capital infusions, we view the doubt not markets as still in turmoil and we expect further writedowns. Citi still has about $29 billion of total direct subprime exposure. We are congruity our mark price at 26, 1.25 periods volume value, in line through peers. -E. Oja, S. Plesser

S&P UPGRADES OPINION ON SHARES OF PRICELINE.COM TO HOLD FROM STRONG SELL (PCLN; 123.78):

Shares are indicated materially higher in pre-market trading, as PCLN posts first quarter EPS of $0.61, vs. $0.38, after impact of stock-based compensation; $0.08 above our forecast. Revenues rose 34%, thumping our 31% forecast, on continuing firmness in international business and a substantial acceleration in U.S. growth. We are raising our EPS forecast for 2008 to $4.95 from $4.55, and 2009’s to $6.00 from $5.60. We are lifting our 12-month target price to 155 from 105, on revised peer and DCF analyses. We no longer believe PCLN will be give pain to by dint of. macroeconomic and travel industry challenges. -S. Kessler

S&P UPGRADES OPINION ON SHARES OF NVIDIA CORP. TO BUY FROM HOLD (NVDA; 21.95):

Nvidia posts April-quarter EPS of $0.30, vs. $0.22, $0.03 below our valuation. Sales savage 4% sequentially, reflecting seasonality. Gross margin narrowed additional than expected due to problems related to mismanaged result transitions. Operating costs increased on higher headcount from recent acquisitions, which led to a lower operating edge. We are reducing our fiscal year 2009 (January) EPS forecast by $0.03 to $1.40 to cast reproach April-quarter results. Though we be attentive near-term edge risks, we think growth generally remains on track and we believe the shares are undervalued. We maintain our 12-month target price of 26. -C. Montevirgen

S&P REITERATES HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF CIRCUIT CITY (CC; 5.23):

CC agrees to allow Blockbuster (BBI; 2.50, NR) and Carl Icahn to conduct supplemental due diligence, and will continue to scrutinize strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value. A merger betwixt CC and BBI still seems like a mismatch to us, and we fail to see synergies beyond distribution cost savings. However, while we remain incredulous that BBI will be able to obtain necessary financing on its own, Carl Icahn’s willingness to buy the company if need be increases the possibility that CC will be sold, in our view. Our target price literary works 6. -M. Souers

S&P MAINTAINS BUY RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF ACTIVISION (ATVI; 29.75):

March-quarter EPS of $0.14, vs. a loss of $0.05, is $0.10 above our estimate. Revenue grew 93% to $602 million, $202 million above our forecast, driven by strong sales of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. Despite a difficult simile with fiscal year 2008 (March), ATVI sees non-GAAP fiscal year 2009 revenue rising 7%, on larger installed console base and higher numeral of stockkeeping units of the two elucidation games. We are positive on pending merger with Vivendi Games, expected to close in first and foremost moiety 2008, and raise our fiscal year 2009 operating EPS projection $0.14 to $1.28, and mark compensation by 3 to 36 based on a amalgamate of relative metrics. -J. Yin

Boy hit in Bellevue church parking lot

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BELLEVUE

The Sammamish boy was trip over by a Toyota Corolla in a church parking division next to his pre-school just before noon today. While the lad was scraped up, he had no serious injuries, police declared.

“The conquer case scenario at this point is that they may have to bestow him stitches on his hips and side,” said Officer Greg Grannis, Bellevue police spokesman.

“Considering he was actually run over by a car

The Renton man who drove through the boy was not driving in a reckless manner, and drugs and highly rectified spirit were not a commission merchant, Grannis said. The boy was taken to Harborview Medical Center immediately after the accident, police said. His name has not been released.

In every additional “evasion” of this incident, the driver probably will not be charged or ticketed, Grannis said.

“It doesn’t look like he actually committed a crime. And commerce infractions don’t apply on private property,” Grannis said. “It’s a quirky case.”