Major indexes fell below their lowest closing prices of the year Wednesday on worries over Thursday’s jobs report and rising oil prices

by dint of. Ben Steverman

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Stocks dropped to their lowest levels of the year Wednesday, by major indexes slipping officially into “bear market” conditions.

Optimists had hoped stocks would never again see the lows secure in March, when the financial system panicked from one side of to the other the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns. But on Wednesday, bad omens on the U.S. labor market and the rising price of oil helped draw heavily and slowly major indexes in time March’s overthrow closing prices.

After Wednesday’s descent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are both other thing than 20% off their most fresh highs reached last October — the broadly cited criteria for a bear market. The tolerant S&P 500 is 19.4% below its October high.

On Wednesday, the Dow fell 166.75 points, or 1.46%, to 11,215.51. The S&P 500 dropped 23.39 points, or 1.82%, to 1,261.52. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 53.51 points, or 2.32%, to 2,251.46.

Wednesday’s trouble started when economic reports raised worries over Thursday’s intersecting June payroll data.

The U.S. ADP report showed a 79,000 drop in particular sector jobs last month, after a 25,000 increase in May. It’s the largest decline since 2002. Also, Challenger reported announced layoffs fell 21,800 in June from May, but are still up 46.7% from the year in the sight of.

Traders were reading the data for clues to Thursday’s jobs report, a look at the unemployment rate and other crucial measures of the labor place of traffic. RDQ Economics says the reports are consistent with data “which betoken a perversion in the job market.” RDQ expects a 100,000 drop in nonfarm payrolls, “but the risks are tilted toward a larger decrease.”

Even with those worries, stocks started Wednesday in positive territory. Moods darkened, however, when oil prices spiked higher. On the NYMEX, crude oil for August delivery set a new closing record of $143.57, up $2.60 from the previous day’s closing price. After regular trading, oil continued to clamber. higher, mercantile beyond $144 far advanced in the afternoon.

Despite the decline in stock indexes Wednesday, Ryan Detrick, senior technical expert manaeuvrer at Schaeffer’s Investment Research, saw few signs of panic among investors. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, a apportion of reverence in the market, rose 9.6% Wednesday, while Detrick would anticipate a spike of 20% or 30% on days of panicked selling.

One reason in the place of the complacency is that, while stocks gain dipped on the earth their lowest closing prices of the year, they’re alembic too magnanimous for their all-time lows of the year. For the S&P 500, that is the March 17 intraday vile of 1,256.98. If that level is breached, traders who expected the March lows to hold could desert ship. You could see “some well and good anxious” in the market, Detrick says.

Thursday morning’s release of jobs data could be a key test. Economists are expecting a 58,000 drop in nonfarm payrolls in June. Data on frequently earnings, average workweek and the unemployment set a value on direction also be released.

“Whether the stock emporium cascades further or bounces in the days ahead could largely depend on the reaction to the June labor report tomorrow,” says Standard & Poor’s technical analyst Chris Burba.

In other household news, U.S. factory order rose 0.6% in May, in line with expectations. The U.S. MBA mortgage market index rebounded 3.6% in the week ended June 27.

Among stocks in the news, Starbucks (SBUX) announced it will close 600 underperforming company-ooperated stores in the U.S. The coffee chain expects to open fewer than 200 new U.S. stores in fiscal 2009. Store closures could result in a $200 million write-off in Starbucks’ third-quarter financial results.

Microsoft (MSFT) is tranquil trying to take over Yahoo’s (YHOO) search business. The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft has approached media firms including Time Warner (TWX) and News Corp. (NWS) about a joint deal that would lead to Yahoo’s break-up.

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They took the first steps Wednesday and Thursday similar to they underwent medical evaluations and began reuniting with lineage members.

“The person thing I can answer about these individuals is that they’re remarkably resilient,” said Col. Carl Dickens, a Joint Personnel Recovery Agency psychologist. “They’re true stress-hardy and they’re doing very well.”

The three U.S. military contractors — Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell — had been held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia since their drug-surveillance plane went down in the brake in February 2003.

They were among 15 hostages, including prior Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 11 members of the Colombian security services, rescued by Colombian forces in a daring mission Wednesday.

After living in an environment Dickens described as “particularly challenging” for nearly 5 1/2 years, not to mention conscious away from family, a return to normal life will take time.

“Our job is to try to facilitate that shifting back to their previous location,” Dickens before-mentioned. “The street that we go about doing that is by helping them to gradually re-establish some predictability and control over their experience, help them identify more potential challenges that they may encounter considered in the state of they make that transition and then finally give them some fable plans that they can use.”

The men, employees of a Northrop Grumman Corp. subsidiary, have already completed the first phase of a reintegration process outlined Thursday by Maj. Gen. Keith Huber, commanding general of U.S. Army South, what one. is responsible for Army operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

That phase, called “incipient recovery,” began Wednesday when the three came under U.S. control. It involves immediate medical like and psychological evaluations.

The men are now in the assist appearance of reintegration, “transition location,” at Brooke Army Medical Center at San Antonio’s Fort Sam Houston. They continue to receive medical care and reunite with group of genera members.

Huber said Stansell had even at that time visited with his son, Kyle, and daughter, Lauren, as well in the same manner through his father and stepmother.

“So on the tail end of their first privy reunion in five years and five months, I be possible to tell you that it made us all very over-weening that there were children there who were thrilled to see their parent and in that place were parents in that place who were overwhelmed with seeing their son back unscathed,” Huber said.

He said Howes — whose birthday is Friday — and Gonsalves were to reunite with their families later Thursday.

Huber said the second appearance of reintegration typically lasts two to four days before the final phase, called “home base,” that involves final debriefings and resumption of normal activities.

“The conditions that they lived under were very cruel and very Spartan,” he said. “And they are very grateful to the government and the armed forces of Colombia for this safe go, as are we.”

Huber emphasized the men are participating in the reintegration process freely because they are not members of the military.

Dickens noted that the process is designed to help not only the freed hostages, but also their lineage members.

After inferior than 24 hours on U.S. soil, the men’s health was a primary concern Thursday.

Asked about possible disease, Col. Jackie Hayes, the hospital’s chief of pulmonary and critical care, would not discuss any limited stipulations the men might have.

“I’m skilful to promulgate that they are all in very good physical condition, very strong,” he said.

Hayes related that during the time that of now, the men aren’t believed to gain any infectious or communicable diseases.

U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield had declared Wednesday that two of the three men were suffering from the jungle malady leishmaniasis, which is caused by parasites, and were “looking forward to modern medical treatment.”

Kelly Coady, Stansell’s ex-wife, told The Associated Press by phone from Sarasota, Fla., that Stansell spent some twenty-fourth part of a day with 16-year-old Kyle and 19-year-old Lauren.

“Kyle said his father looked really good, looked scraggy, but looked really, really good,” Coady said. Miami contributed to this report.

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In Seattle, shooting off Roman candles in the backyard is not only potentially dangerous, it is punishable with a $5,000 fine or up to a year in prison. But don’t bother employment 911 if that’s how your neighbor chooses to celebrate the Fourth of July.

Seattle police are asking residents with fireworks complaints to not call 911, but rather dial the department’s nonemergency line

The Fourth of July is one of the branch’s busiest days, he said. Emergencies must be addressed first face to face with officers can chase reports of sparklers.

The reality is some fireworks calls will go unanswered, Jamieson said. However, someone who believes fireworks are creating an imminently ticklish situation would have to make a judgment call and dial 911, he said.

Cities’ and counties’ rules on fireworks vary. Fireworks are allowed in unincorporated King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. But many cities execration them, such as Bellevue, Everett, Mill Creek, Federal Way, Issaquah, Redmond and Shoreline.

Unlike Seattle, Auburn officials speak residents should call 911 for fireworks complaints. The city is reviewing its fireworks discretion, Valley Regional Fire Authority spokeswoman Kimberly McDonald said. Currently some fireworks are legal, but that nothing that blows up or shoots into the air, McDonald reported.

Elsewhere, other police departments also will respond to fireworks calls.

Seattle officials are encouraging people to give heed one of the public displays to get their of fire works fix.

“The police aren’t tiresome to crack down on people’s fun,” Jamieson said. “We want people to enjoy the Fourth of July. We virtuous want them to do it safely.”

Jamieson conceded that if police encounter fireworks, it’s likely officers will utterly confiscate them and not raise an seizure.

In 2007, the State Fire Marshal’s Office admitted reports of 899 fires and 160 injuries caused by fireworks. And fireworks caused $20.5 million in damage during commercial fires last year. Most often, these incidents happened on the Fourth of July, according to a tidings release from the Fire Marshal’s situation.

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Harare, Zimbabwe

More than 300 frightened Zimbabweans sought shelter at the U.S. Embassy in Harare put on Thursday, part of a wave of people fleeing what opposition activists represent as continued beatings, threats, house burnings and killings by militias faithful to President Robert Mugabe.

Activists reported that principally of the 900 command bases set up by the ruling party to intimidate the population into voting on the side of Mugabe in last week’s presidential runoff are continually operating.

The president was re-elected on June 27 with more than 85 percent of the votes cast. At its just-concluded summit, the African Union urged Mugabe to open negotiations according to a government of public unity with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, whose aspirant Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the presidential runoff because of brutality against his supporters.

Le Creusot, France

France to add new nuclear point

France will build a second new-generation nuclear reactor, President Nicolas Sarkozy reported Thursday, pledging a “new industrial revolution” in an era in that fossil fuels have grown too expensive.

France — the country most reliant in succession nuclear power — has been constructing its first European Pressurized Reactor, or EPR, on the Normandy coast, and it is expected to go into service in 2012. The Normandy site is individual of only two EPRs in the world publicly under construction; the other is in Finland.

A conclusion about where to construct a second French EPR will be made in 2009, Sarkozy said, adding that construction would start in 2011.

Paris

Trial ordered in Concorde crash

A French judge ordered Continental Airlines and five people to stand endeavor on charges of manslaughter for the 2000 crash of a Concorde jet that killed 113 people, a prosecutor aforesaid Thursday.

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While flames from the stubborn fire in the northern attack forward the side of the Los Padres National Forest inched closer to Big Sur’s historic vacation retreats, state emergency officials said hot winds had caused a newer blaze 200 miles south in Santa Barbara County to double in size overnight.

Residents of more than 1,700 homes in and around the incorporated town of Goleta were ordered to evacuate, joining an equal number of the bulk of mankind who were told to leave Big Sur days earlier.

Driven by the agency of wind gusts as boastful as 40 mph, the Santa Barbara County fire was so vehement timely Friday that firefighters at one point took shelter in about 70 homes they were trying to defend, said Capt. Eli Iskow of the county fire department.

“Hundreds of firefighters were in situation around hundreds of structures,” Iskow said. “I think we saved every one of those structures in that area.”

Wind was less of a riddle in Big Sur, which remained eerily empty under a vapory blanket of fog and nothingness at the start of the dilatory holiday weekend. No in addition properties were lost since Thursday, on the contrary the density of the parched terrain allowed the 13-day-old wildfire to endure advancing on the storied tourist borough, where flames made their way in the direction of the theatrical Pacific Coast Highway and sent forest creatures running toward the Pacific Ocean with respect to cover.

“It came down into the canyon greatest night. I couldn’t sleep. It’s stifle in there lurking about,” said Kurt Mayer, who ignored the mandatory evacuation orders to douse his Big Sur Deli with fire-retardant gel.

Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said weather forecasts calling for winds to kick up again in the afternoon had officials worried the outlook for both blazes was not going to improve anytime soon.

By Friday morning, the Big Sur was only 5 percent contained and had consumed added than 100 square miles and 20 homes, while the Goleta fire was 10 percent contained and had destroyed about a half-dozen outbuildings and more than 8 square miles.

The Los Padres blazes were two of 335 spirited. wildfires burning in California, down from a peak of roughly 1,500 fires a few days ago, but they were commanding the greatest share of apparatus and personnel because of their locations near populated areas, Berlant said.

“Any time we have structures threatened and lives at risk, it’s a upper part of a plant antecedence,” he said.

Another fire generating care is in the Sequoia National Forest east of Bakersfield, where a wind-driven flame had burned 25 square miles, destroyed one home and threatened 1,000 more in nearby communities.

In Arizona, officials said a blaze southeast of Prescott had burned four homes since it broke out June 28. The blaze has forced the withdrawal of the mountain town of Crown King and was just 10 percent contained Friday.

Associated Press composer Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles and Jordan Robertson in Carmel, Calif., contributed to this report.

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Beatie, 34, who kept female reproductive organs succeeding initiating a transgender transformation and legally changing his name from Tracy Lagondino in his 20s, confirmed the birth to the magazine.

The baby, conceived through strained insemination using donor sperm and Beatie's own eggs, was born on June 29, and Beatie and the baby are "healthy and doing well," People reported.

"The only lump of matter different from one place to another me is that I can't breast-feed my infant.. But a lot of mothers don't," People quoted Beatie as saying. He has had his breasts surgically removed.

He told the magazine that contrary to published reports, the baby was not delivered by Caesarean section, no more than no other minutiae about the production were given.

Beatie made world headlines — and stoked public disputation about the boundaries of inflection for sex identity — when he went public with his pregnancy for the period of a guest appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in April, in which he was shown undergoing some ultrasound examination.

The thinly bearded Beatie told Winfrey then that he began his sexual transformation about 10 years ago when he started taking testosterone injections and had surgery to remove mammary glands and flatten his case.

Upon deciding to have a child about brace years agone, he halted his bimonthly hormone injections and resumed menstruating.

Beatie's wife, Nancy, 46, whom he married five years ago, was unable to be because of a prior hysterectomy. Otherwise, he has said, "I wouldn't be doing this." His spouse has two grown daughters by a previous marriage.

She declared in succession "Oprah" that their parental roles would be fairly traditional contemptuous opposition his transgender status. "He's going to be the father, and I'm going to subsist the mother," she said.

The couple, who operate a T-shirt printing business in Bend, Oregon, are legally conjugal and he is recognized under Oregon state law as a man.

Beatie has before-mentioned he is writing a book about his childhood, his mother's suicide and his life growing up in Hawaii, where as a lad he was a Girl Scout, a teen fairness pageant contestant and earned a martial-arts black belt.

He began living as a man in his 20s, eventually changing his gender on his passport and driver's license. Like many individuals who identify themselves as transgender men, or "transmen," Beatie opted not to remove his ovaries and other bearing reproductive organs he was born by.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

By creating recently made known products, companies meet the ever-changing needs of their customers and help lift the pedigree price

by G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Vitón

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Ultimately, the reason companies in general and marketers in particular are interested in how unaccustomed products can subsist developed and introduced more effectively is the money involved. New products are incredibly valuable for the sake of three key reasons.

For one thing, they expand your customer grovelling by dint of. attracting new clients. By definition, that’s what they are supposed to do.

Second, they justify you to get a greater share of your buyer’s sack. Very few people give you 100% of their turn to account budget in any given category. (Yes, your customers are cheating on you every day.) But by introducing new products and oblation which they are looking for, you give them less of a reason to bit of knavery.

Meeting the Changing Needs of the Customer

For instance, look at air fresheners. People use aerosol as well since plug-ins. If you are in the air freshener trade and you only compete on the plug-in side, you are losing out to the populace who sell aerosol. Your brand needs to come in both aerosol and plug-in versions. If you do, not only does it get you additional market share, it insulates your troop from competition.

Finally, when developed and introduced well, new products do something else that is perhaps much more important than points one and two: They help preserve existing customers by continuing to meet their changing needs.

Think about your business. Let’s say you have a product line with a mark market defined by demographics, psychographics, or purchase behavior. If quite you did was hold out to market the same outcome to those like customers, you’d eventually go on the outside of business for two reasons.

Novelty Wins the Day

One is, your competition is constantly distressing to woo them let us go.. And how do they woo them from home? With every offering that not only is new but is something dissimilar from your product. Eventually, they will be able to bring into proximity a certain percentage of your customers.

The second reason? There is a bit of a wear-out factor. People like new things, and at some point they are going to examine in spite of a part unlike. All other things held continual, your proceeds is in a constant state of emaciation. It is dying bit by bit. Introducing new products choose counteract the decline and eventually count up to greater revenues.

The takeaway from all this: New products help you attract new customers, while at the same time allowing you to hold on to the ones you already have. (And, of methodical arrangement, since they are buying from you, they are not buying from your competition; so not only are you helped, but the companies you are competing through are disadvantage.)

A Good Way to Boost the Stock Price

Not surprisingly, in that case, every one of these factors have an impact on the partnership and its share value. Here is the way Gail McGovern, David Court, John Quelch, and Blair Crawford put it in a Harvard Business Review article: "The presumption or organic growth is baked into companies’ pedigree value. If you putrefy the handle prices of the leading consumer product companies, you’ll see that future growth accounts for as much as 54% of the stocks total value."

That’s any important point. When people debate a company’s share worth, they love to talk about alliances and acquisitions as ways to get the stock price up. Both of those things are glamorous, but each is enormously poor at generating greater shareholder value. What does cause the share price to increase is a hot new product. Think about what happens to Apple’s (AAPL) shares every time it announces something new. (Can you say iPod and iPhone?)

And, of course, there is a nonfinancial benefit as well: Working on new products makes employees happier. All things held constant, it’s pretty exciting to be involved with a company that’s launching new products. It’s greater amount of fun to work with something modern. It’s fresh; it gets your juices going. It gives you something divergent to think about. People similar wholly that. You don’t want to make the same thing every day. It’s more sport to subsist working on something new.

Especially if that new thing has the very real potential of boosting the company’s share price.

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In the end, a 41-year devise fit loosely into a five-page establishment.

Lenny Wilkens, Fred Brown, Dennis Johnson

Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, Shawn Kemp

Gary Payton, Spencer Haywood, Nate McMillan

For pair contentious years, we wondered how this would the whole of end. We saw the Oklahoma Raiders convey by telegraph their intentions from the beginning and hoped someone would stave off their make a run at. We endured scenario in imitation of scenario, proposal after proposal, e-mail after e-mail, and one vicious trial, all for a sterile conclusion.

Five pages. It’s called a memorandum of understanding, or MOU in advocate chat. It says, amidst other things, that the Sonics are gone.

From M-V-P chants to M-O-U rants.

Oh, in what manner the Sonics have fallen.

The incorporated town, after exhibiting a chest-poking resolve to keep the Raiders in their KeyArena lease, folded. Once intent on letting the Sonics go only with a guarantee that NBA basketball would return to Seattle, Mayor Greg Nickels settled for a tub of cash and a promise from the NBA to be nice.

David Stern won’t discharge spitballs at Nickels anymore. Stern will be faithful to the mayor updated on relocation or expansion opportunities (”Um, sorry, mayor, nothing yet. Call back next century, OK?”), and he won’t curse after hanging up the phone.

Where’s the guarantee? As Nickels declared upon this dour sunshine, “There is no guarantee.”

Dim the lights on NBA basketball in Seattle. And prepare to sit in the dark for a while.

BOGOTA (AFP) - Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt was Thursday tearfully reunited with her children for the primitive time in six years, a day after her dramatic jungle rescue from Marxist rebels.

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McCain’s campaign announced Wednesday that top adviser Steve Schmidt would affect a large-minded portfolio of duties, with nearly full control through the whole extent of message and strategy. Schmidt will report to Rick Davis, who will keep the title of campaign manager but focus on longer term matters like the Republican National Convention and McCain’s uncommon of a running mate.

Addressing reporters at the conclusion of a three-day visit to Colombia and Mexico, the GOP nominee-in-waiting downplayed the personnel shift.

“Our campaign continues to grow, and the responsibilities are expanding and Mr. Schmidt is taking from beginning to end some increased responsibilities,” McCain uttered. “Rick Davis remnants the campaign chairman, campaign manager. It’s a of nature evolution as we become more and more of a catholic campaign with increased mace and increased responsibilities.”

Schmidt disclosed in memo Thursday to the 11 regional campaign managers that he will hire a national political director and a national field instructor to operate from the campaign’s northern Virginia headquarters to make use of regional operations and coordination.

He said the goal is to increase the capacity to “reach out to voters, build coalitions, sameness supporters, and ultimately turn them out to the polls.”

“In the days ahead, we will be working to enhance and strengthen the coordination between all these aspects of the campaign,” Schmidt said.

The mace changes — coming after Republican complaints that the Arizona senator’s campaign lacked focus and a coherent message — threatened to overshadow McCain’s trip through Latin America and his effort to present himself taken in the character of a statist experienced in foreign affairs.

McCain met Thursday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss trade and immigration issues. They spoke at length about the Merida Initiative, a U.S.-sponsored effort to offspring the be derived of drugs and guns across the Mexico put a border upon, McCain said.

McCain and his mate, Cindy, also toured a federal police station where they reviewed drug interdict training programs.

McCain began the day at the Basilica de Guadalupe, Mexico’s holiest Roman Catholic site, at which place he viewed the famed representation of the Virgin of Guadalupe and accepted a thanksgiving from the Basilica’s monsignor.

McCain laid a crown of white roses at the place of sacrifice and stood atop the Papal balcony. He was accompanied by President Bush’s brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was in Mexico on business.

“I think he’s going to acquire,” Jeb Bush said of McCain’s chances in compensation for Democrat Barack Obama. “He rightful needs to be himself and not let Sen. Obama redefine himself.”

McCain’s survey to the Basilica had clear political overtones as Catholic and Hispanic voters are expected to be clew swing voters in the November election. Obama furthermore has worked to woo Catholics and Hispanics after those groups voted heavily for Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton during the primary season.

McCain’s trip to Colombia and Mexico was billed primarily as an opportunity to promote free trade in the Western Hemisphere.

Obama has spoken out against NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and a pending free-trade pact with Colombia, both of which are unpopular in momentous general election vibrate states like Ohio. McCain wants to help workers displaced by free-trade agreements receive work at jobs training and other benefits.

The McCains were returning to Phoenix late Thursday, and planned to spend the Fourth of July holiday at the family compound outside Sedona, Ariz.

McCain: