Major U.S. City Boycotts Apple Products

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple's withdrawal from an environmental ratings registry has prompted at least one city – San Francisco – to stop buying its computers.

The decision does not apply to iPads or iPhones. But Francis Tsang, spokesman for Mayor Edwin Lee's office, says the city's rules require that laptops, computers and monitors comply with the registry's requirements.

Late last month, Apple Inc. told the nonprofit EPEAT, short for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, to remove its products from its registry. It also plans to stop submitting its products to EPEAT for environmental ratings.

EPEAT is an industry standard that seeks to make it easier for customers to buy environmentally friendly electronics. Manufacturers still participating include Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Samsung and Sony.

Apple did not respond to messages for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Although it pulled out of the environmental registry, Apple has long pointed to its environmental track record. On the "environment" section of is website, Apple says it "reports environmental impact comprehensively. We do this by focusing on our products: what happens when we design them, what happens when we make them, and what happens when you take them home and use them."

For example, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has replaced many of the hazardous materials in its gadgets with less harmful and more recyclable ones, and has designed longer-life batteries for its computers, media players and phones. Its recycling program offers gift cards to people who send in their old Apple gadgets for recycling.

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Natalie Portman To Marry Soon

Oscar-winning actor Natalie Portman will reportedly marry fiance Benjamin Millepied next month in Big Sur, California.

Despite reports claiming the couple - who have a year-old son, Aleph, had already tied the knot earlier this year, friends say the nuptials will take place on August 5, reported Femalefirst.

"Natalie and Ben will marry in Big Sur. It's one of Natalie's favourite places - whenever she needs a break from LA she goes there," the couple's friend said. "This wedding is for their closest friends and family. It will be a very relaxed affair. They're not sending out invites. Natalie may not even buy a new dress!," the friend added.

Portman met choreographer Millepied on the set of Black Swan in 2009 and they got engaged in December 2010. When she won the Best Actress Oscar for the film in 2011, she paid tribute to Millepied, calling him her "beautiful love" and thanked him for giving her the "most important role of my life".

She gave birth to their first child in June 2011.

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Dara Singh Passes Away

By Hindustan Times

Former wrestling champion and actor Dara Singh died at his home in Mumbai on Thursday morning following a brief illness, doctors treating him said. He was 84.

"Dara Singh passed away peacefully at 7.30am this (Thursday) morning," said Ram Narain, COO, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, where the actor was being treated before he was shifted to his Juhu home late Wednesday.

"Angel now gone to shine like a star up above," the actor's son, Vindu Dara Singh, texted after his father's death.

Dara Singh had been undergoing dialysis at the hospital.

It was his family's wish that he should be home in the last stages of his life, a hospital official had said Wednesday.

He is survived by his wife and six children - three sons and three daughters. One of his sons, Vindu Dara Singh, is a known name in showbiz.

The veteran actor was rushed to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital Saturday by his family members following a cardiac problem. He had been in a critical condition since then. Two days later, he was put on dialysis after his kidneys stopped functioning.

Dara Singh, who had won the title of Rustam-e-Hind for his wrestling prowess, appeared in various films and TV serials.

He is best known for his portrayal of Hanuman in Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan and in BR Chopra's Mahabharat.

He had appeared in films like Watan Se Door, Daada, Rustom-E-Baghdad, Sher Dil, Sikandar E Azam, Raaka, Mera Naam Joker and Dharam Karam. He was last seen in the 2007 release Jab We Met.

He had also directed films.

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Cheryl Cole Attacked By Bullies

Cheryl Cole has revealed that she's been repeatedly attacked by cruel Bullies on social networking sites.

Surprisingly, the internet trolls have specifically targeted the singer's looks.

'In the last few years, I've been bullied on Facebook and Twitter. It's evil and very public,' says Cheryl , 29. 

'People judge my appearance and hair and say that I look fat.'

Cheryl recently set up The Cheryl Cole Foundation, a charity through which she plans 'to show disadvantaged and unemployed young people that someone believes in them'.

She's hoping her experiences of being taunted will enable youths in the North East of England - where the foundation's work is focused - to identify with her.

'I get what these kids have gone through because I had a tough upbringing and I understand what it feels like to get bullied like some of them,' says Cheryl.

'And I want to help these young people because I know how it feels to come out on the other side and be someone who achieves.

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Indian Physicist Satyendra Nath Bose Controversy

NEW DELHI -- While much of the world was celebrating the international cooperation that led to last week's breakthrough in identifying the existence of the Higgs boson particle, many in India were smarting over what they saw as a slight against one of their greatest scientists.

Media covering the story gave lots of credit to British physicist Peter Higgs for theorizing the elusive subatomic "God particle," but little was said about Satyendranath Bose, the Indian after whom the boson is named.

Despite the fact that Bose had little direct involvement in theorizing the Higgs boson itself, in India the lack of attention given to one of their own was seen as an insult too big to ignore.

"He is a forgotten hero," the government lamented in a lengthy statement, noting that Bose was never awarded a Nobel Prize though "at least 10 scientists have been awarded the Nobel" in the same field.

The annoyance marks yet another case in the ever-growing list of perceived global snubs Indians feel they suffer, from the U.S. airport searches of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to the naming of a superbug after New Delhi, where it was found.

"Indians are touchy about this. All post-colonial societies are touchy about this," said political psychologist Ashis Nandy of the Delhi-based think tank Center for the Study of Developing Societies. "The sooner we get out of that, the better."

Nandy, who interviewed Bose before his death in 1974, said the scientist himself was "least concerned about rankings and prizes."

The boson is named in honor of the Kolkata-born scientist's work in the 1920s with Albert Einstein in defining one of two basic classes of subatomic particles. The work describes subatomic particles that carry force and can occupy the same space if in the same state – such as in a laser beam. All particles that follow such behavior, including the Higgs as well as photons, gravitons and others, are called bosons.

Higgs, the English physicist, and others proposed the Higgs boson's existence in 1964 to explain what might give shape and size to all matter. Laymen and the media sometimes call it the "God particle" because its existence is key to understanding the early evolution of the universe.

By then, Bose was living in his Indian city of Kolkata after 25 years running the physics department at Dacca University, in what is now Bangladesh. Bose died aged 80 in 1974. The Nobel is not awarded posthumously.

Indian newspapers decried the fact that Bose was mostly ignored last week when scientists announced the Higgs boson breakthrough, made using a giant atom smasher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland.

Bose "remains unmentioned in most news stories about this discovery," read an opinion piece in the Hindustan Times written by Yale University professor Priyamvada Natarajan, who says Western scientists often gain credit for major discoveries.

"It is harder for scientists to be recognized if they are seen as outliers and if their gender, race or work do not let them belong," she said.

The Sunday Times of India noted other eminent Indian scientists who "never got their due," including physicist G.N. Ramachandran who died in 2001 after making biological discoveries like collagen's triple-helix structure and 3-D imaging used in studying the human body.

It also said living Indian scientists, Varanasi-based molecular biologist Lalji Singh and New York-based E. Premkumar Reddy, should be candidates for awards. Both men reportedly said they were not interested in lobbying for prizes.

"Many people in this country have been perplexed, and even annoyed, that the Indian half of the now-acknowledged `God particle' is being carried in lower case," The Economic Times wrote in an editorial Monday. What most don't realize is that the naming of all bosons after Bose "actually denotes greater importance."

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Chevron Workers Plead To Be Evacuated Before Deadly Blast

By Oleg Vukmanovic

LONDON, July 11 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp. left workers pleading to be evacuated from a gas exploration platform off Nigeria which kept drilling as smoke poured from a borehole until an explosion that killed two people as the rig became engulfed in flames, according to accounts from four of the platform's workers.

Chevron, the second largest U.S. oil major, said it did not receive requests to evacuate the KS Endeavour rig and that staff on board had the right to call a halt to work if they believed conditions were unsafe.

"There were no evacuation requests received before the KS Endeavour incident occurred," the U.S. energy company said in an emailed response to questions from Reuters.

Testimony from some of the 154 workers who were present alleges that, instead of addressing fears that equipment failures and smoke presaged disaster, Chevron flew extra staff to the platform just before the Jan. 16, 2012, blowout.

Chevron says a nationwide Nigerian strike that included staff at airports had disrupted its normal crew changes but that at no time were approved safe manning levels exceeded.

The fire that followed the blast burned on the rig for 46 days until March 2. Chevron drilled a relief well to stem the gas leak, sealing it on June 18. It said in an email to Reuters on July 2 that an investigation with the Nigerian authorities had concluded that an entry of high pressure gas in the wellbore had caused the failure of equipment and fire.

The two who died in the explosion were the installation manager for the rig, Bruno Marce, a French national, and Indian driller Albert Devadas. They worked for KS Drilling, a subsidiary of Singapore-based KS Energy, a sub-contractor employed by Field Offshore Design Engineering (FODE) Ltd to drill a gas exploration well for Chevron off Nigeria.

Transcripts of accounts from three workers were given to Reuters by the offshore oil branch of Britain's Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) trade union which said the documents were genuine but withheld the names of the witnesses to protect their employment prospects. Those accounts were backed by subsequent interviews in Nigeria with a worker who was also on the rig.

FODE declined comment, citing confidentiality clauses in its contract with KS Drilling preventing it making public any information about work for Chevron.

The accounts convey rising panic from some of those on the platform, who fearing a blowout, checked each morning the volume of smoke billowing from the drilling borehole.

"Chevron knew for over a week that the well was unstable yet they refused to evacuate us," said one of the rig workers who gave his account to the RMT union.

A Nigerian worker who was aboard the rig at the time of the blast said many wanted to be evacuated.

Speaking at a hotel in Yenagoa, the oil capital of the Niger Delta's oil-rich Bayelsa state, Omietimi Nana, 28, a maintenance worker for FODE said: "We were told we may be evacuated, it was mentioned but it didn't happen. I don't know who made the decision not to evacuate but certainly many people wanted to be evacuated because of the situation," he said.

The most senior witness to give testimony to the RMT, a Frenchman, said a series of pump failures throughout the drilling operation led to a massive build-up of pressure that triggered the blowout.

The Frenchman said rig engineers held a site meeting and advised Chevron to evacuate staff while well pressure control measures were applied.

"That advice was not heeded and additional personnel were even brought onboard to get ahead of what was believed to be impending strike action," the Frenchman, who was at that meeting, said.

Nana added: "About three days before the accident, the drilling company workers told us they wanted to stop drilling because of the gas pressure but they spoke with Chevron who told them to carry on."

The French witness said an earlier failed attempt in late December to drill an exploration well near the same was abandoned after the discovery of a gas leak.

He said that "in an attempt to learn from experience" Chevron began drilling a second well "despite repeated failure of the pumps" and often having to stop drilling in order to service the top-drive, the device on the rig that provides rotational force.

Chevron acknowledged that the first exploration well was abandoned but denied it was because of a gas leak.

"SCARED LIKE HELL"

The second well, drilled 300 metres from the first, at a depth of 12,945 feet (3,946 metres), soon began to lose pressure integrity, the French witness said.

"At almost every point in time, we saw thick smoke coming out of the open hole, and we were all scared like hell because we could see a disaster happening any moment yet they (Chevron) did not evacuate us - why, I do not know," the witness said.

"This is the reason so many of us survived because we were all aware that it was going to happen, but just didn't know when," he said.

FODE maintenance worker Nana said: "Everyone was talking about how the mud weight had been lost but by then it was too late to stop the gas rising to the surface."

Within days, said the French witness, rising gas pressure overwhelmed the mud weight in the wellbore spewing gas over the rig, sending workers scrambling for the lifeboats.

"The blowout occurred on Monday at 5.30 a.m., and if Bruno (Marce, the rig manager who died) had not advised as he did that the lifeboats be kept serviced and in functional condition then none of us would have made it out alive," said the eyewitness.

"Bruno was shouting, but with a very strange voice, over the public address system that everyone should abandon the rig, I really felt for him for if not for his timely intervention myself and others would not have been alive today," he said.

The witness said that by the time he had reached the lifeboat the rig was smothered in gas. When the lifeboat operator called rig manager Bruno Marce for permission to launch there was no reply, he said. The gas exploded and the lifeboat launched.

"By the time we hit the water the entire rig was engulfed by fire," he said, describing metal debris raining down.

A second eyewitness described a deafening release of gas followed by "a loud bang and an orange flash as the gas ignited."

The witnesses described how crew on a barge adjacent to the platform jumped into the water and scrambled into a life raft. The raft quickly began to melt from the heat of the fire, forcing them into the sea to be rescued by fishermen three hours later.

"If it were not for the fisherman those guys would have died in the water," the French witness said.

CHEVRON RESPONSE

Asked to respond to the principal points of the allegations, Chevron said it was at no time asked to evacuate staff and that all personnel present had the power to order a work stoppage if they felt they were in danger.

"Our employees and contractor are fully empowered to exercise stop work authority (SWA) when they sense an unsafe work environment," Chevron said, explaining that an SWA gives anyone aboard a rig the power to order a stop to operations in the event safety guidelines are breached.

"At no time was an evacuation initiated by anybody on the rig before the incident occurred," Chevron said.

The union said it believed workers were worried they would lose their jobs if they quit the rig without permission.

"It appears the Endeavour workforce were reluctant to abandon the rig after the evacuation request was denied for fear of losing their jobs," said Jake Molloy, head of OILC, the offshore energy branch of the RMT, which had members on the rig.

Molloy said the installation manager's efforts to prepare lifeboats demonstrated that the danger was known.

"That fear is evident in the actions of the offshore installation manager who, as part of some bizarre 'risk assessment process', opted to ensure the lifeboats were in a state of readiness for what appears to be an inevitable evacuation," the union official said.

Chevron said its rules required that lifeboats should be kept ready at all times and the crew held weekly drills, one of which was scheduled by the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) Bruno Marce for the morning of the day before the blow-out happened.

"Like any other personnel, the OIM has full responsibility to stop the operation if he feels conditions are not safe," Chevron said.

The company said it had launched a prompt, full rescue effort and the evacuation had been orderly and structured, although it acknowledged fishermen had picked up some workers.

"Search and rescue operations began immediately upon being made aware of the abandon ship alarms being sounded," it said. Nearby vessels were directed to aid the rescue.

"152 of the 154 personnel on board the KS Endeavour and the Mako barge were evacuated immediately. Aircraft operations were impacted initially by darkness and by visibility conditions," it said.

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"The Biggest Financial Fraud In History".

The news on Wednesday that cities and states are suing some of the world's largest banks over Libor manipulation shows how this scandal could blow up into one of history's biggest bank frauds.

That's because interest-rate manipulation might well have kept your town or state from hiring firefighters or teachers, from paving roads or paying for indigent care or after-school programs for your kids -- adding to the human suffering of the economic collapse these same banks caused in the first place.

If it's any consolation, the lawsuits and fines over this manipulation could potentially cost the banks -- which include not only Barclays but Bank Of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and many more -- billions of dollars.

"This could get very ugly in a hurry for some banks," Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors wrote in a note.

And this could finally be enough to make Americans stop reacting to the Libor scandal with "a shrug," as Joe Nocera recently put it, and push them closer to believing what Robert Shapiro, founder of economic advisory firm Sonecon, calls possibly "The Biggest Financial Fraud In History".

Would it be enough, maybe, to finally cause banks to lose the argument that regulating them too much will hurt the economy?

The New York Times wrote Wednesday that several states, towns and other municipalities are rouding up posses of lawyers to sue big banks over their manipulation of Libor, a short-term interest rate that affects borrowing costs throughout the global economy. Barclays has admitted to manipulating the rate for years, paying $ 450 million in penalties. Other banks are under investigation for doing the same thing. The scandal has already engulfed Treasurey Secratary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who have been asked to testify before a Senate subcommittee about rate manipulation.

The states and cities suing the banks often bought -- from some of the same banks they're suing -- credit derivatives called interest-rate swaps. The swaps protected them when Libor rose, but hurt them when Libor fell. If these states and cities can prove the banks manipulated Libor lower, then they could have a case that the banks owe them some money.

Other potential litigants -- hedge funds, maybe -- bought derivatives that cost them money when Libor rose. Again, if they can prove that banks manipulated Libor higher, then they, too, could have a case that banks owe them money.

How much money are we talking?

Some of Wall street thinkers have scoffed that such lawsuits will likely result in small potatoes, or maybe tater tots at best. It could be hard to suss out how much financial damage somebody really suffered from this, or how much any one bank -- or even more than one bank -- is responsible.

And a lot of borrowers, maybe including the same states and cities suing the banks, arguably benefited  when the banks manipulated Libor lower, because it lowered their borrowing costs.

But the sheer vastness of the derivatives market makes this a potentially huge headache for the banks. There's a general estimate floating around that Libor affects about $800 trillion in notional derivatives -- that's "trillion," not "billion" or "million." Banks are not going to be on the hook for anything near that much, as the bulk of this amount is "notional" -- meaning, roughly, "not real."

What is far more likely is that people with derivatives contracts tied to Libor lost tiny percentages of that $800 trillion with some regularity because of Libor manipulation. Some municipalities in the Times story estimate Libor manipulation cost them millions of dollars -- $13 million in the case of Nassau County, New York, for example. That's the same Nassau County whose crushing long-term unemployment is the subject of an HBO documentary, "Hard Times: Lost On Long Island."

That's "millions," not "trillions." Tater tots, if you're a bank. But priceless for a municipality struggling to hire workers, build infrastructure or take care of the people being crushed by the recession and painfully slow recovery.

And there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of municipalities involved in this. A 2010Wall Street Journal article about how states and cities were losing money on derivatives noted that in Pennsylvania alone, 107 school districts owned interest-rate derivatives during the time period banks were allegedly manipulating rates.

That's 107 school districts in one state alone losing untold millions of dollars because of lower interest rates, which may have been lower than they should have been because of Libor manipulation. That's 107 school districts in one state alone that had a harder time paying teachers, buying computers, of funding art programs.

Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors tried ina research note this morning to arrive at what some of the big numbers might look like, if all of these potential litigants decided to up and hit the banks all at once.

If the banks were responsible for moving the three-month Libor rate by just 1/100th of a percentage point on that entire universe of $800 trillion in notional derivatives contracts, then that would be worth $20 billion, according to Tchir's calculations.

Banks are probably not going to be on the hook for derivatives worth anything close to that $800 trillion. But if banks manipulated rates by more than that 1/100th of a point, or for more than 90 days -- the term of three-month Libor -- on even smaller notional derivative amounts, then the numbers can still get big in a hurry. And that doesn't even include punitive damages. And it doesn't include the estimated $10 trillion in mortgages and other loans tied to Libor, including $275 billion worth of U.S. mortgages, according to an estimate from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency referenced in the FT.

"That is the real exposure a bank caught 'lying' faces," Tchir writes. "If the lie was big enough and for a long enough period and anyone entitled to receive payment based on LIBOR can make the claim, the potential damage to the bank is enormous."

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Federal Reserve Officials Warn Of Looming Economic Crisis

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is open to taking further action to support the struggling U.S. economy. But minutes of the Fed's June meeting show policymakers at odds over whether the economy needs more help now.

A few members said the economy may already require additional support. But several others noted that further action "could be warranted" if the recovery lost momentum, if risks became more pronounced or inflation seemed likely to run below the committee's target.

Investors appeared disappointed by the division within the Fed.

Stock prices sank after the Fed expressed concerns about the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average had been down nearly 40 points before the minutes were released at 2 p.m. Eastern time. At around 2:30 p.m., the Dow was down 112 points, on track for its fifth straight day of losses.

Since the Fed met June 19-20, the job market's weakness has persisted. The government said Friday that hiring in June was weak for a third straight month. The economy added just 80,000 jobs.

David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors, said he didn't think Fed officials would have announced any new action at its June meeting even if they'd known how weak the June employment report would be.

Jones said he thinks the Fed will launch a new bond buying program eventually. But he says the timing remains hazy.

"These minutes show that there is still a very deep division within the Fed," Jones said.

Many economists predict the Fed won't announce any new steps at its next meeting July 31-Aug. 1. They think officials will hold off for one more meeting and give the job market a little longer to show improvement. If the economy doesn't improve, the Fed could announce some new action at its Sept. 12-13 meeting.

Since the recession, the Fed has bought more than $2 trillion in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, expanding its portfolio to more than $2.8 trillion.

In the meantime, Jones said the Fed might decide at its next meeting to extend its timetable for when it plans to increase short-term interest rates. The Fed now plans to keep a key short-term rate at a record low until at least late 2014. Jones said officials might push that target into 2015 to reassure investors that borrowing costs will stay low even longer than expected.

At last month's meeting, Fed officials signaled their concern that the struggling U.S. economy could worsen if Congress fails to avert tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts that kick in at the end of the year. And they expressed worries that Europe's debt crisis will weigh on U.S. growth.

More stimulus "won't become a reality unless the recovery loses even more momentum or a more severe flare up in the euro-zone crisis raises the already elevated downside risks," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

Members said the economy will likely continue to grow moderately. But the Fed lowered its growth forecast at the June meeting, noting that the U.S. job market had weakened and consumer spending slowed. It also said it didn't expect the unemployment rate to fall much further this year from its current 8.2 percent.

Some members noted that defense contractors are already laying plans for layoffs if lawmakers don't address the package of tax hikes and spending cuts by the end of the year. Members warned that tighter government spending could slow the economy well into next year.

At the meeting, the Fed extended a program that shifts its bond portfolio to try to lower long-term interest rates. Policymakers left open the possibility of providing further help, such as launching a new program of bond purchases.

Chairman Ben Bernanke may offer further guidance on the Fed's plans next week when he delivers the central bank's updated economic assessment to Congress. After the June meeting, Bernanke told reporters he was open to another round of bond purchases if the job market didn't improve.

Employers added an average of just 75,000 jobs a month in the April-June quarter — only about a third of the 225,000 jobs a month created in the first three months of the year.

After its last meeting, the Fed downgraded its economic outlook. It now expects growth of just 1.9 percent to 2.4 percent in 2012, half a percentage point lower than its April forecast.

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Romney Invested Millions In Chinese Firm That Profited On U.S. Outsourcing

Last month, Mitt Romney's campaign got into a dustup with the Washington Post after the newspaper reported that Bain Capital, the private equity firm the GOP presidential candidate founded, invested in several US companies that outsourced jobs to China and India. The campaign indignantly demanded a retraction, claiming that these businesses did not send jobs overseas while Romney was running Bain, and the Post stood by its investigation. Yet there is another aspect to the Romney-as-outsourcer controversy. According to government documents reviewed by Mother Jones, Romney, when he was in charge of Bain, invested heavily in a Chinese manufacturing company that depended on US outsourcing for its profits—and that explicitly stated that such outsourcing was crucial to its success.

This previously unreported deal runs counter to Romney's tough talk on the campaign trail regarding China. "We will not let China continue to steal jobs from the United States of America," Romney declared in February. But with this investment, Romney sought to make money off a foreign company that banked on American firms outsourcing manufacturing overseas.

On April 17, 1998, Brookside Capital Partners Fund, a Bain Capital affiliate, filed a report  with the Securities and Exchange Commission noting that it had acquired 6.13 percent of Hong Kong-based Global-Tech Appliances, which manufactured household appliances in a production facility in the industrial city of Dongguan, China. That August, according to another SEC filing, Brookside upped its interest in Global-Tech to 10.3 percent. Both SEC filings identified Romney as the person in control of this investment: "Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brookside Inc. and thus is the controlling person of Brookside Inc." Each of these documents was signed by Domenic Ferrante, a managing director of Brookside and Bain.

The SEC filings do not reveal how much Romney initially invested in Global-Tech (which is now known as Global-Tech Advanced Innovations). But Brookside first acquired 748,000 shares at a time when Global-Tech was mounting an IPO at $19 a share. If that was the purchase price Brookside paid, then Romney's firm originally invested $14.2 million in the company.

At the time Romney was acquiring shares in Global-Tech, the firm publicly acknowledged that its strategy was to profit from prominent US companies outsourcing production abroad. On September 4, 1998, Global-Tech issued a press release announcing it was postponing completion of a $30 million expansion of its Dongguan facility because Sunbeam, a prominent American consumer products company and a major client of Global-Tech, was cutting back on outsourcing as part of an overall consolidation. But John C.K. Sham, Global-Tech's president and CEO, said, "Although it appears that customers such as Sunbeam are not outsourcing their manufacturing as quickly as we had anticipated, we still believe that the long-term trend toward outsourcing will continue." Global-Tech, which in mid-1998 announced fiscal year sales of $118.3 million (an increase of 89 percent over the previous year), also manufactured household appliances for Hamilton Beach, Mr. Coffee, Proctor-Silex, Revlon, and Vidal Sassoon, and its chief exec was hoping for more outsourcing from these and other American firms.

The Romney campaign and Bain Capital have insisted that Romney departed Bain in February 1999 to head the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and had no involvement in the private equity firm's deals after that point—a contention that has been challenged by the Obama campaign. But the Global-Tech Appliances transactions occurred long before Romney jetted off to Utah.

At the time Romney was acquiring shares in Global-Tech, the firm publicly acknowledged that its strategy was to profit from prominent US companies outsourcing production abroad.

Brookside downsized its Global-Tech holdings later in 1998.An SEC filing submitted on December 21, 1998, reported that the Bain affiliate now controlled only 4.63 percent of the company's shares. But Brookside was sharing its stake in Global-Tech with Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors LTD—a Bermuda-based corporation of which Romney was the "the sole shareholder, a director, and President." That is, Romney had split his Global-Tech holdings between two of his various business entities. (The SEC filing doesn't indicate why he did that.)

Sankaty is a story in itself. It was recently the focus of an Associated Press investigation that reported that Sankaty "is among several Romney holdings that have not been fully disclosed" and that there is a "mystery surrounding" Sankaty. Reporting on this Romney entity, Vanity Fair noted that "investments in tax havens such as Bermuda raise many questions, because they are in 'jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,' as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it." With Sankaty, Romney was using a mysterious Bermuda-based entity to invest in a Chinese firm that thrived on US outsourcing.

In early 1999, Romney's investment in Global-Tech expanded again. An SEC report filed on March 25, 1999, stated that Brookside and Sankaty at this stage owned 9.11 percent of the firm's stock. Romney was still listed as the sole shareholder and president of both Brookside and Sankaty.

By this point, according to the open-to-question account offered by Bain and the Romney campaign, Romney no longer had any involvement in Bain deals. But the series of SEC filings show active Brookside and Sankaty trading in Global-Tech Appliances while Romney fully controlled these firms. The two Romney companies repeatedly changed their ownership stake in this Chinese firm, which was not shy about its dependence on outsourcing. In its 2001 annual report, Global-Tech noted that US outsourcing was essential to its prospects: "Household appliance companies are focusing on their primary strengths of marketing and distribution, while increasingly outsourcing product development and manufacturing…Our ability and commitment to develop new and innovative, high quality products at a low cost has allowed us to benefit from the increased outsourcing of product development and manufacturing by our customers."

In August 2000, Brookside and Sankaty sold their interest in Global-Tech, according to the SEC documents. With these filings disclosing minimum details about Romney's investment in Global-Tech, there is no telling how much money he made—or lost—on the deal.

A spokeswoman for Bain says that the company will not comment on the Global-Tech investment or provide any additional details about this deal. A Romney campaign official would not address the issue of Global-Tech profiting from US outsourcing, but this Romney aide maintains that this deal was nothing other than a routine investment in a foreign company: "It's my understanding that while Brookside is a part of Bain Capital, it is not a private equity vehicle. Brookside makes passive investments in public stock. They don't control or manage the companies they invest in. Brookside had a small ownership stake (9.11%) in Global-Tech…while Romney was there. If owning shares in a foreign company is somehow wrong, President Obama is guilty as well." (The Romney campaign points out that Obama's personal holdings include an investment in a Vanguard 500 Index retirement fund that contains shares in a handful of foreign companies.)

In recent weeks, Romney's involvement in outsourcing has become a contentious campaign issue. Late last month, the Obama campaign launched ads that accused Romney of being a "corporate raider" who "shipped jobs to China and Mexico" and slammed him as an "outsourcer in chief." The Romneyites cried foul, pointing to neutral fact-checkers who criticized the ads, and asserted that Obama was trying to distract from bad economic news. And the Romney campaign, pushing back on the Post story, maintained that the newspaper missed the difference between outsourcing and offshoring. This week, Romney declared that Obama was the real "outsourcer-in-chief," insisting that the president funded "energy companies, solar and wind energy companies that end up making their products outside the United States." (TheNew York Times immediately  debunked much of Romney's attack, and the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" column awarded four Pinocchios to an Americans for Prosperity ad that in April made a similar claim about Obama and green-jobs outsourcing.)

Romney's Global-Tech deal adds a new dimension to the debate over Romney and outsourcing. Whether or not he was at the helm when Bain invested in US firms that did or did not ship jobs overseas, Romney was in command when a company he owned and controlled bought a large stake in a Chinese venture that counted on American companies sending manufacturing—and that means jobs—to China. These days, Romney rails against China for swiping American jobs and proclaims, "For me, it's all about good jobs for the American people." But when there was money to be made by acquiring a chunk of a Chinese company that aimed to displace American manufacturers (and American workers), Romney's patriotism did not interfere with the potential for profit
.

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Katie Holmes Used Disposable Phones To Achieve Divorce

Their Divorce was settled in record time, but new reports suggest that Katie Holmes anticipated a very messy divorce from Tom Cruise.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the 33-year-old actress took extreme measures to ensure that she would be able to file for divorce from the 50-year-old "Rock of Ages" star. Sources tell the paper that Holmes began contacting attorneys using a disposable cellphone provided by a friend, so that Cruise wouldn't know about the conversations.

The phone tactics allowed Holmes to launch her case, surprising Cruise and his handlers with the news she was ready to end their marriage of five years. According to the LA Times, by the time their divorce settlement was reached, Holmes had hired three law firms in three states to represent her.

Holmes' decision didn't come lightly, and a source told People magazine that as she realized "she no longer had the life she wanted, in terms of her career, her way of life, everything," she had to make a drastic change.

According to the magazine, the actress first sought advice from her lawyer father Martin, who helped her orchestrate her exit from her marriage, which in addition to disposable phones, included moving into a new downtown Manhattan apartment.

The extreme measures worked and Cruise was reportedly blindsided by the news, which Holmes broke to him via a phone call, a source told People. Because of Holmes' swift and covert actions she was able to get her and Cruise's lawyers to settle just over a week after she filed, and was able to get primary custody of her 6 year old daughter,Suri, which is what she wanted most.

So eventually, 'Katie Holmes Is 'Very Happy' With Divorce Settlement'

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House GOP Votes To Repeal Obamacare For 33rd Time

WASHINGTON — Pressing an election-year point, Republicans pushed yet another bill through the House on Wednesday to repeal the nation's two-year-old health care law, a maneuver that forced Democrats to choose between President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement and a public that is persistently skeptical of its value.

The vote was 244-185, with five Democratic defectors siding with Republicans.

By Republican count, the vote marked the 33rd time in 18 months that the tea party-infused GOP majority has tried to eliminate, defund or otherwise scale back the program – opponents scornfully call it "Obamacare" – since the GOP took control of the House.

Repeal this year by Congress is doomed, since the Democratic-controlled Senate will never agree.

But Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam said before joining other Republicans in Wednesday's House vote: "Here's the good news. The voters get the last word in November. Stay tuned."

Nor was the vote in the House the only act of political theater during the day as campaign concerns increasingly crowded out bipartisan attempts at law-making in the Capitol.

One day after a campaigning Obama called on Congress to pass his proposal to extend tax cuts on all but the highest wage earners, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offered to allow an immediate vote. "I can't see why Democrats wouldn't want to give him the chance" to sign the bill, he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., countered by blocking an immediate vote. "We'll get to the tax issues. That way we'll be able to talk in more detail about Governor Romney's taxes," he said in a reference to Democratic campaign attacks on the GOP presidential candidate's overseas investment, the relatively low rate of income tax he is required to pay and his refusal thus far to release personal tax returns dating before 2010.

The health care debate roiled the campaign for the White House as well as Congress.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney drew boos from his largely black audience at the NAACP convention when he vowed to wipe out Obama's overhaul.

In the House, Republicans assailed the law as a job-killing threat to the economic recovery, but Democrats said repeal would eliminate consumer protections that already have affected millions.

"The intent of the president's health care law was to lower costs and to help create jobs. ... Instead, it is making our economy worse, driving up costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. He cited a study by a business group that estimated that one of the bill's taxes would cost up to 249,000 jobs, and a different estimate that a second tax would "put as many as 47,100 in jeopardy."

But House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said repeal would take away provisions that guarantee coverage for children with pre-existing medical conditions, reduce prescription drug costs for some seniors, provide for protective checks for patients of all ages and ensure rebates totaling more than $1 billion this summer for policy holders.

"What a Valentine to the health insurance industry," Pelosi said scornfully of the repeal measure. The party leader was a driving force behind the overhaul when she was speaker and Democrats held a majority.

At its core, the law will require nearly all Americans to purchase insurance beginning in 2014, a so-called individual mandate that Republicans seized on to make their case that the program amounted to a government takeover of health care. The law's constitutionality was upheld two weeks ago in a 5-4 Supreme Court opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

There was never any doubt that Republicans had the votes to pass the repeal in the House on Wednesday – or that it would die in the Senate, where Democrats possessed more than enough strength to block it.

That's what happened in January 2011, when the newly installed Republican majority first voted to repeal the law a few days after taking office.

In the months since, the GOP has taken repeated further swipes at the law, including votes to deny salaries to any government officials who enforce it, to abolish a board of officials charged with holding down Medicare costs in the future and to repeal a tax on medical devices.

With the exception of a few relatively modest changes accepted by the White House, all the rest have died in the Senate.

Some Democrats sought something of a middle ground.

Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., elected to his seat a few weeks ago, said the GOP-inspired repeal legislation was a charade and showed the House "cares more about political grandstanding than in getting things done." At the same time, he said, "We must work to improve the legislation," a bow to those who are less than enthusiastic about it, and a point he made during his recent campaign.

The five Democrats who sided with Republicans in the house vote were Reps. Larry Kissell and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Jim Matheson of Utah, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Dan Boren of Oklahoma.

All five voted against the law's passage in 2010. Boren, Ross and McIntyre voted to repeal the law in January 2011, while the other two lawmakers voted to keep it in place.

In an interview after Wednesday's vote, Matheson said he opposed repeal the first time because he wanted the Supreme Court to rule on the law's constitutionality. He said he supports some elements of the law, but on the whole "this does not create a path for us to have a sustainable health care system for this country and that's why I think it's time to hit the reset button and start over."

Kissell's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Boehner said Republicans wanted to give Democrats who had previously voted to sustain the law a chance to reconsider, contending that "most Americans not only oppose this health care law – they support fully repealing it."

In a statement issued moments after the vote, McConnell said he would press for a vote in the Senate, as well.

Public reaction to the law has been consistently negative, but apart from conservative Republicans, it is less clear what support exists for repeal.

In a Washington Post/ABC News poll this month, 47 percent of those surveyed said they opposed the law, 47 percent said they supported it and 6 percent expressed no opinion.

Among those who said they were opposed or had no opinion, 33 percent said they wanted it all repealed, 30 percent said they wanted parts repealed and 34 percent said they wanted to wait and see what happens without repeal.

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"Karezza"-Sex Without Orgasm

The headlines are clear: When it comes to sex, reaching orgasm should be any couple's ultimate goal. And yet some couples are rejecting that idea. The practice of 'Karezza' has become increasingly popular among pairs trying to reignite the “spark” in their relationships, ABC News reported. And karezza sex doesn’t involve climax.

Karezza, which gets its name for the italian word for 'Caress' is a “gentle, affectionate form of intercourse in which orgasm is not the goal, and ideally does not occur in either partner while making love,” Marnie, a blogger for Karezza website “Reuniting” wrote. Instead, emotional connection and affection are emphasized. ABC News spoke to 51 year old Matt cook who practices karezza with his wife of 25 years. He says that karezza has improved his sex life and his relationship with his wife. “It creates a deep feeling in a relationship that is very difficult to describe,” he said. “Its much deeper than conventional sex.”

Counselor Deb Feintech told ABC News that she uses 'Karezza' to help her coupled patients revitalize their relationships. And despite the stereotype that all men are always looking to get off, many of her most devoted clients are men. “It’s very radical for them, but they are finding the emotional intimacy far outweighs any of the thrill of the chase and the mating mind,” she said.

If more men are embracing the orgasm free sex-lives, it appears that many women are turning to over the counter products in the hope of experiencing the big O. TheNew York Times reported on July 2nd that more women are purchasing lubricants, arousal gels and oils, vibrators, herbal supplements and other sex aids. Meanwhile, female sexual issues are becoming increasingly medicalized. Female Sexual Dysfunctionwill become an official diagnosis in 2013 when the DSM-V -- the psychiatric diagnosis manual -- is released. Experts disagree about whether this diagnosis is positive for women, increasing their access to helpful treatments, or will intensify the stigma surrounding sex that doesn’t end in orgasm, while profiting off of sales of "sexual enhancement" products the Times reported haven't been proven effective.

So with all of the focus that most people put on orgasms, why are some drawn to karezza? All of the individuals that ABC News interviewed about Karezza were in long-term partnerships, and the majority of the couples had experienced a lag in their sex lives or were recovering from some form of addiction. 

Darryl Keil,56 yr old found karezza when him and his wife were having problems in the bedroom 14 years ago. Neither he nor his wife Annabelle has had an orgasm for eight years, and they say that their relationship has never been better. Annabelle now feels like an equal partner during their daily sexual encounters. “It’s really alive, great sex with great feeling,” Keil told ABC News. “The pleasure goes up another level … You follow the sensation in your body, not the stimulation.”

Of course not everyone understands karezza-devotees’ zeal for an orgasm-free sex life. Keil told ABC Newst: “One guy said to me, you want to climb 10,000 feet up Mt. Everest and not get to the top?”

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