NEW YORK: The S&P 500 punched to a new five-year high on Friday and the Nasdaq to its best since 2000, as stocks regained footing helped by a sharply narrowed US trade deficit.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average also reached a post-crisis high above 14,022 during trade, but slipped back to end up 48.92 points (0.35 percent) at 13,992.97.
The S&P 500 index rose 8.54 points (0.57 percent) to 1,517.93, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 28.74 points (0.91 percent) to 3,193.87.
The indices were still shy of their all-time closing records struck on October 9, 2007, of 1,564.15 for the S&P and 14,164.53 for the Dow. The Nasdaq last saw Friday's level in 2000 as markets plunged in the dot-com crash.
Friday's trade was buoyed by December US trade figures showing a sharp narrowing of the country's trade deficit, helped by a surge in oil exports and a parallel fall in the oil import bill.
The smaller trade deficit "implies positive GDP growth for the fourth quarter," after the initial estimate of an 0.1 percent contraction, said economist Harm Bandholz of UniCredit.
Bullishness also came from China's report that its trade surplus rose and inflation eased in January, adding to recent evidence the world's number-two economy is emerging from a drawn-out downtrend.
The Dow was led higher by Hewlett-Packard, which put on 2.6 percent amid speculation that the company could be broken up in the wake of PC industry rival Dell's going private.
Debt rater Moody's sank 7.7 percent, bringing its week loss to 21.6 percent, as speculation mounted that it could be in federal and state authority sights over its rating of mortgage securities, after Standard & Poor's was sued for allegedly exaggerating such ratings before the financial crisis.
S&P parent McGraw-Hill lost 2.6 percent, taking its fall for the week to 26.9 percent.
Online professional network LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent after it smashed fourth-quarter earnings estimates and issued bullish predictions for 2013.
Apple put on another 1.4 percent as it fielded pressure from shareholders to share out its US$137 billion cash hoard. -- AFP
A blizzard blew into the northeastern United States on Friday, bringing whiteout conditions to some parts of New England and threatening to drop record amounts of snow around Boston.
Authorities scrambled to prepare for the storm, which had already touched off a massive traffic pile-up in southern Maine and prompted organizers of the nation's sledding championship in Maine to postpone a race scheduled for Saturday, fearing too much snow for the competition.
From New York to Maine, the storm began gently, dropping a light dusting of snow, but officials urged residents to stay home, rather than risk getting stuck in deep drifts when the storm kicks up later Friday afternoon.
Even in its early stages, the storm created some panic. Drivers lined up at gas stations to top off their tanks, grocery stores were swamped as shoppers stocked up on bread and milk, and travelers were forced to confront flight delays and cancellations.
The early edge of the storm led to a 19-vehicle pile-up in southern Maine, snarling traffic on a major interstate highway north of Portland. No major injuries were reported.
"It was close to whiteout conditions, it's sort of a precursor of what's coming later," said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the Maine State Police.
Officials across the region closed schools and more than 3,000 flights were canceled. Several thousand customers lost power in New Jersey and points south, though officials warned the number was likely to rise as the snowfall got heavier and winds picked up.
Governors and mayors ordered nonessential government workers to stay home, urged private employers to do the same, told people to prepare for power outages and encouraged them to check on elderly or disabled neighbors.
The light snow falling across much of New England on Friday morning was a taste of the weather to come, said Jerry Paul, senior meteorologist with Weather Insight, a unit of Thomson Reuters. <TRI.TO
"That's going to be gradually building today as time goes on," Paul said.
A wide swath of New England, including northeastern Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, and the Boston area, will likely see 24 inches to 30 inches (60 centimeters to 76 centimeters) of snow, with some areas seeing more than three feet (one meter) by the time the storm ends on Saturday morning, Paul added.
At the storm's peak, winds could gust up to 65 miles per hour (105 kilometers per hour), he said.
Boston's record snowfall, 27.6 inches (70.1 cm), came in 2003.
CHEERING ON STORM
Organizers of the country's championship sledding race, that had been scheduled to get underway in Camden, Maine, on Saturday, postponed the event by one day.
"As soon as the weather clears on Saturday and it is safe, the toboggan committee will be out at Tobagganville cleaning up the chute as quickly as they can," said Holly Edwards, chairman of the U.S. National Toboggan Championships. "It needs to be shoveled out by hand."
Some 400 teams were registered for the race, which features costumed sledders on a 400-foot (121 meter) chute.
After two years of very little snow across the region, people whose livelihoods depend on skiers and snowmobilers cheered on the storm.
"It affects restaurants, lodgings, everything if those people aren't up here to play," said Scott Senecal, manager of the VIP Discount Auto Center in Littleton, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. "All those people that come up here they're going to have flat tires, batteries that die … Cold weather causes people to have to spend money whether they wanted to or not."
FUEL WORRIES
In New York City, still not fully recovered from the effects of October's devastating Hurricane Sandy, officials said they had 1,800 Sanitation Department trucks equipped with snow plows ready to be deployed.
Motorists, mindful of the severe fuel disruptions after Sandy, rushed to buy gasoline, leading to shortages in New York City. A Reuters photographer reported at least three service stations had run out of gas in the borough of Queens on Friday morning, with long lines formed at others.
Sandy knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes, taking gasoline stations out of service, and damaged port facilities, exacerbating the shortages by preventing operable stations from refueling.
"We've seen some lines at stations in the southern part of the state, ahead of the storm, which may actually help prevent problems after the storm," said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops. "I'm not expecting anything like the vast power outages and problems we had with Sandy."
Life was not any easier for those who planned to fly. More than 3,000 flights were canceled on Friday, with close to 1,000 planned cancellations for Saturday, according to the website FlightAware.com. The hardest-hit airports were in the New York City area, Boston and Toronto.
BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. Police spent all night searching the snowy mountains of Southern California but were unable to find the former Los Angeles police officer accused of carrying out a killing spree because he felt he was unfairly fired from his job.
About 80 miles east of LA at Big Bear Lake, where Christopher Dorner's torched pickup was found, authorities said Friday morning that no new evidence had been found.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said the hunt will go on until Dorner is found or there's evidence that he's left the mountain. Searchers Friday are dealing with falling snow and freezing temperatures in the Big Bear Lake region of the San Bernardino Mountains. More than 100 officers were assisting in the manhunt.
CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports from Big Bear that authorities admit that the truck could be an elaborate diversion or even a trap.
Local ski areas were open, but Bear Valley schoolchildren had the day off because of the manhunt.
About 150 miles to the south, up to 16 San Diego County sheriff's deputies spent the night surrounding and searching a rural home after a hoaxer reported Dorner was there. There were people at home but Dorner wasn't one of them, said Lt. Jason Rothlein. Investigators have a pretty good idea who made the call and will be seek criminal charges, he said.
Though the focus is on the resort area, the search for Dorner, 33, stretches across California, Nevada, Arizona and northern Mexico. LAPD officers are especially on edge because Dorner, who was fired from the force in 2008 after three years on the job, promised in rambling writings to bring "warfare" to police and their families.
"We don't know what he's going to do," said Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, one of many law enforcement agencies whose primary purpose has become finding Dorner. "We know what he's capable of doing. And we need to find him."
CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, a former top LAPD official, reports that Dorner cut off all his cell phones and other connections Jan. 31, indicating that he had spent time planning his alleged rampage.
On Thursday, law enforcement officials were inspecting a package CNN's Anderson Cooper received from Dorner. CNN spokeswoman Shimrit Sheetrit said that a parcel containing a note, a DVD and a bullet hole-riddled memento was addressed to Cooper's office.
The memento was a coin bearing the name of former Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton, who appeared with Dorner in a picture taken years ago. On "CBS This Morning" Friday, Bratton described Dorner as "an incredibly dangerous individual" and reacted to the damaged coin.
"When you see that that coin that was given in friendship and respect has three bullet holes, it's certainly very chilling," Bratton said.
Tracks that surrounded the truck and hours of door-to-door searching around Bear Mountain Ski Resort turned up nothing, and authorities conceded that the whereabouts of Dorner, also a former Naval reservist and onetime college running back, remained a mystery.
"He could be anywhere at this point," said San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon, who had 125 deputies and police officers and two helicopters searching the community of Big Bear Lake, where light snow fell early Friday morning.
The saga began Sunday night, when Monica Quan and fiance Keith Lawrence were found shot in their car at a parking structure at their condominium in Irvine. Quan was an assistant women's basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton.
The following morning in National City, near San Diego, some of Dorner's belongings, including police equipment and paperwork with names related to the LAPD, were found in a trash bin.
The LAPD was notified of the find, and two days later informed Irvine police of an angry manifesto written by a former officer and posted on Facebook. Among those named as targets was Randal Quan, a former LAPD captain turned attorney who represented Dorner in his unsuccessful attempts to keep the police job he lost in 2008 for making false statements.
Randal Quan was also Monica Quan's father.
"Bing bing bing, the dots were connecting," Irvine police Lt. Julia Engen said. "These names are somehow associated to Mr. Quan, who just lost his daughter the prior day. The dots connected. OK, now we've got a name of somebody to look at. That's when the discovery was connected."
On Wednesday night, Irvine and Los Angeles police announced they were searching for Dorner, declaring him armed and "extremely dangerous." Hours later, they learned they were all too correct.
Two LAPD officers en route to provide security to one of Dorner's possible targets were flagged down by a resident who reported seeing the suspect early Thursday at a gas station in Corona. The officers then followed a pickup truck until it stopped. The driver, believed to be Dorner, got out and fired a rifle, police said. A bullet grazed an officer's head.
Later, two officers on routine patrol in neighboring Riverside were ambushed at a stoplight by a motorist who drove up next to them and opened fire with a rifle. One died and the other was seriously wounded but was expected to survive, said Riverside police Chief Sergio Diaz.
Thousands of heavily armed officers patrolled highways throughout Southern California, while some stood guard outside the homes of people police said Dorner vowed to attack. Electronic billboards, which usually alert motorists about the commute, urged them to call 911 if they saw him.
At a news conference held amid heightened security in an underground room at police headquarters, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck urged Dorner to surrender.
"Of course he knows what he's doing; we trained him. He was also a member of the Armed Forces," he said. "It is extremely worrisome and scary."
While in the Naval Reserves, Dorner earned a rifle marksman ribbon and pistol expert medal. He was assigned to a naval undersea warfare unit and various aviation training units, according to military records, taking a leave from the LAPD to be deployed to Bahrain in 2006 and 2007.
He wrote that he would "utilize every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordinance and survival training I've been given," the manifesto read.
The hunt led to two errant shootings in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday.
LAPD officers guarding a target named in the manifesto shot and wounded two women in suburban Torrance who were in a pickup truck delivering newspapers. Investigators said Maggie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were in a Toyota Tundra, similar to Dorner's Nissan Titan. Carranza had minor hand injuries. Hernandez was hospitalized with a gunshot wound in the back. A lawyer said they had no warning.
Minutes later, Torrance officers responding to a report of gunshots encountered a dark pickup matching the description of Dorner's, police said. A collision occurred and the officers fired on the pickup. The unidentified driver was not hit and it turned out not to be the suspect vehicle, they said.
In San Diego, where police said Dorner tied up an elderly man and unsuccessfully tried to steal his boat Wednesday night, Naval Base Point Loma was locked down Thursday after a Navy worker reported seeing someone who resembled Dorner.
Navy Cmdr. Brad Fagan said officials believe Dorner had checked into a base hotel on Tuesday and left the next day without checking out. Numerous agencies guarded the base on Thursday. Fagan said Dorner was honorably discharged and that his last day in the Navy was last Friday.
Nevada authorities also joined the search, because Dorner owns a house nine miles from the Las Vegas Strip.
In Big Bear, Dorner's pickup was taken to be processed at a crime lab Thursday evening and examined by investigators from multiple agencies.
The manhunt was affecting some local businesses. A couple of fast food restaurants shut their doors and only took drive-in customers, and the main shopping avenue had light foot traffic.
Dorner's writings suggested he did not expect to live through the ordeal.
"Unfortunately, I will not be alive to see my name cleared," he wrote at one point in his manifesto, later saying, "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago."
IRVINE, Calif. – Police are waging an intensive manhunt across Southern California for a former Los Angeles cop wanted in connection with a double murder and suspected of going on a revenge shooting spree.
Overnight shootings in Riverside County that left one officer dead and two wounded have been linked to the former Los Angeles officer, Christopher Dorner, who was named as a suspect in the slaying of a young couple here Sunday.
Across Southern California, digital traffic signs carried alerts urging motorists to report any sight of Dorner, believed to be driving a Nissan Titan pickup truck and considered armed and dangerous.
As a measure of the intensity of the manhunt, LAPD police and Torrance police were involved in two separate shooting incidents in Torrance which two people were hit by gunfire and suffered unknown injuries, the Los Angeles Timesreported.
The newspaper quoted Torrance police Lt. Devin Chase as saying both incidents involved vehicles fitting the description of the one belonging to Dorner. The suspect was not actually involved in either incident, Chase said.
"I don't think there's anybody in law enforcement who isn't looking for him, along with about half the commuters in Southern California,'' said San Diego police Det. Gary Hassen.
Police there early Thursday recovered a badge and ID bearing Dorner's photograph, Hassen said. The items were found by a citizen near the San Diego airport, given to a shuttle bus driver and passed to police, he said.
Irvine Police Chief David Maggard named Dorner Wednesday night as the suspect in the slayings of Monica Quan, 28, an assistant basketball coach at California State University-Fullerton, and her fiance, David Lawrence, a University of Southern California campus security officer.
They were found dead of multiple gunshots in their car outside their Irvine condominium Sunday night.
The Los Angeles Police Department said in a written statement that it was cooperating and that Dorner "has made threats against members of the LAPD, and we are taking those threats very seriously.'' It said police were taking steps to protect personnel and citizens that may have been threatened.
"Dorner is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous and we ask that anyone who sees Dorner, to not approach or attempt contacting him, but to immediately call 911 and notify law enforcement authorities,'' the Los Angeles police statement said.
Dorner was a Los Angeles officer from 2002 until 2008, when he was terminated, the department said.
Two overnight shootings were linked to the investigation, the first in the city of Corona, where two LAPD officers were providing security. One officer was grazed by a bullet, the Associated Press reported.
Riverside Lt. Guy Toussaint says two officers were stopped at a light while on routine patrol around 1:30 a.m. local time when someone shot them, the Associated Press reported. One of the officers was killed and the other was critically wounded.
Police say Dorner implicated himself in the killings in a "manifesto" that included threats against several people, including members of the LAPD.
Toussaint says police don't where Dorner is but think he left the area.
Monica Quan is the daughter of Randy Quan, a retired LAPD captain who was involved in the review process that ultimately led to Dorner's dismissal from the force.
Maggard said Dorner lost his LAPD job and implicated himself in the deaths with a multi-page manifesto obtained by police. He did not reveal other details.
In his online manifesto, the Los Angeles Times reported, Dorner wrote in reference to Quan and others, "Your lack of ethics and conspiring to wrong a just individual are over. Suppressing the truth will lead to deadly consequences for you and your family. There will be an element of surprise where you work, live, eat, and sleep."
"The violence of action will be high," he wrote. "... I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty."
"I know most of you who personally know me are in disbelief to hear from media reports that I am suspected of committing such horrendous murders and have taken drastic and shocking actions in the last couple of days," he wrote, according to the newspaper.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, the LAPD said Dorner was employed as a police officer from Feb. 7, 2002, until Sept. 4, 2008.
The slaying of the couple shocked this suburban city that prides itself on having one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.
The couple was found dead of multiple gunshots in their car Sunday night in a parking structure at their condominium home near the University of California-Irvine campus. Quan and Lawrence both were standout basketball players while students at Concordia University in Irvine, and Quan was an assistant coach at California State University-Fullerton. Lawrence was a campus police officer at the University of Southern California.
Randy Quan was the first Chinese-American to attain the rank of captain on the LAPD force, the department has said. He later served as chief of police at Cal Poly-Pomona, part of the California State University system.
The potentially historic storm expected to hammer Massachusetts with up to 2 feet of snow, high winds, and coastal flooding will start with just a few flakes Friday morning, but by that night, snow could be falling thick and fast, creating dangerous conditions on the road, the National Weather Service says.
Only an inch or two is expected to fall Friday morning. The storm's intensity is expected to increase in the afternoon with another 2 to 4 inches falling. Then "the real fun" will begin after 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., when snow will begin to fall at 1 to 2 inches per hour, said weather service meteorologist William Babcock.
"I think it's going to become fairly dangerous by Friday night. The sooner you can be off the roads the better," he said. "You want to give yourself some time to be at your safe spot before the storn hits its strongest."
The snow will strengthen into the evening, with wind-whipped snow falling at 2 to 4 inches per hour during the peak. The snow will continue into Saturday morning and taper off in the afternoon, he said.
Babcock said late this morning in a telephone interview that the worst-case scenario still appears to be that 2 feet of snow will blanket areas of the state.
"In weather, you never say never," he said. "Right now, we're fairly confident there's going to be a major snowstorm. ... The probability of our seeing significant snow is fairly high. I wouldn't want to bet against it at this time."
Forecasters have issued blizzard watches for much of the state, warning that the copious snow will be whipped by high winds and gusts that could reach 65 miles per hour in some areas.
A National Weather Service snowfall total forecast map issued today shows most of the state getting 18 to 24 inches, with only the Cape and islands slightly spared, getting 10 to 14 inches, with 8 to 10 on Nantucket.
The forecasters are also warning that the storm may produce moderate coastal flooding Friday evening and moderate to major coastal flooding Saturday morning. Large waves, along with a 2-to-3-foot storm surge, are expected to devour beaches and flood shore roads. They also may put shoreside homes at risk during the Saturday morning high tide.
From state and local officials to residents crowding supermarkets to pick up supplies, people around the state are girding for the wintry blast.
Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency spokesman Peter Judge said a number of key players in storm response were meeting this morning at the state's emergency bunker in Framingham to discuss the blizzard and plans to respond to it, such as how to address power outages, coastal flooding, and clearing of debris.
Those attending the meetings included the National Guard, State Police, Department of Transportation, Department of Public Utilities, the utilities themselves, and the Red Cross and Salvation Army, he said.
Judge said the state would activate its emergency operations center at the bunker sometime Friday.
He urged people to monitor the storm, saying the timing and impact to specific areas could "change dramatically."
He also urged people to listen to local elected officials, who may advise them to stay off the road or, if they're along the coast, evacuate their homes.
He said people should put together their emergency kits, which should include flashlights, batteries, and bottled water. And he said people planning to use generators should make sure they know how to use them safely.
KUALA LUMPUR: MBf Holdings Bhd chief executive officer Tan Sri Mogan Lourdenadin is privatising the company by offering RM1.50 a share.
Lourdenadin, who owns 87 per cent of the company, also offered 50 sen per offer warrant and RM4.64 per Class A United States dollar denominated redeemable convertible secured loan stock RCSLS. MBf's last traded price was RM1.48.
"The board does not intend to seek an alternative person to make a take-over offer for the offer shares," MBf said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia late on Wednesday.
The joint offerors were Tor Private Ltd, Nadin Holdings Sdn Bhd, Impact Action Sdn Bhd and Market Share Investments Ltd.
Trading of MBf shares was halted today (Thursday) from 9am to 10am following the announcement.
MBf is in the process of selling its credit and charge card operations under MBF Cards (M) Sdn Bhd for RM623.4 million to AMMB Holdings Bhd.
Affin Research raised its target price on Public Bank Bhd to RM16.20 from RM15.70 after the company's earnings for the year ended Dec. 31 came within expectations.
The company reported a "moderate" 5 per cent jump in its net profit at RM3.9 billion, driven by Islamic Banking and non-interest income.
"Being a predominantly domestic, retail-based lender with top market positions in household and small-to-medium enterprise financing, we continue to forecast a healthy net earnings growth of 11.8 per cent for this year," Affin said in a report on Thursday.
The brokerage maintained its 'add' rating on Public Bank. Shares of Public Bank were down 0.76 per cent at RM15.60 as of 0903am (0103GMT) while the benchmark index was down 0.63 per cent. -- Reuters
WASHINGTON -- The Postal Service took another major step in its battle for financial viability Wednesday, announcing plans to halt Saturday delivery of first-class mail.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahue said package delivery, which has seen growth in recent years as online purchasing booms, will continue when the plan is implemented in August. He said the plan will save $2 billion annually.
"It's an important part of our strategy to return to financial stability," he said.
The announcement drew mixed reviews on Capitol Hill, where USPS discussions on the subject of Saturday delivery have drawn fierce opposition in the past.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ranking Member Tom Coburn M.D., R-Okla., sent a letter to leaders of both chambers of Congress supporting Donahue's plan. Issa and Coburn, the top Republicans on committees with jurisdiction over USPS, called the plan "common-sense reform."
But some lawmakers from rural states more reliant on six-day mail delivery expressed frustration with the decision.
"This is bad news for Alaskans and small business owners who rely on timely delivery to rural areas," said Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, who said the decision would slow overall mail delivery time for things including Social Security checks.
Begich said the Postal Service should have allowed Congress more time to find a legislative solution. The Senate passed a postal reform bill last year that would have prevented the elimination of Saturday delivery for at least two years, but the effort stalled in the House.
"We wouldn't be in this situation if the House had done its job and passed a bill," Begich said.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called postal reform a "pretty difficult" issue and recommitted the chamber to action to help shore up the solvency of the nation's mail system.
"Congress needs to act. There's no question about that, and I hope that we'll act soon," he said.
American Postal Workers Union president Cliff Guffey said he opposes Donahoe's plan, saying a solution must come from Congress.
"USPS executives cannot save the Postal Service by tearing it apart," he said.
The volume of First Class mail has declined sharply since 2008 as more people pay their bills on line. Last year the Postal Service had a $15.9 billion loss and defaulted on its pension plan contributions. USPS has also reached its borrowing limit, Donahue said.
"It's put a tremendous financial pressure on the postal service," he said.
The Postal Service previously had cut costs be eliminating 193,000 jobs and consolidating 200 mail processing centers. The service cutback will enable the postal service to cut more jobs, which Donahoe says can be done through retirements, buyouts and routine attrition.
"We take no tax dollars. We do not want tax dollars," he said.
Under the new schedule, post office hours will not change and post office boxes will continue to receive Saturday delivery, Donahoe said. The postal service expects growth in package delivery as e-commerce expands, he said.
"America's mailing habits are changing," Donahoe said. "This makes common sense."
The six-month lead time will allow businesses to adjust their production and delivery schedules, he said
Donahoe said surveys indicate the public supports five-day delivery. The plan should have little impact on speed of delivery except for items that would have been delivered on Saturday, Donahue said.
Last year, under pressure from Congress and local communities, the cash-strapped agency dropped plans to close thousands of post offices across the nation, instead deciding to trim operations at 13,000 offices.
Saturday has the week's lowest daily volume and and more than a third of U.S. businesses are closed Saturday, USPS reports. Most businesses and households surveyed in a national Gallup Poll indicated Saturday would be the least disruptive day to eliminate mail delivery.
USPS has faced billion-dollar deficits since 2007 attributed to a combination of the bad economy, the Internet and mandatory pre-funding of retiree health benefits.
The agency in November reported an annual loss of a record $15.9 billion for the last budget year. The financial losses for the year, which ended Sept. 30, were more than triple the $5.1 billion loss in the previous year. Last year the agency was forced to default on billions in retiree health benefit prepayments to avert bankruptcy.
The agency's biggest problem - and the majority of the red ink in 2012 - was not due to reduced mail flow but rather to mounting mandatory costs for future retiree health benefits, which made up $11.1 billion of the losses. Without that and other related labor expenses, the mail agency sustained an operating loss of $2.4 billion, lower than the previous year.
The health payments are a requirement imposed by Congress in 2006 that the post office set aside $55 billion in an account to cover future medical costs for retirees. The idea was to put $5.5 billion a year into the account for 10 years. That's $5.5 billion the post office doesn't have.
No other government agency is required to make such a payment for future medical benefits. Postal authorities wanted Congress to address the issue last year, but lawmakers finished their session without getting it done. So officials are moving ahead to accelerate their own plan for cost-cutting.
The Postal Service is in the midst of a major restructuring throughout its retail, delivery and mail processing operations. Since 2006, it has cut annual costs by about $15 billion, reduced the size of its career workforce by 193,000 or by 28 percent, and has consolidated more than 200 mail processing locations, officials say.
They say that while the change in the delivery schedule announced Wednesday is one of the actions needed to restore the financial health of the service, they still urgently need lawmakers to act. Officials say they continue to press for legislation that will give them greater flexibility to control costs and make new revenues.
Contributing: Susan Davis; Natalie DiBlasio; Associated Press
A decision on whether the Boy Scouts of America will keep its policy that excludes gay members and leaders will not be voted on until the organization's annual meeting in May.
By Michael Muskal and Molly Hennessy-Fiske
February 6, 2013, 9:18 a.m.
IRVING, Texas -- The Boy Scouts of America decided Wednesday to put off a decision on whether to lift a national ban of gay members and leaders, saying the issue of sexual orientation was too complex and needed more time for study.
The decision to wait came after the organization recently announced that it would consider changing its policies and might allow local chapters to decide whether to admit gays as Scouts and leaders.
"After careful consideration and extensive dialog within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America's National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy," Deron Smith, the BSA director of public relations, said in a statement.
"To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting's membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers' work on a resolution on membership standards," he stated.
The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May in Grapevine, Texas, he said.
It was the Scouts that put the issue back on the agenda for the current executive board meeting, held in its headquarters in Irving. But the move also came amid declining membership, questions by corporate sponsors and public pressure from activists who oppose the current national ban.
"Today the Boy Scouts of America have chosen to remain irrelevant by delaying the vote," said James Dale, who was expelled from the Scouts in 1990 for being openly gay. "For over 23 years, since I was expelled from the Scouts, I have held out hope that the Boy Scouts would end their discriminatory policy. With each passing day the Scouts will continue to lose members, sponsors and funding. No parent or child should associate with an organization that sends a toxic message telling children they are immoral if they are gay."
GLAAD, the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group, condemned the decision to wait.
"An organization that serves youth and chooses to intentionally hurt dedicated young people and hard-working parents not only flies in the face of American principles, but the principles of being a Boy Scout," GLAAD President Herndon Graddick stated.
"The Boy Scouts of America is choosing to ignore the cries of millions, including religious institutions, current Scouting families, and corporate sponsors, but these cries will not be silenced. We're living in a culture where hurting young gay people because of who they are is unpopular and discriminatory. They had the chance to end the pain this ban has caused to young people and parents; they chose to extend the pain."
Those seeking to keep the ban were also vocal. A majority of the Boy Scout organizations are sponsored by local churches, many of which have religious objections to homosexuals.
About 100 people gathered outside Boy Scouts headquarters in suburban Dallas carrying signs that said "Save our boys from homosexual acts;" "God votes no gays" and "Don't invite sin into the camp."
Texas Values, a conservative group that organized a prayer vigil this week in support of keeping gays out of the Scouts, said the Scouts organization was right to delay a decision.
"It's a temporary victory," Jonathan Saenz said of Wednesday's vote. "Good for them -- they're obviously listening. We are encouraged and we're glad they're going to delay the decision. When you deal with such fundamental principles, it's not something you want to tinker with overnight."
Robert Davis, 48, of Benbrook, Texas, wore his Longhorn Council Scouting uniform and brought his two sons to the protest Wednesday.
"I think it's a good sign," he said of the organization's vote. "The Boy Scouts of America is one of the last moral high grounds in this country. I hate to see it die."
"My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life," said Obama, who as U.S. president is the honorary president of BSA, in a Sunday interview with CBS.
Perry, the author of the book "On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For," said in a speech Saturday that "to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate."
Malaysia's Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), the country's largest REIT in asset size, said on Wednesday it will issue new units to raise RM320 million to repay debt tied to a recent acquisition.
Sunway REIT will issue 214.8 million new units at RM1.49 per unit for its acquisition of Sunway Medical Center, its first healthcare asset. The move comes after shares of the company were suspended for the past two days pending the announcement. Trading will resume at 1000 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Wednesday.
RHB Investment Bank, Credit Suisse (Singapore) Ltd, Credit Suisse (Securities) Malaysia Sdn Bhd, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd and Maybank Investment Bank Bhd were agents for the placement. -- Reuters
CIMB Research raised its target price for UMW Holdings Bhd to RM14.45 from RM13.10 after the industrial-to-automotive company's oil and gas unit won a 140 million contract in East Malaysia.
The contract will add a maximum of 3 per cent to UMW's earnings, though a weakening US dollar and yen will have a larger positive effect, CIMB said in a report on Wednesday. The brokerage maintained an 'outperform' call on UMW.
UMW said in December it planned to sell up to RM2 billion in Islamic bonds to cut debt and fund working capital. Shares of UMW fell 0.16 per cent to RM12.16. The stock has gained nearly 25 per cent in the past six months, according to data from Thomson Reuters. -- Reuters
Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell displays a Dell tablet computer during his keynote address at Oracle Open World in San Francisco, California in this September 22, 2010 file photograph.
Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith/Files
By Poornima Gupta
Tue Feb 5, 2013 12:07pm EST
(Reuters) - Michael Dell will take Dell Inc private for $24.4 billion in the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis, a deal that allows the billionaire chief executive officer to revive the fortunes of his computer company without Wall Street scrutiny.
The deal - announced on Tuesday and financed with cash and equity from Michael Dell, cash from private equity firm Silver Lake, and a $2 billion loan from Microsoft Corp - will end a rocky 24-year run on public markets for a company conceived in a college dorm room.
To many investors, Dell's decline in market share since its peak in the early 2000s symbolizes the rapidly dwindling prospects of the personal computer industry.
The world's No. 3 PC maker, which Michael Dell began in 1984 as a computer-sales outfit while he was still a 19-year-old pre-med student at the University of Texas, is now going through a painful transition from a pure PC maker to a one-stop provider of enterprise computing services. Sales of PCs still make up the majority of its revenue.
Analysts say the restructuring may entail job cuts and more costly acquisitions, as the company arms itself to do battle with larger and more established rivals like Hewlett-Packard Co and IBM Corp.
"We recognize this process will take more time," Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden told Reuters. "We will have to make investments, and we will have to be patient to implement the strategy.
"And under a new private company structure, we will have time and flexibility to really pursue and realize the end-to-end solutions strategy."
Gladden said the company's strategy would "generally remain the same" after the deal closed, but "we won't have the scrutiny and limitations associated with operating as a public company."
Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake are paying $13.65 per share in cash for the world's No. 3 computer maker. Michael Dell's MSD Capital investment firm will also provide cash financing for the deal. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets will offer debt financing.
Shares of Dell were up 0.8 percent at $13.38 in morning trading.
Dell, whose fairy-tale rise throughout the 1990s and the early part of the next decade once made it a Wall Street darling, has ceded market share in recent years to nimbler rivals such as Lenovo Group. That is in spite of Michael Dell's efforts in the five years since he retook the helm of the company following a brief hiatus during which its fortunes waned.
As of 2012's fourth quarter, Dell's share of the global PC market had slid to just above 10 percent from 12.5 percent a year earlier as its shipments dived 20 percent - the fastest quarterly pace of decline in years, according to research house IDC.
While analysts said Dell could be more nimble as a private company, it will still have to deal with the same difficult market conditions. International Business Machines Corp last decade underwent what is considered one of the most successful transformations of a hardware company, all while trading on public markets.
"This is an opportunity for Michael Dell to be a little more flexible managing the company," said FBN Securities analyst Shebly Seyrafi. "That doesn't take away from the fact they will have challenges in the PC market like they did before."
RECORD BUYOUT
The deal would be the biggest private equity-backed leverage buyout since Blackstone Group LP's takeout of the Hilton Hotels Group in July 2007 for more than $20 billion, and is the 11th-largest on record.
The parties expect the transaction to close before the end of Dell's 2014 second quarter, which ends in July.
News of the buyout talks first emerged on January 14, although they reportedly started in the latter part of 2012. Michael Dell had previously acknowledged thinking about going private as far back as 2010.
The $13.65-per-share price is a premium of about 24 percent to the average $11 price of Dell stock before news of the deal talks broke and is far below the $17.61 that the shares were trading for a year ago.
"The key question here is will shareholders approve this deal, because there is practically no premium where the stock is trading," Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said.
J.P. Morgan and Evercore Partners were financial advisers, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP was the legal adviser to the special committee of Dell's board. Goldman Sachs was financial adviser, and Hogan Lovells was legal adviser to Dell.
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was legal adviser to Michael Dell. BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets were financial advisers to Silver Lake, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP was its legal adviser.
(Writing by Ben Berkowitz and Edwin Chan; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Lisa Von Ahn)
President Obama on Tuesday will call on Congress to pass a small package of spending cuts and tax changes to delay deep reductions in domestic and defense spending from starting next month, a White House official said.
The official did not name any specific spending cuts or tax changes — which ultimately could include the closing of loopholes or deductions benefiting the wealthy or select industries — but said they should postpone the automatic spending reductions, known as the sequester, for a few months.
Obama will make a statement at 1:15 p.m at the White House. Any plan passed by Congress would have to reduce borrowing by tens of billions of dollars through a combination of alternative spending cuts or tax increases. It would be a stopgap measure with only weeks to go until the March 1 deadline for the onset of sequestration.
While Republicans, who have been warming to the idea of allowing the sequester to go forward, may agree to alternative spending cuts, the tax changes would likely be a flashpoint. Obama has made clear he expects wealthy Americans and select industries, such as finance and oil and gas, to pay more taxes toward deficit reduction.
Responding to the White House on Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) reaffirmed House Republicans' opposition to tax increases.
"President Obama first proposed the sequester and insisted it become law. Republicans ... believe there is a better way to reduce the deficit, but Americans do not support sacrificing real spending cuts for more tax hikes," Boehner said in a statement. "The president's sequester should be replaced with spending cuts and reforms that will start us on the path to balancing the budget in 10 years."
The sequester was a mechanism that Congress and the White House designed in 2011 to force policymakers to generate significant deficit reduction over the next 10 years. While they have made progress on that front — accumulating over $2 trillion in deficit savings — they have not come to a broad agreement as many hoped.
The sequester would slice $1.2 trillion in domestic and defense spending over 10 years, indiscriminately cutting most programs. (Some programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps, are exempt.)
"While we need to deal with our deficits over the long term, we shouldn't have workers being laid off, kids kicked off Head Start, and food safety inspections cut while Congress completes the process," the White House official said.
"With our economy poised to continue to strengthen this year, the president will make clear that we can't see another self-inflicted wound from Washington," the official added. "The president will urge Congress to come together and act to ensure these devastating cuts to defense and job-creating programs don't take effect."
The "fiscal cliff" deal at the start of the year postponed the sequester for two months.
Obama favors a broader plan to permanently end the sequester and replace it with a series of reductions in health care and other mandatory spending as well as the elimination of tax breaks that benefit the wealthy and industries.
Republicans favor deep cuts to spending without raising taxes any more.
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