Economy generates modest number of jobs

John W. Schoen , NBC News ? ? ? 6 hrs.

The U.S. economy created a modest 157,000 jobs in January as the sluggish recovery from the recession of 2007 continued to leave millions of Americans job?seekers sidelined and without a paycheck.

Despite the net gain in jobs for the month, the unemployment rate edged higher to 7.9 percent, consistent with a recovery that is just ambling along, at best.

The Labor Department's report Friday included a few positive signs, including a stronger pace of hiring at the end of 2012 than initially reported. That may dispel some worries that followed a separate?report this week?showing economic growth came to an abrupt halt as 2012 drew to a close.?

On Wednesday, the government reported that the gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced by the nation, came to a standstill. Deep cuts in government spending and a big drawdown in inventories offset underlying strength in business and consumer spending.

?January's employment report should help to soothe any lingering concerns, after the negative GDP (data), that the U.S. economy is headed for a recession,? said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics.

Fresh data from other sources seemed to confirm that any pause in growth late last year was only temporary.?

The U.S. manufacturing sector grew in January at its fastest clip in nine months, boosted by a surge in domestic demand, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Much of the strength is coming from automakers, who reported continued strong sales in January. An aging American fleet of cars and trucks, the result of businesses and households deferring replacement during the economic downturn, is prompting many buyers to visit car showrooms. Newer, fuel-efficient models have also spurred sales. ?

General Motors Friday said sales rose 16 percent in the latest month, while Ford posted a 22 percent sales gain. Chrysler reported a 16 percenty jump in January car sales, the company's best showing since 2008.

The auto industry is also?benefiting?from an?overall?improvement in consumers'?mood?after?Washington?reached?a?deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" at the beginning of the year,?according?to?a?survey released on Friday.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment rose a point?to 73.8, topping economists' forecasts of 71.5. (The survey was done before this week's?report?showing?the economy contracted in the fourth quarter.)

There?was?even?a?bit?of?positive?news?in?Friday's?otherwise?lackluster?jobs?report.?The?pace?of?hiring?was?a?bit?stronger?over the past two years than?initially?reported.?The Labor?Department's annual statistical?revisions?showed that?employers added an average of roughly 180,000 jobs per month in 2012 and 2011, up from previous estimates of about 150,000. And hiring was stronger at the end of last year, averaging 200,000 new jobs in the final three months.

But overall,?the job numbers confirm what economists have been saying since the U.S. pulled out of one of the deepest recessions in a century: the pace of the recovery has been too slow to make much of?a dent in the unemployment rate. Friday?s report showed the rate bumped up a tenth of a?point ? down from a peak of 10 percent in October 2009.

Since then, the pace of job creation has been barely fast enough to keep up with population growth. More than three years after the latest?recession ended, overall employment is still 3.1 million jobs lower than the peak reached in January 2008.

Hiring managers have blamed uncertainty about the economic outlook and the ongoing?political?gridlock in Washington for their?reluctance?to take on more workers.?Though?they?have been investing in new?equipment?and?software?to help?boost?production?with the same number of workers, business investment remains relatively weak more than three?years into the?recovery.?

"Investment has a tight leading relationship with private payrolls," said Beata Caranci, deputy chief economist?at?TD?Economics.?"You don't get a sustained pick-up in the second without the first."?

Whatever the reason, the pace of job growth this far after a recession badly lags all but one recovery in the last half century.?

Until the pace of job creation picks up convincingly, the Federal Reserve will likely continue to buy roughly $85 billion of bonds each month to keep interest rates low and try to spur growth. That prospect has been helping push stocks near to new heights.

Central bank policy makers on Wednesday renewed their commitment to the easy-money policy, which they have pledged to keep in place until the jobless rate falls below 6.5 percent.

Forecasters say that, based on other reports on the economy?s strength, that target won?t be hit for at least another year.

?We haven?t seen anything in the data yet that suggests that job growth is about to pick up to an area that is satisfying to the Fed," said Julia Coronado, chief economist for North America at BNP Paribas.

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/unemployment-rate-ticks-slightly-modest-number-jobs-created-1B8209090

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92% Silver Linings Playbook

All Critics (218) | Top Critics (50) | Fresh (193) | Rotten (16)

It's a rom-com that succeeds in revitalizing that discredited genre where so many others have failed, injecting it with the grit and emotion of realist drama rather than with amped-up whimsy or social satire or montages of people walking on the beach.

Silver Linings Playbook tells us that happily-ever-after may depend on finding people who coexist with our lunacy, not ones who can lead us out of it. In any case, it's crazy good.

A crazy beaut of a comedy that brims with generosity and manages to circumvent predictability at every turn.

An edgy romantic dramedy that suits our anxious times.

This meaningful film keeps the laughs, giddy anxiousness and warm butterflies from the trailer and sustains it all through two full hours of a love story.

Silver Linings Playbook puts the "fun" in "dysfunction." And sure, that sounds glib, but actually, it's a rather extraordinary achievement. Especially when you're skirting on the edges of sanity.

A bittersweet pill that's a mixture of an endearing family drama and modern romance that's an absolute delight.

tows the line of conventional, feel-good Hollywood rom-com, albeit dressed up in just enough art-house quirk to make it feel like something slightly radical

A reminder that 'sanity' doesn't make your flaws any more orderly.

Silver Linings Playbook is a fine, funny film, and one that should charm viewers who haven't been tricked by all those Oscar nominations into anticipating it as some kind of world-changing work of art for the ages.

David O. Russell's latest buzz film straddles a fine line between farce and kitchen-sink drama before settling into a groove that gets under one's skin.

It starts to fray about halfway through as it shifts into a more conventional mode, taking on the usual trappings of the genre and making its way to a predictable resolution

Both charming and gritty... Cooper is edgy, while Lawrence is dynamite

If there's one reason why you should see this film, it's to admire the wonderful performances from Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

Cooper and Lawrence Shine in Linings.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silver_linings_playbook/

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New device traps particulates, kills airborne pathogens

Jan. 31, 2013 ? A new device called a soft X-ray electrostatic precipitator protected immunocompromised mice from airborne pathogenic bacteria, viruses, ultrafine particles, and allergens, according to a paper published online ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. This device, known for short as a SXC ESP, is highly versatile, with multiple potential uses, and Washington University is working on licensing the technology.

"Small particles are difficult to remove, and our device overcomes that barrier," says Pratim Biswas of Washington University, St. Louis. The device not only captures particles with a high level of efficiency that has never before been achieved; it also inactivates them. Even bioterror agents are blocked and completely inactivated, says Biswas.

The range of potential uses includes indoor protection of susceptible populations, such as people with respiratory illness or inhalation-induced allergies, and young children; protection of buildings from bio-terror attack; protection of individuals in hospital surgical theaters, for example, during open organ surgery; protection in clean rooms for semiconductor fabrication; removal of ultrafine particles in power plants; and capture of diesel exhaust particulates, says Biswas.

The device could be used in homes, with a cost similar to that of high efficiency air cleaners, says Biswas. "But it would be much easier to operate, and much more effective," he adds. It could be added into stand-alone indoor air cleaners, or incorporated into HVAC systems in homes, offices, and even in aircraft cabins. In the study, the device exceeded standards for high efficiency articulate air filters, which must be capable of removing particles larger than 0.3 micrometers with 99.97 percent efficiency.

The SXC ESP works by placing a charge on the particles -- "which it does very effectively," says Biswas -- and then using an electrical field to trap the particles. The SXC unit then also completely inactivates biological particles, by irradiating them, and photoionizing them -- as UV light does, only more energetically.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Society for Microbiology.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. E. M. Kettleson, J. M. Schriewer, R. M. L. Buller, P. Biswas. Soft X-ray Enhanced Electrostatic Precipitation for Protection against Inhalable Allergens, Ultrafine Particles, and Microbial Infections. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2012; DOI: 10.1128/AEM.02897-12

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/NhdIUec9Yf8/130131154414.htm

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Delwyn Uni Blog: Inanimate Education | koirebogelay

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Source: http://koirebogelay.blogspot.com/2013/01/delwyn-uni-blog-inanimate-education.html

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On Washington: Immigration Shifts May Open Path for a Deal

In many ways it seems like 2007 all over again when it comes to addressing illegal immigration. Senator John McCain of Arizona is trying to build a bipartisan compromise. Rush Limbaugh is inveighing against amnesty. The White House ? in this case President Obama rather than President George W. Bush ? has staked considerable capital on reaching an agreement.

But much is different this time around, and not just in the Republicans? newfound urgency to get a deal or risk watching Democrats cement the allegiance of Hispanic voters for a generation or more. By some key measures, the underlying problems ? the pressures that have sent Mexicans northward for decades in search of jobs and a better life and the challenges for the United States of securing its borders? ? have diminished relative to where they were even six years ago when Congress last tried to confront the issue and failed.

There is some debate about whether the changes are permanent or would be reversed again in the event of another sharp economic downturn in Mexico or across Latin American ? or a strong rebound in economic growth and demand for labor in the United States.

But for now the bottom line is that the population of undocumented immigrants in the United States fell to 11.1 million in 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available, from a peak of 12 million in 2007, the Pew Hispanic Center said in a report on Tuesday.? By one new estimate, the number of people who managed to come over the Mexican border and make it illegally into the United States fell to 85,000 in 2011, down from 600,000 five years earlier.

With the scale of the problem stabilizing for the moment, or even shrinking, some experts say, there is more room for political compromise than the last time around.

?We are at a moment when the underlying drivers of what has been persistent, growing illegal immigration for 40 years have shifted,? said Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service who is now a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a research group. ??There are some fundamental new realities.?

One of them is economic. Mexico?s economy, while still riddled with inefficiency and inequality, is nonetheless humming along at a healthy rate, outpacing the United States by some standards and driving Mexico?s unemployment rate down even as post-recession job creation north of the border remains modest. The result has been to diminish both the push and the pull of illegal immigration.

Another is demographic. In Mexico, the source of about 6 in 10 undocumented immigrants in the United States, fertility rates having plummeted over the last few decades, and the pool of young workers ? those most likely to seek a better life by emigrating ? is dwindling quickly. ?More Mexican children are remaining in school and getting high school degrees, an indication that they see their future at home as a middle class takes root.

Mexico?s population growth has fallen from a 3.2 percent annual rate to 1.1 percent in the first decade of this century, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The population of people under 15 years old is already declining in Mexico, and the population of people aged 15 to 29 will start doing so in coming years, an important shift given that most illegal immigrants arrive in the United States before age 30.

At the same time, one of the most contentious elements in previous battles over the issue ? border security ? has also become less of a partisan flash point.

Reflecting in part the deterrent effect of tighter border patrols as well as the economic and demographic shifts, the number of apprehensions along the border has fallen sharply. Those people who have gotten through are being caught and deported in record numbers.

Some analysts say the drop in apprehensions reflects not so much greater control of the border as a recognition on the part of potential immigrants that the chances of finding a job in the United States have fallen over the last few years. But even among border-state Republicans there is optimism that the billions of dollars spent in recent years on fences, additional agents, surveillance drones and other measures are having a real effect.

?Yes, there?s been improvement in border security and yes, it helps a lot,? Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican, said when asked whether the politics of getting a deal this time around are easier because of stepped-up enforcement.

The changes have all developed gradually. They do no alter the most compelling fact of the debate to both sides, which is that there are 11 million undocumented people already living in the United States whose status must be addressed in any comprehensive legislation.

But even though the economic and demographic changes have remained largely in the background of the debate so far, analysts say they could give more reassurance to conservatives in particular that legalizing those undocumented immigrants already in the United States would not simply produce another wave of them.

?The immigration debate in recent years, as it has played out in the last two presidential campaigns, has not kept pace with the facts on the ground,? said Paul Taylor, the director of the Pew Research Center?s Hispanic Center. ?I do sense that the nature of the debate is changing and catching up with the reality.?

There is no assurance of course that another sharp economic downturn in Mexico or across Latin American would not spur more illegal migration to the north. ?The prolonged weakness in the American labor market also makes it harder to draw long-term conclusions about the relative attraction of coming to the United States. And many Republicans continue to view Mexico warily, seeing in the government?s difficulties controlling the violence and general lawlessness created by drug cartels a dangerous instability that could create deeper cross-border troubles.

?Mexico is on fire and about to blow up,? said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a supporter of the bipartisan package, expressing concern about whether the positive trends in illegal immigration from across the border are permanent.

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Source: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/immigration-shifts-could-provide-opening-for-compromise/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Empathy varies by age and gender: Women in their 50s are tops

Jan. 30, 2013 ? According to a new study of more than 75,000 adults, women in that age group are more empathic than men of the same age and than younger or older people.

"Overall, late middle-aged adults were higher in both of the aspects of empathy that we measured," says Sara Konrath, co-author of an article on age and empathy forthcoming in the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological and Social Sciences.

"They reported that they were more likely to react emotionally to the experiences of others, and they were also more likely to try to understand how things looked from the perspective of others."

For the study, researchers Ed O'Brien, Konrath and Linda Hagen at the University of Michigan and Daniel Gr?hn at North Carolina State University analyzed data on empathy from three separate large samples of American adults, two of which were taken from the nationally representative General Social Survey.

They found consistent evidence of an inverted U-shaped pattern of empathy across the adult life span, with younger and older adults reporting less empathy and middle-aged adults reporting more.

According to O'Brien, this pattern may result because increasing levels of cognitive abilities and experience improve emotional functioning during the first part of the adult life span, while cognitive declines diminish emotional functioning in the second half.

But more research is needed in order to understand whether this pattern is really the result of an individual's age, or whether it is a generational effect reflecting the socialization of adults who are now in late middle age.

"Americans born in the 1950s and '60s -- the middle-aged people in our samples -- were raised during historic social movements, from civil rights to various antiwar countercultures," the authors explain. "It may be that today's middle-aged adults report higher empathy than other cohorts because they grew up during periods of important societal changes that emphasized the feelings and perspectives of other groups."

Earlier research by O'Brien, Konrath and colleagues found declines in empathy and higher levels of narcissism among young people today as compared to earlier generations of young adults.

O'Brien and Konrath plan to conduct additional research on empathy, to explore whether people can be trained to show more empathy using new electronic media, for example. "Given the fundamental role of empathy in everyday social life and its relationship to many important social activities such as volunteering and donating to charities, it's important to learn as much as we can about what factors increase and decrease empathic responding," says Konrath.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Michigan. The original article was written by Diane Swanbrow.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. E. O'Brien, S. H. Konrath, D. Gruhn, A. L. Hagen. Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking: Linear and Quadratic Effects of Age Across the Adult Life Span. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbs055

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/gyFcc_UYhn0/130130184324.htm

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5 of the best beaches in Europe | Resort ... - Travel & Leisure

Article Title: 5 of the best beaches in Europe

Article Content:

Whether you?re looking for a secluded cove, powder white sand or the ultimate bucket and spade destination, Europe undoubtedly hosts some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and the best news is that for anyone living in the UK they?re little more than a hop, skip and jump to get to (well, maybe a plane ride!)

Here is our guide to five of the best:

Sagres Beach, Portugal

Sagres is one of Portugal?s most historic towns and its fine underdeveloped beach attracts surfers from all over the world. This is one of Portugals least developed areas and Sagres has a friendly, informal atmosphere and enjoys over 300 sunny days each year.

To go to Sagres is to love it, which is probably why thousands of visitors invest in a Portugal bolt-hole after visiting Sagres. Tantalise yourself by looking at the properties available on http://www.PortugalProperty.com

Mondello Lido Beach, Sicily

Mondello Lido is where the citizens of Palermo flock to on summer days to escape the stifling heat of the capital city. Its wide white sandy beaches extend for about 2kn from Monte Pellegrino to Monte Gallo, and fashionable bars and nightclubs line its shores.

Turqoise Coast Beach, Patara Turkey

With one of the longest beaches in the Med, this 19-kilometre stretch of soft-sanded Mediterranean coastline is flanked by mountains of sand, primed to take armies of children to build a metropoli of sandcastles, as well as a nesting place for turtles, which between June and August emerge at night to lay their eggs.

Patara is reached via a narrow winding road; ancient ruins guard its entrance, impressive stone arches and a second century theatre. There are no restaurants, bars or facilities ? this is a conservation area. Simply enjoy the beach, sea and sun.

Golden Sands Beach, Bulgaria

Golden Sands is the most glamorous and glitzy resort on the countries Black Sea Coast and is one of two largest seaside resorts in the country. It?s a positive paradise for children, with soft pale sand and calm, gently sloping sea bed.

If you?re looking for good old fashioned holiday fun, with lots of sun to boot, then Golden Sands could be the resort for you.

Barleycove, County Cork, Ireland

Sun worshippers may be scratching their heads in confusion about the inclusion of a beach in an area where it rains approximately 225 days of the year, but Barleycove is a sand filled heaven filled with dunes, a river for paddling and huge expanses of pristine sand to walk along.

The beach is facilitated by a pontoon walkway, car park, toilet facilities, a lifeguard and the all new surf camp.
This guest post was provided for Travel and Leisure Group leading timeshare resales brokers in Europe.As well as diamond resort resales. leading resellers of diamond resort point .

Source: http://www.travelandleisure.co.uk/destination-news/?p=2049

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