Big Economic Policy Events In September - Business Insider

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

In September, we'll likely see the culmination of three major economic policy storylines that have been building in recent weeks and months.

First and foremost on the minds of financial market participants is the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting on September 18, upon conclusion of which the FOMC is expected to announce a reduction in the pace of its monthly bond purchases to $65 billion.

(The central bank has been buying $85 billion of bonds every month since September 2012, and hints that it may begin to taper the pace of these purchases beginning this September caused a big sell-off in the Treasury market in May and June.)

Another issue that has taken the media by storm in recent weeks is who President Obama is likely to nominate to replace Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke when his term expires in January. Two candidates ? current Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers ? are thought to be the frontrunners.

While relatively little is known about Summers's stance on monetary policy, Yellen is an outspoken advocate of the Fed's current course of action.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that Obama won't be ready to nominate a Bernanke replacement until at least September, so we could hear something on this front as well.

Meanwhile, Obama is also facing an upcoming showdown with Republicans over the continuing resolution that has allowed the government to fund itself this year.

The resolution expires October 1, when fiscal year 2014 begins. If Congress can't come to an agreement on how to continue to fund themselves by then, a partial government shutdown will go into effect.

Obama is already taking pre-emptive action in a series of public speeches designed to frame the upcoming debate.

Not long after that, Congress will need to raise the debt ceiling again.

Between tapering, the Fed nomination, the budget, and the debt ceiling, we'll see a pretty remarkable confluence of macroeconomic events in the coming months.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/big-economic-policy-events-in-september-2013-7

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Star, creator of The CW's 'Reign' defend show

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) ? The cast and creator of the upcoming CW series "Reign," about the rise of Mary, Queen of Scots, are defending creative liberties taken for the show.

"Reign" stars Adelaide Kane as Mary, a 15-year-old who arrives at court because of an arranged marriage to Francis, the future king of France.

One issue: Francis is played by hunky actor Toby Regbo when in reality Francis was a sickly child.

And to keep things interesting, there's a love triangle where Mary is torn between her husband-to-be and another hunky character named Sebastian, who never existed.

Kane says the show's target demo of 18- to 34-year-olds won't care.

"How many teenage girls do you know that are obsessed with history? I know I wasn't at that age," Kane said Tuesday at the annual Television Critics Association press tour.

"It's also TV, so you can take creative license. It's entertainment, it's not the History channel," said Kane, adding that she did a lot of research to play Mary.

Torrance Coombs, who plays Sebastian, joked about his character not being real in history.

Executive Producer Laurie McCarthy said she uses Mary's story as a template for storytelling. "I actually feel liberated by the actual facts of her life."

"Reign" premieres in October.

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Online:

http://www.cwtv.com/shows/reign

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Alicia Rancilio covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow her online at http://www . twitter.com/aliciar

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/star-creator-cws-reign-defend-show-193929166.html

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Novel technology for producing 'electronic ink' may lead to inexpensive, durable electronics and solar cells

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Electronic touch pads that cost just a few dollars and solar cells that cost the same as roof shingles are one step closer to reality today.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/ZGjZ3Ze8a5o/130730123253.htm

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Britain's shale gas firms to offer host communities sweeteners

LONDON (Reuters) - Companies that explore for shale gas in Britain have pledged to provide sweeteners worth 100,000 pounds to communities located near exploratory wells and 1 per cent of revenues from each production site, the government said on Thursday.

"Companies have pledged to engage with communities early (prior to any application for planning permission), and to provide community benefits in areas where shale is commercially extracted," the Department of Energy and Climate Change said in a statement.

"These will include 100,000 pounds for communities situated near each exploratory (hydraulically fracked) well, and 1 percent of revenues from every production site," it said.

(Reporting By John McGarrity; editing by James Jukwey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britains-shale-gas-firms-offer-host-communities-sweeteners-105857085.html

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Climate tug of war disrupting Australian atmospheric circulation patterns

June 26, 2013 ? Further evidence of climate change shifting atmospheric circulation in the southern Australian-New Zealand region has been identified in a new study.

The study, in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, demonstrates that mid-latitude high pressure zones (30^oS-45^oS) are being pushed further into the Southern Ocean by rising global temperatures associated with greenhouse warming. This is despite more frequent occurrences of strong El Ni?os in recent decades, which should have drawn the high pressure zones in the opposite direction toward the equator.

"What we are seeing," says study lead author, Mr Guojian Wang "is a 'tug of war' between stronger El Ni?os driving the winds north and the greenhouse gas-warming effect driving the winds south."

Mr Wang, said the result confirms the robustness of the Southern Hemisphere circulation changes over the past three to four decades as the global temperature rose, "so much so that it overode the influence from strong El Ni?os during this period."

Study co-author, Dr Wenju Cai said the most conspicuous change is a rising sea level pressure in the mid-latitude bands and a decreasing sea level pressure over the Southern high latitudes (55^o-70^oS), a pattern referred to as the Southern Annular Mode. The changing pressures indicate a poleward or southward expansion of the tropical and subtropical atmospheric zones.

In turn, this indicates that over the long-term, there is a relationship between a rising global mean temperature and an upward trend of the Southern Annular Mode.

"The research reinforces our past work that climate change is altering Southern Hemisphere circulation and increases our confidence in this conclusion," Dr Cai said.

Dr Cai has previously reported on changes in atmospheric circulation that have been shifting and strengthening the Pacific Ocean winds poleward and in turn strengthening the ocean circulation, pushing the East Australian Current further south down the Australian coast.

He said during El Ni?o, the warmer ocean releases heat to the atmosphere and global average temperatures increase. At the same time, warm ocean surface temperatures along the equator cause the tropical and subtropical atmospheric belts to move toward the equator, generating a 'negative' phase of the Southern Annular Mode.

"On year-to-year time scales, higher global temperatures are associated with a negative phase of the Mode but over the past 35 years, when El Ni?o has been strong and conducive to a negative trend, we are seeing an opposite trend with the circulation systems moving southward impacting on regional climate," he said.

The project was funded through the Australian Climate Change Science Program.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/-ms3vXaI4mM/130626113658.htm

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Sen. Wyden denounces bulk phone record collection

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A senator who has been instrumental in the fight for open government warned Wednesday that the government's practice of "vacuuming up the phone records of millions of law-abiding Americans" puts citizens' privacy at risk.

During a panel sponsored by the American Society of News Editors, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said while the information collected by the National Security Agency involves phone numbers, location and time of the call, it might also contain vital personal details, such as relationships, medical issues, religious matters or political affiliations.

"I have to believe the civil liberties of millions of Americans have been violated," Wyden said.

"I have not seen any evidence that demonstrates that the bulk collection of all of these records provides unique value," he added.

Wyden said he believes that the information the NSA gathers could be obtained by emergency authorization or court order and does not need to be collected automatically from millions of Americans in bulk.

"The fact is that vacuuming up the phone records of millions of law-abiding Americans can really determine and reveal a lot of private information," he said.

The Sunshine in Government Initiative, a group of nine media organizations including the ASNE, presented its annual award to Wyden for his work in stripping several provisions from the Fiscal Year 2012 Intelligence Authorization Act that would have significantly lessened reporters' ability to access even unclassified information.

One provision particular was a provision that would have prevented intelligence committee officials from becoming paid news commentators for at least a year after leaving public service.

"You could basically only have a handful of people who were designated as the ones legally allowed to talk to the press," said Wyden of the provision he worked to strike down. "They (reporters) could only get one side of the story and basically only the side that the high-level people want you to have. That's not transparency, that's not the public's right to know," he said.

In addition to Wyden, government employees Tim Crawford and Larry Gottesman were also honored by the Sunshine in Government Initiative for creating FOIAonline, a system that allows the public to manage and track Freedom of Information requests.

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Online:

https://foiaonline.regulations.gov/foia/action/public/home

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-26-Wyden%20ASNE%20Conference/id-46e44e3c3077464094b98a653bd8ff34

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NJ archbishop wary of pacts on priest oversight

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) ? The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Newark is unlikely to enter into any new agreements with civil authorities that require church leaders to supervise priests on restricted duty, the archbishop said.

Rather than oversee a priest who had a case in the legal system, the archdiocese would tell him to "go back for a second trial and clear your name," Archbishop John J. Myers told the National Catholic Register in an interview released Tuesday.

"The state has more resources," he added.

Myers has been under fire for how the archdiocese handled the case of the Rev. Michael Fugee, a priest who violated an agreement between the church and the Bergen County prosecutor's office.

The accord allowed Fugee to return to ministry, but it barred him from having unsupervised contact with minors or a job that required him to oversee or minister to children under 18. The archdiocese and the prosecutor's office signed the deal in 2007 after Fugee's conviction on charges of aggravated criminal sexual contact were thrown out on appeal.

Fugee confessed to police that during a vacation with a parishioner and her son, he wrestled with the boy and "grabbed his crotch." At his trial, lawyers argued his confession was coerced.

Despite the agreement, Fugee became a fixture at a youth ministry in Colts Neck, went on overnight trips with the group and heard confession from teenagers.

Myers said archdiocesan officials did not know Fugee was working with children, and he did not request permission to minister in other dioceses.

Fugee resigned from the ministry in May and cannot present himself as a priest, though he remains one. Prosecutors have charged him with seven counts of violating a judicial order.

A spokeswoman for the Bergen County prosecutor's office did not return a request for comment.

In the interview, Myers defended the decision to allow Fugee back into ministry after an archdiocesan review board cleared him to do so. He said Fugee claimed in court the confession was written "by mistake" and he denied "any wrongdoing several times."

Myers said there are "more grays than black and white," in Fugee's case.

"What I don't think we will do again is enter into an agreement with a civil authority that gives the supervisory function to the archdiocese," he said. "We would not enter into a memorandum of understanding that places a burden on the church."

Myers also said he and other bishops discussed that supervising accused priests is "a problem" under the bishops' child protection policy, formally known as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

"What if a priest moves to Florida? How do we supervise them?" he asked.

Myers said Fugee is currently living at a rectory. About 16 or 17 priests are currently under supervision in the diocese, Myers said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nj-archbishop-wary-pacts-priest-oversight-183630105.html

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