Money world

Clayton-based Brown Shoe Co. said today that it will close a distribution center in Sun Prairie, Wis. next year to reduce excess capacity in its network as part of its ongoing portfolio realignment.

The facility will be closed in phases with the process beginning in January and ending in April, the company said.

“This decision was based on the result of changes in our industry and our continued portfolio realignment efforts, which are focused on shifting resources to our strategic consumer platforms,” Mike Kauffman, the company’s senior vice president of global supply chain management, said in a statement.

Brown Shoe chief executive Diane Sullivan launched a portfolio review when she took over the company earlier this year. As part of that process, the company also recently sold the basketball brand AND 1.

Source

The European Union, never known for its light touch, is pushing through the euro crisis with an unusually heavy hand. Surprisingly, few people seem to be complaining.

Brussels _ and the leaders of the EU’s two most powerful countries _ have come close to ordering that a government of national unity be formed in Greece, that a national referendum there be scrapped, and that Italy accept humiliating international financial inspection of its books.

But voters in those beleaguered member states seem weary for now of politics and the fine mess their elected leaders have gotten them into. They’ve looked over the precipice and seem to have decided just for the moment to forego politics, ballot-going and little quibbles over sovereignty.

The normally fiercely independent-minded people of Greece and Italy _ both countries in dire trouble over their sovereign debts _ seem willing to accept as their new prime ministers technocrats who are veterans of pan-European institutions with reputations for meddling in national affairs.

The new prime minister of Greece is Lucas Papademos, a 64-year-old former vice president of the European Central Bank. The expected new leader of Italy, once the flamboyant and often embarrassing Silvio Berlusconi resigns, is 68-year-old Mario Monti _ a former competition commission for none other than the EU.

It’s beyond doubt that France and Germany play a huge role in making decisions on behalf of all 27 EU nations. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel often meet in advance of EU summits to hash out a common position on the issues of the day, which they then present to the other 25 heads of government, almost as a fait accompli.

These pre-summit meetings have evolved now into an informal committee called the Frankfurt Group, which also includes officials from the EU the IMF.

And though the European Union casts itself as a global supporter of democracy, some recent actions by Sarkozy, Merkel and EU officials based in Brussels could be viewed pretty much as diktats that were not particularly deferential to the rights of national voters to shape national policies.

EU leaders erupted in rage at the call by George Papandreou, then Greece’s prime minister, for putting the terms of Greece’s bailout to a referendum. After Merkel and Sarkozy summoned him to the G-20 summit in Cannes to explain himself, the referendum was duly scrapped.

Wielding the power to withhold a desperately needed euro8 billion ($11 billion) batch of bailout money, EU leaders strongly urged that Greece’s two main parties join in a government of national unity _ which they did. And EU honchos made no secret of their preference for Papademos to lead that government of national unity.

So, after four days of wrangling, the Socialists and Conservatives tapped Papademos.

In Italy, EU officials imposed International Monetary Fund financial monitoring on Italy _ essentially an expression of mistrust of the elected government there.

But people in Greece and Italy, feeling badly let down by the governments they elected, do not seem to be taking offense at the outside help.

In Greece, where democracy was invented, recession-weary citizens seem less than keen to hurry back to the ballot box. According to a recent poll, 79 percent of them opposed Papandreou’s plan to hold the referendum on a bailout. The Alco telephone poll of 1,000 adults conducted Nov. 2-4 also found that more than half of Greek voters _ 52 percent _ preferred the formation of a coalition government to early general elections. No margin of error was given.

Italians are angry, but their wrath is directed more toward Berlusconi and Italian politicians in general for the mess they are in, rather than at EU headquarters in Brussels.

“We’re angry with our government for its lack of action,” said Amadeo Lefevre, as he arranged the shelves in his bookshop a few blocks from Berlusconi’s residence and the Chamber of Deputies. “They have no policy, no strategy.”

Adriaan Schout, an expert on European politics at the Clingendael international affairs institute in the Netherlands, said voters have reason to feel let down by what their democracies have achieved.

“Politics have done great damage to the economic and monetary union,” Schout said.

Furthermore, he said, it is not the business of democracy to hold referendums on every issue that comes along, and the lack of them does not make the EU undemocratic. Democracy sets goals and parameters, and then it is up to technocrats to implement those policies, he said.

But if the EU is in fact democratic _ it has its rules, it is governed by elected heads of government and an elected parliament _ another unelected force is at play in the current crisis: the markets.

Market reaction played perhaps as big a role in forcing the cancellation of Greece’s proposed referendum as did the EU or Sarkozy or Merkel. And those faceless markets also put huge pressure on Berlusconi to go.

The reason the markets are now able to wield such power is because the political class has fumbled and simply handed it over to them.

“It is not the markets who have a 120 percent public debt,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political analyst at Rome’s LUISS University. “It is the politicians who created the 120 percent public debt. These debts are now offering the markets the chance to dictate their conditions.”

Source

Nebraska rancher Bruce Boettcher was ecstatic when he learned the rumors swirling out of Washington were true: plans to build a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to Texas were on hold to study how environmentally sensitive areas in his state could be avoided.

He’d fought the project with neighbors whose land also sits atop the Ogallala aquifer, a massive underground water supply in the pipeline’s path _ and at the epicenter of the national debate. Nebraska officials including its Republican governor pushed against the project, as had environmentalists and national groups.

Until Thursday, when the U.S. State Department announced a delay in its federal permitting decision for the TransCanada Corp. pipeline, Boettcher wasn’t sure if the protests and public hearings had made a difference.

“I didn’t think we’d get this far this quick, to tell you the truth,” the 55-year-old, fourth-generation rancher said. “TransCanada is persistent. But when they get persistent, I get persistent.”

The Obama administration said other potential routes for the Keystone XL through Nebraska needed to be studied, creating a delay that likely puts off a final decision until after the 2012 election _ a move that didn’t go unnoticed by supporters and opponents of the project.

The $7 billion pipeline would carry oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. TransCanada is seeking to build the 36-inch pipeline through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and CEO, called the pipeline “shovel-ready,” adding that it could create as many 20,000 jobs.

But Thursday’s announcement means the Calgary-based company will have to figure out how to move the pipeline around the Nebraska Sandhills region and the aquifer, which flows under eight states and provides water crucial to huge swaths of U.S. cropland.

An environmental review of the new section is expected to be completed in early 2013. The State Department has authority over the project because it crosses a U.S. border.

President Barack Obama said the pipeline could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment.

“We should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood,” Obama said in a statement.

The heavily contested project has become a political trap for Obama, who risks angering environmental supporters _ and losing re-election contributions from some liberal donors _ if he approves it, and criticism from labor and business groups for thwarting job creation if he rejects it.

The Keystone XL pipeline would carry as much as 700,000 barrels of oil a day, doubling the capacity of an existing pipeline operated by TransCanada in the upper Midwest. Supporters say the pipeline could significantly reduce U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil while providing thousands of jobs.

Among its supporters are Oklahoma’s governor, congressional delegation and even the oil and gas industry. They say the Keystone XL would provide additional takeaway pipeline from large oil storage facilities in Cushing, a city in northwest Oklahoma dubbed the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.”

“The influx of crude oil from Canada and increased production in the northern United States has overwhelmed outbound pipeline capacity at Cushing, forcing more oil into storage,” said Cody Bannister, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association.

Bannister said the excess oil is resulting in the estimated 60 million barrels of oil produced each year in Oklahoma selling for an average of $15 less per barrel than crude oil from other parts of the globe.

“In one year, the state would lose $63 million in gross production taxes,” Bannister said, adding the overall economic impact would be “far greater.”

But the project has become a focal point for environmental groups, which say the pipeline would bring “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract. They also worry that the pipeline could cause an ecological disaster in case of a spill.

Thousands of protesters gathered across from the White House on Sunday to oppose the pipeline, and celebrities including “Seinfeld” actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus have made videos against the pipeline.

Environmental activist Bill McKibben, who led protests against the pipeline and was arrested in a demonstration earlier this year, said on Twitter that the protests had an effect on the Obama administration.

“A done deal has come spectacularly undone!” he wrote.

But fellow environmentalist Matthew Tejada, executive director of the Houston Air Alliance, was more cautious.

“We just got a stay of execution,” Tejada said. “I don’t know that we’ve actually fundamentally changed the mind of anyone in the Obama administration.”

Tejada said the pipeline wouldn’t lead the U.S. toward a sustainable energy policy, but he doesn’t think that played into the State Department’s decision.

“This is more of a political calculation to get Keystone off the books of this next election cycle,” he said.

TransCanada said in a statement it was disappointed in the delay but confident that the project ultimately would be approved. The company previously said a delay could cost millions of dollars and keep thousands of people from getting jobs.

“If Keystone XL dies, Americans will still wake up the next morning and continue to import 10 million barrels of oil from repressive nations, without the benefit of thousands of jobs and long-term energy security,” said Girling, the company’s president and CEO.

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s chief lobbying group, said the decision put election-year politics above job creation. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, used similar language, saying Obama had sacrificed thousands of jobs “solely to appease his liberal base. It’s a failure of leadership.”

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, through a spokesman, said he was disappointed. He also noted the lost job opportunities and “billions in economic growth on both sides of the border,” but remained hopeful the project would eventually be approved.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman said the State Department decision was due largely to pressure from Nebraskans. Heineman called a special session of the Nebraska Legislature to address pipeline concerns, including a possible rerouting of the pipeline around the Sandhills, a region that includes a high concentration of wetlands and the Ogallala aquifer.

Heineman, a Republican, called the State Department decision “an exceptional moment for Nebraskans” and a sign their voices have been heard.

The decision to reroute the project comes as the State Department’s inspector general has begun a review of the administration’s handling of the pipeline request. That examination follows complaints from Democratic lawmakers about possible conflicts of interest in the review process.

The inspector generator will look at whether the State Department and others involved in the project followed federal regulations.

“I strongly believe that the more the American people learn about this project, the more they will understand that it would be disastrous for our environment and for our economy,” said Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., who requested the review.

Source

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 400 points Wednesday after Italy’s borrowing costs soared and talks collapsed in Greece on forming a new government.

The yield on the benchmark Italian government bond spiked above 7 percent, evidence that investors are losing faith in the country’s ability to repay its debt. Greece, Portugal and Ireland required bailouts when their bond yields rose above the same mark. Unlike those countries, Italy’s $2.6 trillion in debt is too large for other European countries to rescue.

In Greece, power-sharing talks fell apart between the country’s two main political parties, raising doubt about whether the country will be able to receive the next installment of emergency loans it needs to avoid default.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi promised late Tuesday to step aside after a new budget is passed, but there are concerns that the transition to a new government will be difficult. Markets see Berlusconi as an impediment to the kind of far-reaching economic reforms Italy needs to remain solvent.

“The market loves a quick solution and we’re obviously not getting one,” said Mark Lehmann, director of equities of JMP Securities. “We’ve had a strong rally off the bottom and any piece of bad news is going to be responded to negatively.”

The Dow sank 420 points, or 3.5 percent, to 11,743 as of 2:26 p.m. Eastern. If that holds, it would be the largest one-day drop for the Dow since August 4.

The Dow fell 276 on Monday of last week and then 297 points the following day after the Greek prime minister said he would put an unpopular package of austerity cuts to a public vote cash advance no faxing. That raised the prospect that the measures would fail and Greece would default. The referendum was later scrapped.

The S&P 500 lost 45 points, or 3.6 percent, to 1,230. The S&P is now negative for the year again. The index has alternated between small gains and losses for 2011 since Oct. 26.

The Nasdaq composite slid 103, or 3.7 percent, to 2,624

The slide was broad. Only two stocks in the S&P 500 index rose. Materials and financial companies fell the most. Morgan Stanley fell 8 percent and coal producer Alpha Natural Resources fell 8 percent.

Markets fear that a chaotic default by either Greece or Italy would lead to huge losses for European banks. That, in turn, could cause a global lending freeze that might escalate into another credit crisis similar to the one in 2008 after Lehman Brothers fell.

Some analysts fear that the euro itself could fall, which would lead to inflation and a breakdown in free trade agreements in the European Union.

European markets also fell sharply. Italy’s benchmark index plunged 3.8 percent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC-40 each lost 2.2 percent.

The prices of assets seen as safe havens rose sharply. The dollar jumped 1.6 percent versus the euro. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.97 percent from 2.08 percent late Tuesday, a steep drop.

Source

Many people think being a landlord and investing in real estate is a way to make easy money. It can be financially rewarding if you do your homework and reduce your risks. But easy, it isn

President Barack Obama’s health care law created a $5 billion fund to shore up coverage for early retirees, and some of that money is flowing to places you might not expect.

Two Texas public employee programs are among the top 25 recipients of the federal subsidy despite Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s opposition to the law Republicans derisively call “Obamacare.”

And records show the Huntsman family business, where GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman sharpened his executive skills, received about $1 million.

It highlights the gap between dire Republican rhetoric about the health care overhaul and the pragmatic impulse to cash in on a new government benefit.

Employer-sponsored health insurance for retirees has been shriveling for years, ever since companies were required to report the estimated liability to investors. Democrats who wrote the new law wanted to provide an incentive for employers to keep offering coverage. Only about 6 percent of private companies currently offer such a benefit for early retirees, according to the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.

But that still works out to more than 400,000 companies. Add state and local government agencies, as well as union plans, and the number swells. Indeed, the Obama administration’s subsidy program got so many applications it stopped accepting new ones after approving more than 6,000. The program pays 80 percent of the claims amount for early retirees ages 55 to 64 whose care costs between $15,000 and $90,000.

The top beneficiary: the United Auto Workers retiree medical plan, which has collected more than $220 million.

“Some people have described this program as `Cash for Clunkers,’ in the sense that if you want it, you have to get in line first,” said Paul Fronstin, an economist with the research group. “There was a lot of advice given to be first in line.” The original Cash for Clunkers was an Obama administration program that paid people to trade in gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient transportation. It created a marketing sensation before running out of cash.

Texas, it seems, heeded the advice. So did Huntsman International.

The Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a statewide system for public education employees, received more than $70 million as of Sept. 22, according to the federal Health and Human Services Department. The Employees Retirement System of Texas, which covers state employees, received about $30 million.

Huntsman International, the main operating subsidiary of the family-founded chemical conglomerate, is also collecting subsidies.

As candidates, both Perry and Huntsman have sworn to repeal Obama’s signature health care law, which gradually extends coverage to most of the uninsured and makes numerous other changes, including a ban on insurers denying coverage to people in poor health and an unpopular requirement that most Americans carry coverage quick cash.

Spokesmen for the Perry and Huntsman campaigns said they see no contradictions.

Texas taxpayers also pay federal taxes, said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan. “State taxpayers have a right to get those federal funds returned to them, in this care in the form of disbursement to the teachers and state employee retirement systems,” said Sullivan. “No Texas law or policy needed to be changed in order for these agencies to be eligible to receive the funds.”

Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said his candidate, Obama’s first ambassador to China and a former governor of Utah, is opposed to all subsidies.

Jon Huntsman has not been involved in the family business since 2005, said company spokesman Gary Chapman. Huntsman resigned from the company to pursue his political career.

Asked why Huntsman International applied for the early retiree subsidy, Chapman responded: “We’re a commercial organization. We are looking to maximize our shareholders’ value. If there was a legitimate opportunity for us to get help in this respect, we would go for it.”

Republicans have tried to paint the early retiree subsidy program as a political reward to unions, among the staunchest Democratic loyalists. According to calculations by the office of Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the United Auto Workers Retiree Medical Benefits Trust has made out the best.

A UAW spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. In its 2007 contracts with Chrysler, GM and Ford, the union agreed to form the trust to pay health care costs for the companies’ retirees, including early retirees too young to qualify for Medicare. The trust started paying bills in January 2010, before Congress passed the health care law.

The calculations by Enzi’s staff also list AT&T, Verizon, General Electric, General Motors, Qwest, Caterpillar and other private companies in the top 25, not to mention the two Texas state programs. AT&T received $157 million.

Several media companies are also benefiting. The Associated Press, a nonprofit news-gathering service owned by the nation’s newspapers, has received $191,888.

Back in Texas, public and private employer retiree plans have collected more than $326 million from the subsidy. They range from American Airlines to Texas A&M University _ Perry’s alma mater.

Source

The dollar has jumped against the yen after Japanese monetary authorities intervened in the currency market to weaken the yen, whose recent appreciation has hurt the country’s vital exporters.

Monday’s action, confirmed by Finance Minister Jun Azumi, came after the Japanese currency had surged to a post-World War II high of 75.32 yen against the dollar earlier Monday bad credit unsecured personal loans.

By 11:45 a.m., Tokyo time, the dollar has risen sharply to 79.19 yen.

The strong yen erodes overseas earnings for Japanese exporters.

Source

From Europe to the Bank of Canada to Bay Street, investors can expect a week of announcements and forecasts that could provide a clearer picture of where the economy is headed.

Bank of Canada: On Tuesday, the central bank will give its latest decision on interest rates. Governor Mark Carney is expected to leave rates unchanged for the ninth consecutive time. But the statement that accompanies the decision will be closely scrutinized for discussion of where the world economy is headed, as well as inflation in Canada.

What

SAN FRANCISCO — A new biography portrays Steve Jobs as a skeptic all his life — giving up religion because he was troubled by starving children, calling executives who took over Apple “corrupt” and delaying cancer surgery in favour of cleansings and herbal medicine.

“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, to be published Monday, also says Jobs came up with the company’s name while he was on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and as a teenager perfected staring at people without blinking.

The Associated Press purchased a copy of the book Thursday.

The book delves into Jobs’ decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumour — a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.

Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, the book says, before finally having surgery in July 2004.

Isaacson, quoting Jobs, writes in the book: “‘I really didn’t want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,’ he told me years later with a hint of regret.”

Jobs died Oct. 5, at age 56, after a battle with cancer.

The book also provides insight into the unravelling of Jobs’ relationship with Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009. Schmidt had quit Apple’s board as Google and Apple went head-to-head in smartphones, Apple with its iPhone and Google with its Android software.

Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to “grand theft.”

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google’s Internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, California, cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn’t interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.

“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.” The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.

The book is clearly designed to evoke the Apple style. Its cover features the title and author’s name starkly printed in black and grey type against a white background, along with a black-and-white photo of Jobs, thumb and forefinger to his chin.

The biography, for which Jobs granted more than three dozen interviews, is also a look into the thoughts of a man who was famously secret, guarding details of his life as he did Apple’s products, and generating plenty of psychoanalysis from a distance.

Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO on Aug. 24, six weeks before he died.

Doctors said Thursday that it was not clear whether the delayed treatment made a difference in Jobs’ chances for survival.

“People live with these cancers for far longer than nine months before they’re even diagnosed,” so it’s not known how quickly one can prove fatal, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Michael Pishvaian, a pancreatic cancer expert at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, said people often are in denial after a cancer diagnosis, and some take a long time to accept recommended treatments.

“We’ve had many patients who have had bad outcomes when they have delayed treatment. Nine months is certainly a significant period of time to delay,” he said.

Fortune magazine reported in 2008 that Jobs tried alternative treatments because he was suspicious of mainstream medicine.

The book says Jobs gave up Christianity at age 13 when he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine paydayloans. He asked whether his Sunday school pastor knew what would happen to them.

Jobs never went back to church, though he did study Zen Buddhism later.

Jobs calls the crop of executives brought in to run Apple after his ouster in 1985 “corrupt people” with “corrupt values” who cared only about making money. Jobs himself is described as caring far more about product than profit.

He told Isaacson they cared only about making money “for themselves mainly, and also for Apple — rather than making great products.”

Jobs returned to the company in 1997. After that, he introduced the candy-coloured iMac computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and turned Apple into the most valuable company in America by market value for a time.

The book says that, while some Apple board members were happy that Hewlett-Packard gave up trying to compete with Apple’s iPad, Jobs did not think it was cause for celebration.

“Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands,” Jobs told Isaacson. “But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed.”

“I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple,” he added.

Advance sales of the book have topped bestseller lists. Much of the biography adds to what was already known, or speculated, about Jobs. While Isaacson is not the first to tell Jobs’ story, he had unprecedented access. Their last interview was weeks before Jobs died.

Jobs reveals in the book that he didn’t want to go to college, and the only school he applied to was Reed, a costly private college in Portland, Oregon. Once accepted, his parents tried to talk him out of attending Reed, but he told them he wouldn’t go to college if they didn’t let him go there. Jobs wound up attending but dropped out after less than a year and never went back.

Jobs told Isaacson that he tried various diets, including one of fruits and vegetables. On the naming of Apple, he said he was “on one of my fruitarian diets.” He said he had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating.”

Jobs’ eye for simple, clean design was evident early. The case of the Apple II computer had originally included a Plexiglas cover, metal straps and a roll-top door. Jobs, though, wanted something elegant that would make Apple stand out.

He told Isaacson he was struck by Cuisinart food processors while browsing at a department store and decided he wanted a case made of moulded plastic.

He called Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief, his “spiritual partner” at Apple. He told Isaacson that Ive had “more operation power” at Apple than anyone besides Jobs himself — that there’s no one at the company who can tell Ive what to do. That, says Jobs, is “the way I set it up.”

Jobs was never a typical CEO. Apple’s first president, Mike Scott, was hired mainly to manage Jobs, then 22. One of his first projects, according to the book, was getting Jobs to bathe more often. It didn’t work.

Jobs’ dabbling in LSD and other aspects of 1960s counterculture has been well documented. In the book, Jobs says LSD “reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”

He also revealed that the Beatles were one of his favourite bands, and one of his wishes was to get the band on iTunes, Apple’s revolutionary online music store, before he died. The Beatles’ music went on sale on iTunes in late 2010.

The book was originally called “iSteve” and scheduled to come out in March. The release date was moved up to November, then, after Jobs’ death, to Monday. It is published by Simon & Schuster and will sell for $35.

Isaacson will appear Sunday on “60 Minutes.” CBS News, which airs the program, released excerpts of the book Thursday.

Ortutay reported from New York. AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson in New York and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee also contributed to this report.

Source

The speaker of Britain’s House of Commons says a pie attack on media mogul Rupert Murdoch at a parliamentary committee hearing could lead to permanent security changes.

An activist launched a shaving foam pie at Murdoch, 80, inside the Houses of Parliament in July as Murdoch testified about Britain’s tabloid phone hacking scandal.

Speaker John Bercow said Monday the incident had exposed inadequate security arrangements.

Visitors in the future may face new restrictions during high profile events, including restrictions on the type of items they can bring into Parliament my credit score. Bercow said officials will also consider creating a new post of director of security.

Jonathan May-Bowles pleaded guilty to assaulting Murdoch and was sentenced to six weeks in jail.

Source