Knight Market-Making Unit Says It Had ‘Technical Issue’
By Whitney Kisling, Joshua Fineman and Lu Wang – Aug 1, 2012 5:39 PM ET
Computers sent more than 100 stocks into trading spasms just after U.S. markets opened, whipsawing investors and pushing shares of Knight Capital Group Inc. (KCG) down by the most ever on speculation it was to blame
Knight, which helped execute almost $20 billion of equity transactions a day in June, plunged more than 30 percent in record volume. The errors were caused by a malfunction in a so- called trading algorithm, according to a person at the company who asked to remain anonymous. The New York Stock Exchange said that after reviewing 140 securities, it would cancel transactions in six that occurred during the height of the volatility starting at 9:30 a.m. in New York.
The disruptions, occurring after three Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks fluctuated in regular hourly patterns for a full trading day on July 19, emboldened critics of American market structure who say the computers that dominate trading have become too complex to control. Special curbs adopted after the May 2010 equity crash helped calm today’s fluctuations.
T-Mobile close to $2 billion deal for its 7,000 towers, report says
Crown Castle International is reportedly the lead bidder at the moment, and a deal could be announced “soon.”
by Don Reisinger August 1, 2012
T-Mobile USA is close to inking a deal to sell 7,000 cell towers, according to a new report.
Tower operator Crown Castle International is the lead bidder for T-Mobile’s towers, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today, citing sources. The deal could net T-Mobile $2 billion and cut down on costs related to tower upkeep and service.
Talk of T-Mobile putting its towers up for sale emerged back in March. At that time, J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick said that in addition to the sales price, T-Mobile could save as much as $3 billion a year just by offloading the towers.
Although T-Mobile has put its towers on the block before, the company is arguably more motivated than ever to sell them. T-Mobile is the smallest carrier in the U.S. and the only major provider that doesn’t sell the iPhone. What it needs now is cash. And fast. A tower sale could help deliver that.
Governor Christie Joins PSE&G in Turning Brownfield Green Utility begins work on solar farm and proposes $883 million expansion of solar programs
July 31, 2012
(July 31, 2012 – Hackensack, NJ) – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie lent a hand today as Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) and union workers broke ground on a renewable energy project that will transform a dormant Hackensack, NJ brownfield into a solar farm.
While kicking off work at the job site, PSEG chairman, president and CEO Ralph Izzo also announced that the utility will request New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approval to invest up to $883 million to expand the utility’s Solar 4 All and solar loan programs to develop an additional 233 megawatts (MWs) of solar capacity. This expansion will create approximately 300 direct jobs per year over the next five years. PSE&G is a subsidiary of PSEG.
“New Jersey is a national leader in the solar industry,” said Governor Chris Christie. “Solar investment projects like the Hackensack Solar Farm are an integral part of our state’s renewable energy portfolio, increasing New Jersey’s solar capacity, creating jobs and securing the protection of our precious environmental resources. This Administration pledges to continue moving forward with our commitment to develop renewable sources of energy and with corporate partners like PSEG, New Jersey will continue to lead the way.”
“Every time we reclaim a landfill or brownfield site with solar panels, it’s a win for the people of New Jersey,” Izzo said. “Governor Christie deserves recognition for his forceful support of developing green energy projects on these sites, which benefit the state’s economy and environment, as well as the communities where these properties are located. This is the fifth PSE&G project that uses renewable energy to breathe new life into a brownfield or landfill. We are ready to do more of these projects and transform sites like this all over the state to generate more jobs along with clean renewable energy.”
The 1.06-MW PSE&G Hackensack Solar Farm is part of the utility’s Solar 4 All program that is helping New Jersey meet its renewable energy goals in a cost effective manner while creating jobs and helping the state’s green energy sector mature. When the current Solar 4 All program is complete early next year, PSE&G will have created about 175 direct jobs each year for the last three years and spent $300 million with more than a dozen companies that are either headquartered or have a presence in New Jersey while developing 80MWs of solar capacity.
Reclaiming brownfields and landfills has been a centerpiece of PSE&G’s innovative Solar 4 All program. In addition to the Hackensack project, similar installations are in service in Trenton, Edison, Linden and Kearny. When the PSE&G Hackensack Solar Farm begins operation later this year, the utility will have reclaimed more than 40 acres or about 30 football fields of vacant brownfield and landfill space, populating those sites with more than 40,000 solar panels that will produce more than 10 MWs of solar power.
PSE&G’s new solar proposal will call for investing up to $690 million to develop another 136 MWs through its Solar 4 All program to build more grid-connected solar projects on landfills, brownfields and other underutilized properties (90MW), on warehouse roofs (20MW) and on large parking lots (25MW). There is also a 1MW pilot program for solar projects that test and demonstrate emerging solar technologies such as solar energy storage. The company also is seeking to help develop another 97MW through the third installment of its Solar Loan program. This investment, that will help finance solar systems on homes and businesses in PSE&G’s electric service territory, could total up to $193 million, depending on the price of solar renewable energy credits.
“These proposals build on the success of our current programs,” Izzo said. “We are poised to make these New Jersey investments that will create 300 construction jobs per year, provide significant business opportunities for our suppliers and advance the state’s Energy Master Plan objectives.”
PSE&G’s solar loan program has made $177 million of financing available through mid-July 2012 that have helped homeowners and businesses develop 735 installations totaling 55 MWs of solar capacity. Through its Solar 4 All program, PSE&G will have 80MW of solar capacity in service by early 2013 through 24 centralized solar installations as well as the largest pole-attached solar panel initiative in the world.
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the 775 MW of solar energy currently installed in New Jersey ranks the state second in the country for installed solar capacity. In the first quarter of 2012, New Jersey had 174 MW of solar energy installed – more than in any other state in the nation. This marks the first time that any state has ranked higher than California in quarterly solar installations.
Twitter’s Olympic Moment
Verbal Sparring Gets Heated, and Some Bloggers Are Sent to Sideline as Social Media Join the Games
By SHIRA OVIDE and CHRISTOPHER S. STEWART
The first social media Olympics have become a minefield for the Olympic movement—and especially for Twitter Inc., which has trumpeted its tight connection to the London Games.
Heading into the global sporting event, the International Olympic Committee touted its social-media capabilities and struck partnerships with Twitter, Facebook Inc., FB -6.63% and Google Inc.’s GOOG +0.11% YouTube, among others. Twitter, meanwhile, also played up its partnership with Comcast Corp.’s CMCSA +1.06% NBCUniversal, which is broadcasting the Games.
But since the Games kicked off Friday, the Olympics have become a flash point for social media run amok.
The biggest brouhaha so far erupted on Monday and Tuesday, when a finger-pointing spat emerged over a journalist getting booted off Twitter after he was critical of NBC’s Olympics coverage. The journalist was reinstated on the short-messaging service Tuesday—but not before the blogosphere lit up with criticism over whether Twitter was curtailing free speech. Twitter apologized for what it said were its missteps in the incident.
N.J. trailing U.S. in job growth, but recent gain an encouraging sign, economist says
New Jersey lagged behind its neighbors throughout the economic recovery in regaining private-sector jobs lost from the recession, but its recent employment growth has begun to outpace other states, according to a Rutgers University economist.
According to a report today released by Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School, between February 2010 and June 2012, New Jersey has recovered 89,700 of the 248,200 private-sector jobs lost during the recession, while Pennsylvania has recovered 174,300 of 262,100 jobs it lost. New York has completely recovered the 248,200 jobs it shed, and added an additional 18,000 jobs. (Eder, NJBIZ)
Will governor sign hospital financial disclosure rules?
A coalition of community and consumer advocates, labor unions and health insurers is calling on Gov. Chris Christie to sign legislation requiring all hospitals in the state to disclose their finances as a condition for receiving charity-care payments from the state, a bill the hospital association says will prevent for-profit firms from buying failing hospitals.
Advocates say the legislation, S782/A2143, would level the playing field for non-profit and for-profit hospitals by making profit-making hospitals play by the same financial disclosure rules already in place for the non-profits. The Health and Allied Employee union, which represents hospital workers, is asking people to sign a petition showing their support for the bill. (Kalet, NJ Spotlight)
Many are qualifying for the Olympics tweet heat
By LEVI SUMAGAYSAY
It’s the nature of the job: GMSV has watched the controversy over tweets and the Olympics more than the sports. And now we throw caution to the wind — and risk the wrath of the International Olympics Committee — and dub these summer games the Twitter Olympics. From Twitter fails to protests (by the athletes themselves, over sponsorships) to controversies, the San Francisco-based microblogging service has been the star of the show so far.
• The talker du jour is the suspension of a Twitter’s journalist account, which seems to have been influenced by NBC and Twitter’s Olympics partnership. A PR nightmare now faces both, but bigger questions surround Twitter. After all, CEO Dick Costolo has called his company the “free speech wing of the free speech party.”
Independent correspondent Guy Adams was critical of NBC’s Olympics coverage and used Twitter to say so. One of his tweets read: “The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think!” Adams then included Zenkel’s work email address. NBC, which said it filed an official complaint after reportedly being alerted to the tweets by Twitter itself, said distributing Zenkel’s email address violated Twitter’s rules. But Adams says, according to the New York Times, “I didn’t publish a private e-mail address. Just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google, and is identical [in form] to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share.” After taking a look at Twitter’s policy, most reasonable people would probably agree with Adams.
GMSV has emailed Twitter for comment. Twitter told the NYT it doesn’t comment about individual users.
Twitter is, of course, a free service and a business that can choose to do what it wants. But over the years, it has cultivated an image that has earned it the respect of many journalists and other supporters of free speech. Among other things, it has fought the U.S. government’s request to divulge information about users with ties to whistleblower website WikiLeaks. (Also see Trending: Praise for Twitter after it stands up for a user’s rights.)
Media critic Dan Gillmor writes for the Guardian that if the service doesn’t reinstate the journalist’s account, “this is a defining moment for Twitter. It will have demonstrated that it can be bullied by its business partners into acts that damage its credibility and ultimately the reason so many of us use it as a platform.”
• Another Olympian has been kicked out over a racist tweet. This time, a Swiss soccer player tweeted something that “discriminated against, insulted and violated the dignity of the South Korea football team as well as the South Korean people,” Swiss Olympic team chief Gian Gilli reportedly said. Last week, a track star was expelled from the Greek Olympic team over her tweet about African immigrants in her country. (See Quoted: on the dangers of tweeting, the Olympics version.)
• Last — at least for now — a teenager has been arrested over tweets he directed to an Olympic athlete, British diver Tom Daley. The teen reportedly tweeted to Daley that he had “let down [his] father,” who died last year. The Guardian has rounded up some of the teen’s subsequent tweets afterward, some of which include profanity and threats.
Traffic Alert from the Ridgewood Police Department
Traffic Alert from the Ridgewood Police Department Wednesday August 1st
South Murray Ave From West Ridgewood To Godwin Ave will be closed today for paving today
Rotary Distrtict Governor inducts three new members of Ridgewood A.M. Rotary Club
Ridgewood NJ, It was a sunny day in downtown Ridgewood as the Ridgewood A.M. Rotary Club launched the 2012-2013 Rotary year with the induction of three new members. They are Tammy Butler (center), Director of Advancement at the Hawthorne Christian Academy; Steve Killebrew (third right), Financial Advisor and Certified Financial Planner with Ameriprise Financial Services; and John Plum (second right), Managing Partner of Emery, Kim Global Advisors. Inducting them into membership were District Governor Bonnie Sirower (third left) of Rotary District 7490; Ron Widman (left), Immediate Past President of the Ridgewood A.M. Rotary Club, current Club President Rob Elfers (second left); and Assistant District Governor Matt Libien (right). The Ridgewood A.M. Rotary Club is one of 55 clubs in Rotary District 7490, which covers three counties in Northeastern New Jersey. It is part of Rotary International, the world’s oldest community service organization with 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs in 208 nations around the world. Rotary International is responsible for the near-eradication of polio globally, is the largest private grantor of scholarships worldwide and also focuses on clean water and sanitation, community development, maternal and child health, and peace through understanding.
Rationing Begins: States Limiting Drug Prescriptions for Medicaid Patients
By Melanie Hunter
July 30, 2012
(CNSNews.com) – Sixteen states have set a limit on the number of prescription drugs they will cover for Medicaid patients, according to Kaiser Health News.
Seven of those states, according to Kaiser Health News, have enacted or tightened those limits in just the last two years.
Medicaid is a federal program that is carried out in partnership with state governments. It forms an important element of President Barack Obama’s health-care plan because under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act–AKA Obamcare–a larger number of people will be covered by Medicaid, as the income cap is raised for the program
ObamaCare is set to expand the number of insured Americans, but an apparent shortage of doctors could make it difficult to treat them all
POSTED ON JULY 31, 2012, AT 7:54 AM
By the year 2025, the U.S. could have a shortfall of 100,000 doctors. Photo: ThinkStock/Ingram Publishing SEE ALL 103 PHOTOS
The primary objective of President Obama’s overhaul of the health-care system is to extend coverage to the tens of millions of Americans currently without insurance. “But coverage will not necessarily translate into care,” because there may not be enough doctors to treat everyone, say Annie Lowrey and Robert Pear at The New York Times. The U.S. is already facing a severe shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas of the country, and the problem is only expected to get worse as more Americans gain insurance. Here, a guide to America’s dearth of doctors:
Why aren’t there enough doctors?
The pool of new doctors hasn’t kept pace with several factors boosting the number of people seeking care: Population growth, the ObamaCare expansion, and an aging Baby Boomer generation that requires additional medical attention. Enrollment in Medicare, the government-run insurance program for the elderly, is expected to swell to 73.2 million in 2025, up from 50.7 million in 2012. Furthermore, the U.S. is facing an acute shortage of primary-care physicians, leaving many patients without access to general practitioners, pediatricians, family doctors, and other providers of basic medical care
Scathing GOP report on ‘Fast and Furious’ blames five ATF officials
By Jordy Yager – 07/30/12 10:50 PM ET
Republican investigators pinned the failures of “Operation Fast and Furious” on five officials in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a scathing joint congressional draft report issued Monday evening.
The 211-page draft report, obtained by The Hill, called on the Obama administration and the Senate to bolster the leadership of the ATF — which has been without a permanent director for six years — in order to move beyond the failed gun-tracking operation that led House Republicans to place Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress last month.
Ridgewood officials to discuss upgrades to communications systems
TUESDAY JULY 31, 2012, 1:28 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Hoping to meet a federal mandate, the Village Council is scheduled to discuss at Wednesday’s work session the potential upgrades to communication systems used by Ridgewood’s emergency services.
A current radio used by the Ridgewood Office of Emergency Management.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is requiring that all public safety radio systems operate using at least 12.5 kHz efficiency technology, otherwise known as narrowbanding. The FCC established a Jan. 1, 2013 compliance deadline, although at least one U.S. congressman, including Rep. Steve Rothman, is pushing for an extension to 2015.
Earlier this month, council members opened the discussion about the costs and feasibility of transitioning to a narrowband system from the current analog system. The governing body, however, was hesitant to act following a presentation by the village’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM).
According to Kevin Scarpa, technology officer at the Ridgewood OEM, the total cost to replace the existing analog system with a digital and analog mixed mode system, as well as perform a “major system coverage overhaul” and other tasks, would run in excess of $1.5 million. That sum, which Scarpa provided to the council during July’s work session meeting, did not include federal grant money that will help pay for “80 to 90 percent” of the total bill.
The Christie administration is moving ahead with new regulations for charter schools
Cerf goes his own way on proposed charter regulations
The Christie administration is moving ahead with new regulations for charter schools, jumping ahead of the Legislature and its plans to take up the issue — and maybe a whole new law — in the fall.
The state Board of Education will hear on Wednesday the latest version of the administration’s proposed regulations that have come under criticism for expanding the size and scope of charters in the state.
The proposal had been going before the board last month and was delayed for further review. In that time, the new version released yesterday does make changes that appeared to address some of the criticism. (Mooney, NJ Spotlight)
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_riaIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 165
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_inhaIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 166
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_mastodonIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 177
