Ellen DeGeneres, right, and her wife, actress Portia DeGeneres.
By Kurt Schlosser
J.C. Penney is turning its back on One Million Moms, a group which called for the retailer to dump talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as its national spokeswoman because she is gay.
In an emailed statement to Yahoo! Shine on Friday, J.C. Penney confirmed it "stands behind its partnership with Ellen DeGeneres."
One Million Moms, a project of the American Family Association,?earlier said that "DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there." The group claims to be "the most powerful tool you have to stand against the immorality, violence, vulgarity and profanity the entertainment media is throwing at your children."
Live Poll
How do you feel about J.C. Penney's decision?
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)?applauded J.C. Penney's decision to stick with DeGeneres.
"This week Americans spoke out in overwhelming support of LGBT people and J.C. Penney?s decision not to fire Ellen simply for who she happens to love,? said Herndon Graddick, senior director of programs and communications at GLAAD.
GLAAD says it has received nearly 25,000 signatures on a website dedicated to showing support for J.C. Penney and DeGeneres.
Discuss Ellen and the J.C. Penney issue over on Facebook.
There are many more web pages in the internet as there are humans on planet earth. Each one of those web pages needed a designer or a developer to make it look good and work correctly. Quite clearly there is huge demand for web design businesses.
Starting your own web design business can be exciting and rewarding. In a stagnent economy, entrepreneurial activity tends to increase. There is nothing better to use your talents and passions in order to create a lasting source of revenue. But starting a business takes effort, and careful planning. So, once you have established the talent and the idea, what is the next step?
Create a business plan
A business plan or model defines the core activities of the business and some basic strategies for deploying them. Businesses that can maximize their online practices and business dealings have much less overheads than traditional retail locations. Less overheads equals higher profit margins. Web design services can begin with some home office space, software, and online promotion.
As you develop your business model, you will want to define your ideal customer and develop a company slogan to be used in conjunction with your marketing efforts. Think about how you can reach potential clients in the most effective manner. Part of developing your business model should include research on potential competitors.
An important mantra in business is not to reinvent the wheel!
Take the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of another business, and to alternatively, piggyback on successful strategies.
A word of advice here (that comes after years of making mistakes): try to compete in terms of quality of service; don?t try to compete in terms of price.
Develop an online presence
Once you have your business plan, you need to open up shop. If you are going to be developing websites, you should be able to refer customers to your own website. Remember that your website serves two functions ? promoting your business and presenting your product. Your website will show potential customers what type of product they can expect.
The overall look of your website is important as it showcases your abilities as a web designer.
The actual content of the website is important in order to maximize web searches. It is highly recommended that you research SEO (search engine optimization) as well as social media promotion as you design and build your website.
You should be working on your website every single day! Not only should it be constantly improved in terms of design, speed and usability, you also should be constantly writing quality articles for your blog and promoting them as the best way to attract clients is with content marketing and SEO.
Establish referral relationships
Simply putting up the ?open? sign on your shop does not guarantee business. It is also a good idea to partner with existing businesses who have established customer bases. This can be accomplished with some creative negotiating and leveraging. Think about strategic business relationships, and move forward from there.
There are a lot of designers hanging around on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. Spend a bit of time engaging with other people in your field in social media. If you build enough trust you will win referrals this way.
Once you build a website for a client, they will need that website hosted. Partner with an established web hosting company, and use that partnership to generate referrals back and forth. If done properly, these types of relationships can become mutually beneficial, and they can help a new business establish a customer pipeline. Remember that as you establish a customer base; add a page to your website highlighting testimonials, and links to completed websites.
It?s a good idea to ask past clients to write glowing testimonials and to recommend you to their friends and associates.
Sell, sell, sell
Now, it?s go time. Often in a business, the first few sales will have a snowball effect on operations. Think about promotions for the first 50 customers. Offer reductions for up-front payments. The goal is to get a small base of satisfied customers as quickly as possible. Remember that both good and bad products and services generate word of mouth advertising. Solicit referrals by offering discounts, and refer customers to your business partners as often as you can.
What do you think?
Are you running a design business or thinking about starting one? Was this advice useful to you? What barriers are there in your life or the marketplace that are stopping your success in this field? I would love to hear what you think in the comments below
Tagged as: business, business plan, design, design business, developing websites, online business, start design business, web design business, web designer
I tell you the entire Car or truck The industry?s most subject matter to government and official worry, in reality, the best very important piece of after-sales provider. Most of us chat about automobiles in front from the countryside, specifically Gio Standard Tao, automobiles to your countryside, and promote a great deal more and more, your after-sales provider during which this can be a long-standing difficulty. I supply you with the trade standpoint for making a quick introduction.
Presently is business autos and areas, a quick introduction in Liaoning Shuguang Group I served as vice president for many ages, which I relate to areas inside mild of our production. Since inside production trade for many ages, generally feeling after-sales provider can be a enormous difficulty, early in 2007 out from dawn to GRF. We are remarkable with Citigroup Inc. can be a wholly-owned U.S. enterprises, investment one hundred million U.S. dollars, the present group manufactured the largest company sale in China. Briefly demonstrate the present fiscal crisis in trade overall performance. We are all aware of Standard Motors, GM fell from the best a great deal more than 90 U.S. dollars a great deal more than a person U.S. dollar, so everyday people on this idea, we could be considerably much larger than Shanghai GM the car. Delphi fell to your famed one-thousandth areas enterprises. Referred to as Carmax used car trade to perform a very successful organization, Buffett certainly is the most promising enterprise. As compared to prior to it had a great great deal. I?m scared that you simply can be amazed to discover, and this is actually the automotive aftermarket areas chain AutoZone, its marketplace valuation from the beginning 91 ages, has long been identified a turf new excessive nearly every 12 months, irregardless from the fiscal crisis Ye Hao, every one of the way up, over a chart its history, the next a person certainly is the AutoZone inside overall performance from the fiscal crisis.
Recent valuation 165.36 U.S. dollars, the market value of a great deal more than 90 billion dollars. This is actually the complete U.S. stock market?s most compelling part. The fact is 60% of revenue soon after income markets, the automotive aftermarket certainly is the gold trade, the aftermarket price is comparatively insensitive. We do understand that just about every car is an important provider of our job should be to chat about, certainly is the price reduction for each 12 months. Impacted by fiscal cycles will not have an impact on.
A quick organizational design produced automotive aftermarket, 4S shops dominate the globe can do should be to Japan, it accounts for 4S product 90% share from the marketplace product, the famed yellow hat, Autobacs other 10%. From the beginning we noticed 90 4S product isn?t really just advertising a car, therefore the boss while using OEMs termination 4s. I give it the definition from the so-called 4S store can be a solitary brand specifically Sell And maintenance of a solitary brand specifically, they noticed that only promote a person form of car will not generate income, have all become a range of manufacturers, advertising a range of autos, repair service a range of automobiles, this design may be the dawn of Gio this car is much more applicable. 4S product, American design, 20%, 80% from the independent aftermarket product. China, what would happen, leaders of applicable departments have superb 4S product on reflection, I think all around nearer to your U.S. design. Simply because near to your American design, the us is 300 million population, 200 million license holders, car population 240 million. Aftermarket auto areas trade, all the functioning population has arrived at four.five million, this region can be a pretty desirable trade, vehicle trade inside U.S. electricity Motels Field. Aftermarket auto areas shops inside place, Pals of Eight U.S. enterprises, the largest termed the NAPA, that has five,800 shops, repair service outlets 13000, previous 12 months a turnover of eleven.0 billion. There are actually four,056 AutoZone shops, the overall marketplace measurement is way larger compared to areas movement Home Appliances Chain markets and used-car marketplace. Is the most significant U.S. electronics chain Perfect Order and Circuit Town, China?s residential home appliance chain retail outlet marketplace has long been according to the us, but the U.S. auto areas chain with about Perfect Order, you can get quite a few 2nd and third group residential home, you can get eight listed enterprises residential home. The marketplace capacity is good sized adequate. For everyone to look and feel in the image below. AutoZone why the fiscal crisis, why it?s so decent stock price overall performance, we look and feel at its 2008 personal statements, income of six.five billion, web earnings of 640 million, web assets of 230 million. Only you do retail outlet it, you can experience lots of challenges, over all, a standard problem, any chain certainly is the vitality of its standardization, for those who try to eat the KFC in Shanghai and Beijing will not be similar as consuming a KFC, but the repair service is tough to standardize, adopted by lots of technical employees you Shangna Zhao. All areas with late repair service chain, you can get lots of areas of the dead stock, if every one of the shops open up to getting their very own areas. Even when a broker, but brokers and ultimately, because two types of a couple of suppliers are high-volume, minor areas and parts manufacturing plant types of high-volume, but other stop users to either repair service plant minor quantities of lots of types, among it?s essential to have this layer distribution channels, this is actually the nature of this trade.
Feb. 1 marks the first Change Your Password Day, a holiday proposed by a popular tech blog. We're here to walk you through this strange new celebration and the clever traditions it brings.
Why haven't I heard about this holiday before? As explained by Matt Buchanan on Gizmodo, Change Your Password Day is a holiday recently invented by the tech blog.?The folks there?have decided to dub it the "most boring ? but safest! ? celebration ever" and use it as a way to remind (and educate) everyone about the importance of proper password practices.
"I thought it would be a good idea if we all changed our passwords together. Like positive peer pressure," writes Buchanan, before suggesting Feb. 1 as the date for the occasion. "Sooner is better than later," he offers.
(In the interest of disclosure: I was previously employed by Gizmodo and have worked alongside Buchanan.)
So what's the point of Change Your Password Day? On Change Your Password Day, you are supposed to ... change your passwords. Simple in theory?? but in practice there's more to the process than meets the eye.
Changing your passwords isn't just a matter of going from "SecretPassword1" to "SecretPassword2." You?should also?consider what a decent password is and make an effort to use it, even if it means changing some of your security habits.?Gizmodo's Rachel Swaby explains:
The thing to understand is that the biggest threat to your security isn't some creep sitting in front of your email login screen, randomly bruteforcing his way into your account. Nope, you're up against computers that can run thousands of encrypted passwords by dictionaries of several languages, everything in the World Fact Book, and Wikipedia in a matter of minutes.
To emphasize her message, Swaby calls attention to work done by the Tech Herald after members of the AntiSec movement published a batch of encrypted passwords to the Internet.?It took individuals at the publication less than five hours to crack over 80 thousand passwords using regular off-the-shelf computers and software which is easily downloadable.
Thomas Baekdal
What kind of passwords should I choose? We've all had it drilled into our heads that we should use long passwords which incorporate (upper- and lower-case) letters, numbers and symbols, but are those really the best choice? Not exactly,?according to some number-crunching done by security expert Thomas Baekdal.
As you can see by the chart above, complex passwords ??like the ones I just described ??are in fact pretty darn secure.?In theory, such a passwords would take a hacker over 100 years to discover if he were using an automated system capable of systematically guessing 100 passwords per second.
But how long would it take you to regularly memorize a password that looks as if it was created by a cat who strolled across a keyboard? Long enough to make you think twice about creating a complex password, right?
So how about using secure passwords which consist of easy-to-remember, multi-word phrases instead?
Such phrases ??which can include things like "this is fun" or "fluffy is puffy" ??are even more secure than the complex passwords which you may or may not memorize easily. In fact, Baekdal suggests that math shows "this is fun" to be ten times more secure as a password than "J4fS<2."
If you don't have faith in this approach to password selection though, at least keep in mind that size matters. Longer passwords are more difficult to crack, even if you're not using strange characters. (But using strange characters ??such as parantheses, exclamation marks, or even spaces?? can, of course, mean the difference between a secure and a compromised password.)
Can't someone (or something) else do the work for me? Making and remembering passwords is tough, especially since you should be using a unique one for each of your accounts. Thankfully there are password manager applications which can help.?Such applications will securely organize and maintain your password data for you.?
One of the most popular password managers around is called LastPass, but unfortunately its reputation suffered after a possible security breach in May 2011. But no worries:?Lifehacker's Whitson Gordon explains that while LastPass is still trusted and favored by many, there are several alternatives such as KeePass, 1Password, or Keeper.
That's it? Where are the presents and the candy? That's all there is to Change Your Password Day. There are no presents, no candy, and no fancy decorations. There are just stern reminders that you need to audit your password practices and make some new passwords. It's just a day that celebrates doing something that you should've been doing all along.
Related stories:
Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.
If you're more interested in?Sam Spratt???the guy who made the whimsical lock illustration above ? then you'll want these?Facebook,?Twitter?and?Tumblr?links instead.
Contact: David Sims david.sims@unh.edu 603-862-5369 University of New Hampshire
DURHAM, N.H. Space scientists, including researchers from the University of New Hampshire (UNH), today described the first detailed analyses of samples of captured interstellar neutral atoms raw material for the formation of new stars, planets, and human beings.
Investigators on NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, including UNH space physicist Eberhard Mbius, David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), and Priscilla Frisch of the University of Chicago, as well as astronomer Seth Redfield of Wesleyan University, presented the mission findings at a press conference from NASA headquarters in Washington,D.C. beginning at 1 p.m. and broadcast via NASA TV at www.nasa.gov/sunearth.
The NASA press conference occurred in conjunction with the publication of six papers in the February issue of The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) Supplement Series by IBEX team members, including Mbius and other UNH authors.
In addition to sampling the raw "star stuff" out of which stars, planets, and humans are formed, the findings are important because the interstellar gas surrounding us can affect the strength of the Sun's heliosphere the protective bubble that shields our solar system from dangerous cosmic radiation.
IBEX discovered that the interstellar wind is approximately 7,000 miles per hour slower than previously thought. This indicates that our solar system is still in what's referred to as the "local interstellar cloud." However, astronomers note, we will transition into a different region at any time within a few thousand years (very short on astronomical time scales) where conditions will change and affect the heliosphere's protective capability for better or worse.
As our solar system travels around the Milky Way through the vast sweep of cosmic time, the ever-changing nature of the heliosphere has likely had implications on the evolution of life on Earth as varying levels of radiation spurred genetic mutations and, perhaps, wholesale extinctions.
A deeper understanding of our heliosphere will also aid scientists in exploring analogous structures, "astrospheres," surrounding other stars throughout the galaxy, many of which also harbor planets according to recent findings.
IBEX's second major finding announced in the press conference and papers, that is, the first direct measurements of oxygen and neon from outside the solar system, shows that the composition of the local interstellar cloud appears to differ noticeably from the makeup of the Sun and even the average Milky Way galaxy.
There is less oxygen relative to neon in the local cloud than in the Sun and the Milky Way as a whole, which presents a puzzle to astronomers. Perhaps, it means that a substantial portion of an essential ingredient of life (oxygen) is locked up in dust, or it could tell us how different the conditions in our immediate neighborhood are than at the birthplace of the Sun.
Notes Mbius, an astrophysicist at the UNH Institute for the Study or Earth, Oceans, and Space and department of physics, "Together with the modeling of how stars sprinkle material into the interstellar medium, these measurements can really help us figure out the temporal evolution of the cosmic matter."
IBEX, one of NASA's Small Explorer missions, was launched October 19, 2008. McComas of SwRI is the mission's principal investigator. The space probe uses a pair of ultra-high sensitivity cameras one led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the other by the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (LMATC) that contain important components designed and built at UNH. Mbius, currently on sabbatical as visiting professor at LANL, is the principal UNH scientist for IBEX, and the mission's Science Operations Center, directed by associate professor of physics Nathan Schwadron, is headquartered at UNH.
In addition to Mbius and Schwadron, the other UNH authors on the ApJ papers include, David Heirtzler, Harald Kucharek, Martin Lee, visiting professor Peter Bochsler, graduate students Trevor Leonard and Xian Wu, as well as former physics undergraduates George Clark, Morgan O'Neill, and Lee Petersen. The scientific effort that led to the six papers was carried out by a large collaboration that includes scientists from six US research institutions as well as the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
###
ApJ publishes significant papers that contain extensive data and/or calculations and are of particular interest to the scientific community. The Supplement contains many of the most frequently cited papers in the astronomical literature.
Among the six U.S. institutions on the IBEX mission are UNH, the LMATC, SwRI, the University of Texas, San Antonio, MIT, and the University of Chicago.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.
Photo to download: http://www.eos.unh.edu/newsimage/mobius_lg.jpg
Eberhard Mbius. Photo by Perry Smith, UNH Photo Services.
Image to download: http://www.eos.unh.edu/newsimage/IBEX_013112_lg.jpg
Caption: The neon to oxygen ratio in the neutral gas of the local cloud, as obtained with IBEX, in comparison with that ratio for the Sun and the Milky Way galaxy. There appears to be much less oxygen in the gas of the local cloud, meaning either a substantial portion of the essential ingredient for life (oxygen) locked up in interstellar dust or there were different conditions at the birthplace of the Sun compared to our immediate neighborhood. Courtesy NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: David Sims david.sims@unh.edu 603-862-5369 University of New Hampshire
DURHAM, N.H. Space scientists, including researchers from the University of New Hampshire (UNH), today described the first detailed analyses of samples of captured interstellar neutral atoms raw material for the formation of new stars, planets, and human beings.
Investigators on NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, including UNH space physicist Eberhard Mbius, David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), and Priscilla Frisch of the University of Chicago, as well as astronomer Seth Redfield of Wesleyan University, presented the mission findings at a press conference from NASA headquarters in Washington,D.C. beginning at 1 p.m. and broadcast via NASA TV at www.nasa.gov/sunearth.
The NASA press conference occurred in conjunction with the publication of six papers in the February issue of The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) Supplement Series by IBEX team members, including Mbius and other UNH authors.
In addition to sampling the raw "star stuff" out of which stars, planets, and humans are formed, the findings are important because the interstellar gas surrounding us can affect the strength of the Sun's heliosphere the protective bubble that shields our solar system from dangerous cosmic radiation.
IBEX discovered that the interstellar wind is approximately 7,000 miles per hour slower than previously thought. This indicates that our solar system is still in what's referred to as the "local interstellar cloud." However, astronomers note, we will transition into a different region at any time within a few thousand years (very short on astronomical time scales) where conditions will change and affect the heliosphere's protective capability for better or worse.
As our solar system travels around the Milky Way through the vast sweep of cosmic time, the ever-changing nature of the heliosphere has likely had implications on the evolution of life on Earth as varying levels of radiation spurred genetic mutations and, perhaps, wholesale extinctions.
A deeper understanding of our heliosphere will also aid scientists in exploring analogous structures, "astrospheres," surrounding other stars throughout the galaxy, many of which also harbor planets according to recent findings.
IBEX's second major finding announced in the press conference and papers, that is, the first direct measurements of oxygen and neon from outside the solar system, shows that the composition of the local interstellar cloud appears to differ noticeably from the makeup of the Sun and even the average Milky Way galaxy.
There is less oxygen relative to neon in the local cloud than in the Sun and the Milky Way as a whole, which presents a puzzle to astronomers. Perhaps, it means that a substantial portion of an essential ingredient of life (oxygen) is locked up in dust, or it could tell us how different the conditions in our immediate neighborhood are than at the birthplace of the Sun.
Notes Mbius, an astrophysicist at the UNH Institute for the Study or Earth, Oceans, and Space and department of physics, "Together with the modeling of how stars sprinkle material into the interstellar medium, these measurements can really help us figure out the temporal evolution of the cosmic matter."
IBEX, one of NASA's Small Explorer missions, was launched October 19, 2008. McComas of SwRI is the mission's principal investigator. The space probe uses a pair of ultra-high sensitivity cameras one led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the other by the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (LMATC) that contain important components designed and built at UNH. Mbius, currently on sabbatical as visiting professor at LANL, is the principal UNH scientist for IBEX, and the mission's Science Operations Center, directed by associate professor of physics Nathan Schwadron, is headquartered at UNH.
In addition to Mbius and Schwadron, the other UNH authors on the ApJ papers include, David Heirtzler, Harald Kucharek, Martin Lee, visiting professor Peter Bochsler, graduate students Trevor Leonard and Xian Wu, as well as former physics undergraduates George Clark, Morgan O'Neill, and Lee Petersen. The scientific effort that led to the six papers was carried out by a large collaboration that includes scientists from six US research institutions as well as the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
###
ApJ publishes significant papers that contain extensive data and/or calculations and are of particular interest to the scientific community. The Supplement contains many of the most frequently cited papers in the astronomical literature.
Among the six U.S. institutions on the IBEX mission are UNH, the LMATC, SwRI, the University of Texas, San Antonio, MIT, and the University of Chicago.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.
Photo to download: http://www.eos.unh.edu/newsimage/mobius_lg.jpg
Eberhard Mbius. Photo by Perry Smith, UNH Photo Services.
Image to download: http://www.eos.unh.edu/newsimage/IBEX_013112_lg.jpg
Caption: The neon to oxygen ratio in the neutral gas of the local cloud, as obtained with IBEX, in comparison with that ratio for the Sun and the Milky Way galaxy. There appears to be much less oxygen in the gas of the local cloud, meaning either a substantial portion of the essential ingredient for life (oxygen) locked up in interstellar dust or there were different conditions at the birthplace of the Sun compared to our immediate neighborhood. Courtesy NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A man smokes a cigarette in a tram, behind a frosty window on a cold winters day in Sofia, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Heavy snow and freezing weather on Monday led to some deaths in Serbia and Bulgaria, prompting authorities to close down schools and introduce emergency measures. Exceptionally cold weather and snowstorms hit parts of central and eastern Europe last week, causing traffic chaos, road closures and electric outages that left entire villages cut off. As temperatures dropped to around minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit), authorities urged people to be careful and remain indoors. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova))
A man smokes a cigarette in a tram, behind a frosty window on a cold winters day in Sofia, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Heavy snow and freezing weather on Monday led to some deaths in Serbia and Bulgaria, prompting authorities to close down schools and introduce emergency measures. Exceptionally cold weather and snowstorms hit parts of central and eastern Europe last week, causing traffic chaos, road closures and electric outages that left entire villages cut off. As temperatures dropped to around minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit), authorities urged people to be careful and remain indoors. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova))
A man walks his dog near the Neris river in the Vilnius, Lithuania, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, as morning temperatures plummeted to minus 23C (minus 9 degrees F). (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
A women prays under snow covered trees in a city park in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Thirty people have recently died in Ukraine as the country was struck by severe winter. The text on a plate is 'No to biometric passports.' Some religious groups oppose biometric passports because, among other complaints, they assign specific numbers to individuals, allegedly making them inhuman. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A man walks his dog along the Neris river in Vilnius, Lithuania,Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, as morning temperatures plummeted to -23 Celsius (-9 degrees Fahrenheit) in Lithuania. A severe and snowy cold snap across central and eastern Europe has left at least 36 people dead, cut off power to towns, and snarled traffic. ( (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Snow covers benches in a winter landscape in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Thirty people, most of them homeless, have died of hypothermia in recent days in Ukraine, part of a surge of deaths across eastern Europe as the region grapples with an unusually severe cold spell. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) ? Rescue helicopters evacuated dozens of people from snow-blocked villages in Serbia and Bosnia and air-lifted in emergency food and medicine as a severe cold spell kept Eastern Europe in its icy grip.
The death toll from the cold rose to 79 on Wednesday and emergency crews worked overtime as temperatures sank to minus 32.5 C (minus 26.5 F) in some areas.
Parts of the Black Sea froze near the Romanian coastline and the rare show fell on Croatian islands in the Adriatic Sea. In Bulgaria, 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures since records started 100 years ago.
In central Serbia, choppers pulled out 12 people, including nine who went to a funeral but then could not get back over icy, snow-choked roads. Two more people froze to death in the snow and two others are missing, bringing that nation's death toll to five.
"The situation is dramatic, the snow is up to five meters (16 1/2 feet) high in some areas, you can only see rooftops," said Dr. Milorad Dramacanin, who participated in the helicopter evacuations.
One of the evacuees was an elderly woman who had fallen into a coma. She survived after being airlifted to a hospital.
Two helicopters were also used Wednesday to rescue people and supply remote villages in northern Bosnia.
"We are trying to get through to several small villages, with each just a few elderly residents," said Bosnian rescue official Milimir Doder. "All together some 200-300 people are cut off. We are supplying them for the second day with food and medication."
Some villages have had no electricity for two days and crews were working around-the-clock trying to fix power lines.
"The snow is about two meters high (6 feet) and we have cleared off paths that look more like tunnels," Doder said. "It is going well but if there is more snow coming, then the situation may get critical."
Ukraine alone reported 43 deaths, mostly of homeless people. The country's Emergency Situations Ministry said 28 people had been found dead on the streets, eight died in hospitals and seven in their homes. Over 720 others were hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite.
Ukraine's 1+1 channel broadcast footage of a man being treated for frostbite in his toes, which had turned completely black.
Authorities have deployed over 1,730 heating shelters across the country, handing out hot tea, coffee, boiled potatoes and pork fat ? a traditional Ukrainian dish ? to the homeless. Hospitals were told not to discharge homeless patients even if their treatment was finished to protect them from the cold.
Prime Minister Mykola Azarov urged Ukrainians to stay vigilant, dress warmly and help each other in the face of the severe weather.
"I call on citizens, enterprises, organizations not to be indifferent, to support and protect those people who cannot help themselves in this difficult time," Azarov said in a statement Wednesday. "We are one people."
His comments after some experts suggested Ukraine's high death toll was linked to authorities' unwillingness and incompetence in dealing with the homeless.
Pavlo Rozenko, an expert on social policy with the Kiev-based Razumkov Center, said Ukrainian authorities often suffer from the Soviet legacy of viewing the homeless as alcoholics, drug addicts and do-nothings who need to be punished instead of helped.
"The country doesn't know yet how to take care of its homeless," Rozenko said.
In Romania, temperatures plunged to minus 32.5 C (minus 26.5), and six homeless people died in the past 24 hours of hypothermia, the health ministry reported. Hundreds of other people were sent to shelters to protect them from the extreme cold.
Five people died of hypothermia in the last day in Poland, bringing its toll up to 20 since Friday.
Several schools across Hungary suspended classes, including one in the east that said it could not afford the high heating bills.
In Russia, temperatures fell to minus 21 C (minus 6 F) in Moscow but only one person was reported to have died of the cold.
Despite the freezing temperatures, Gyorgy Schirilla, a 50-year-old sportsman, said he would go ahead with his annual swim on Saturday with no protective gear cross the Danube River ? a distance of 500 meters (yards) ? in the city of Vac.
"I'm not afraid of the challenge," Schirilla said. "This will be my 15th crossing. Two years ago ... I had to fend off ice floes weighing several tons."
___
Maria Danilova from Ukraine, Alison Mutler from Romania, Aida Cerkez from Bosnia, Monika Scislowska from Poland, Pablo Gorondi from Hungary and Jovana Gec from Serbia contributed to this report.
NEW YORK ? UPS said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter net income slid because of an accounting charge, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street's expectations.
Excluding the charge, profit rose 21 percent. The world's largest package delivery company credited the increase to an improving U.S. package business that's making up for slower sales growth overseas. United Parcel Service Inc. also forecast Tuesday that its full-year results would mostly top analysts' forecasts.
In the fourth quarter, the Atlanta company earned $725 million, or 74 cents per share, compared with $1.3 billion, or $1.02 per share a year earlier. Excluding a charge tied to how UPS accounts for pensions and retirement plans, it earned $1.28 per share in the latest quarter.
Analysts expected an adjusted profit of $1.27 per share.
Revenue rose 6 percent to $14.17 billion. Revenue rose 7 percent in the U.S. ? more than double the rate of its international business. Its smallest unit, supply chain and freight, saw revenue improve by 2 percent.
For the full-year, the company earned $3.8 billion, or $3.84 per share, compared with $3.33 billion, or $3.33 per share, in 2010. The full year 2011 results also include the impact of the accounting change.
Excluding one-time charges, UPS made more money in 2011 than any year since before the recession. Adjusted full-year profit was $4.35 per share. It made $4.17 per share in 2007, excluding one-time items. The recession began in December of that year.
For 2012, the company expects to earn between $4.75 and $5, an increase of 9 to 15 percent over adjusted 2011 results. Analysts currently expect $4.80 per share.
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Public release date: 31-Jan-2012
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