Pierre de Fermat's last theorem celebrated

Google celebrates Pierre de Fermat’s birthday, August 17th, with a new Doodle, a chalkboard with mathematical equation, symbols, and an erased Google logo. Fermat is an amateur mathematician who made contributions to analytic geometry, probability and optics, as well as his smallest ordinates discovery that is related to differential calculus.
Search engine Giant Google, who owns the “Doodle patent,” celebrates the birthday of Pierre de Fermat today. The Pierre de Fermat Google Doodle is depicted by a green chalkboard with equations and mathematical symbols written on top of the erased Google logo.
Google also embedded a hidden message in Fermat’s Doodle: “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this theorem, which this doodle is too small to contain.” Clicking the chalkboard image with initiate the search term “Pierre de Fermat.”
According to Wikipedia, Fermat is a French lawyer, but also an amateur mathematician who is now known for his contributions that led to “infinitesimal calculus,” or the branch of mathematics that tackles slopes of curves, area under curves, minima and maxima and also the terms tangent and normals for the slopes of curves, and area under curves, positive or negative depending on the slope of the curve.
Fermat is also recognized for his discovery of the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is comparable to another branch of mathematics, the differential calculus. Apparently, Calculus is divided into two parts, the integral and the differential.


The proof, commemorated in today's Google doodle, was written around 1630. It states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n greater than two. Or as Fermat put it, "It is impossible for a cube to be the sum of two cubes, a fourth power to be the sum of two fourth powers, or in general for any number that is a power greater than the second to be the sum of two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain."


Fermat never actually published the proof, which remained unsolved for three centuries despite assorted prizes offered for a solution and countless published false proofs. In that time, Fermat's theorem became the most famous mathematical theorem -- -- referenced in the Simpsons and Star Trek: The Next Generation.


Andrew Wiles finally solved the proof in 1993 and tidied up the loose ends shortly after, winning himself a tidy sum in prize money to boot.


Fermat published only one work, preferring to do all his mathletics in letters to other numbercrunchers. He never again referred to his infamous marvellous proof, leading some to wonder if he had actually solved the problem. We might take that approach.

Rick Perry reverses himself, calls HPV vaccine mandate a ‘mistake’

Controversy over an executive order issued by Rick Perry in 2007 is following the Texas Governor on the presidential campaign trail. In New Hampshire on Saturday and in Iowa on Monday, Perry faced questions about his order to have girls entering the sixth grade in Texas vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted disease and the cause of about 70 percent of all cervical cancer, according to the federal Center for Disease Control.


Girls would be exempt from the order only if a parent or guardian signed an affidavit claiming a "conscientious objection." The order, signed by the Governor on February 2, 2007, became the subject of sharp and widespread criticism and the Legislature promptly passed a law revoking it. According to the ABC News blog, "The Note," Perry was asked about the controversial order during a backyard reception for the candidate at the home of state Rep. Pamela Tucker in Greenland, New Hampshire.


"I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt-out, but the fact of the matter is that I didn't do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry," Perry said. "When you get too far out in front of the parade, they will let you know, and that's exactly what our Legislature did, and I saluted it and I said, 'Roger that, I hear you loud and clear.' And they didn't want to do it and we don't, so enough said."


But if Perry was saluting the Legislature at the time, he was probably not using all five fingers. His response was not a "Roger that," but a grudging acceptance of the inevitable. The vote in the Legislature was overwhelmingly in favor of revoking the order, and Perry knew he didn't have enough votes to sustain a veto. So he let the legislation become law without his signature. According to the Texas Tribune, he has always defended his executive order and Saturday's acknowledgement that he "didn't do my research well enough" and "got too far out in front of the parade" was his first public admission that the order was a mistake. He said so explicitly in a listener call-in talk show Monday radio station WHO.


The episode illustrates the difficulties Perry could face in navigating competing Republican interest groups, and it resurrects allegations of cronyism that have dogged the Texas executive throughout his political career.


“At the time that he did this, it just had everybody scratching their heads,” said Andrew Wheat, research director at Texans for Public Justice, an Austin-based watchdog group that has frequently locked horns with Perry. “He wasn’t known as a crusader for women’s health. There’s no explanation that seems to make sense other than that Toomey’s got his ear and he got Perry to do this favor for him.”


Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner dismissed the criticism. “Governor Perry has always stood on the side of protecting life, and that is what this issue was about,” he said Tuesday. “These allegations are false and have no merit.”


The vaccine in question, Merck’s Gardasil, protects against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection. HPV causes genital warts and can lead to cervical cancer, a disease that strikes about 10,000 American women a year and kills about 3,700.


The federal government approved Gardasil in June 2006, and medical authorities began recommending that all girls get the shots at ages 11 and 12, before they are likely to be sexually active. Boys have since been added to the recommendations as well.


Merck launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying and marketing effort to encourage that the vaccine — priced at about $360 for an entire treatment — be made mandatory for schoolgirls. But anti-vaccination groups and many religious conservatives pushed back, citing health and morality concerns, while Merck came under fire for its aggressive tactics.


In the end, only Virginia and the District of Columbia made the vaccine mandatory, according to Alexandra Stewart, an assistant professor of health policy at George Washington University. “Social conservatives really objected to it, and it has gotten caught up in all these other issues,” said Stewart, who supports use of the vaccine.


In Texas, one of Merck’s lobbyists in 2007 was Toomey, who is also co-founder of the Make Us Great Again super PAC, formed this month to collect and spend unlimited money in support of Perry’s campaign. Merck and Toomey did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.


Merck gave Perry a $6,000 contribution when the issue was being discussed in the governor’s mansion, and it supported a women’s legislators group that pushed for the vaccine as well, according to Texas news reports.


Democrats and some Republicans have frequently criticized Perry’s role in the controversy. Former U.S. senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) singled out the issue as an example of “cronyism in Austin” during her unsuccessful primary challenge in the 2010 governor’s race.


“Why did the governor mandate vaccines for our young daughters?” Hutchison said in one speech. “It was because there were lobbyists that were first, not the people of Texas.”

Until this past week, Perry has staunchly defended the vaccine decision, casting it as a “pro-life” attempt to protect women’s health and disparaging objections from social conservatives. At a defiant news conference in May 2007, Perry chastised legislators for overturning the order; he was flanked by several women who had contracted the virus, including one who had been raped.

Rick Perry Responds To Bernanke Comments, 'The Governor Is Passionate

The Republican presidential race suddenly looks like a three-person battle between Texas Gov. Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. But as the focus of the contest soon shifts to Florida, Perry and Bachmann are invisible in the state while Romney has an expansive political network still in place since his campaign here four years ago.


Grass-roots activists and veteran political consultants say they see no sign of Bachmann trying to organize a campaign in Florida, though on Aug. 27 she plans to attend a tea party rally in The Villages and then a Florida Family Policy Council dinner in Orlando. And the campaign told the St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday night that it has no plans to compete in a mock election planned by the state GOP next month.


It’s a different story with Perry, who formally jumped in the race Saturday.


Perry campaign officials are talking to some of the top Republican strategists, including former George W. Bush Florida 2004 chief Brett Doster and the Tallahassee team of Randy Enwright, Jim Rimes and Rich Heffley. The late entry into the contest has also contacted many of the state’s top money-raisers and found some keen interest.


Perry's response echoed what his spokesman, Ray Sullivan said earlier Tuesday in more detail.


“The governor is passionate about reducing federal spending and moving towards a balanced budget as quickly as possible. He does not believe that printing more money is the answer to our economic problems,” Sullivan told a gaggle of reporters at Perry’s first campaign stop of the day.


He repeated, “The governor was passionate and energized by a full day of the Iowa State Fair, public events and interacting with the people of Iowa. And it was a way for him to talk about his concerns about the federal budget and his strong belief that printing more money is not the solution.”


A reporter pressed Sullivan on whether Perry’s words were perhaps too harsh.


“I think you’ll just have to listen to what the governor says every day,” Sullivan said. “The message is certainly going to evolve and be responsive to the news of the day. Just keep watching.”


Monday night at a local Republican Party event, Perry called out Bernanke:


“If this guy prints more money between now and the election,” Perry said, “I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous in my opinion.”


Perry spoke to employees at a roofing company here and was to hold two more events in Iowa before leaving the state.

Trump praises Perry, keeps open a possible run

That's what Donald Trump told me this afternoon when I asked him if he would support the latest candidate to enter the 2012 race – Texas Governor Rick Perry.


“Well, I think he's a very impressive guy. I've spoken to him a number of times. He's going to come and see me next week,” Trump, who thought about running for the GOP nomination himself, said. “And I think he's a very impressive guy with a very good record.”


Specifically Perry’s job record - Texas has created more jobs than any other state since the recession. But that stat has been criticized by people who say it’s due to population growth and low-wage jobs and shouldn’t be a model for the rest of the country.


“I think at this point, America would accept anything in terms of jobs, whether it's great jobs or okay jobs. We need jobs…We're losing our jobs. People are leaving this country and our products are all being made in other countries. We have to reverse that immediately,” Trump told me.


Perry already has a reputation for shooting from the hip – as he displayed in Iowa yesterday when he said it would be almost “treasonous” for Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve to print more money before November.


In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump said Perry was a welcome entry in the GOP field that includes former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll Saturday, the same day Perry announced he too would seek the party's nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.
"I think Rick Perry is a real positive. Nobody can predict outcomes, but I think he will do very nicely," Trump said. "We need someone in this country who is willing to shake things up."
Trump, a multimillionaire reality show host, flirted publicly with joining the Republican presidential field before opting out of the race in May. He had gained considerable attention by stirring renewed controversy over President Barack Obama's Hawaii birth, leading the White House to persuade the state to release a copy of Obama's long-form birth certificate after two years of dismissing the issue.
On Tuesday, Trump said he would still consider running next year as an independent if he doesn't believe the candidate who wins the GOP nomination is strong enough to beat Obama. Trump said he'd make a decision after the next season of his show, "Celebrity Apprentice," ends in June.
"I have an obligation. We have a tremendous following — millions of people who would like to see me run," Trump said.
Trump also defended Perry's suggestion Monday that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be committing a "treasonous" act if he pumped more money into the economy.
"It was a meaningless phrase, it was just rhetorical. He's very emotional about how the country is doing," Trump said of Perry, pushing back on President George W. Bush's former political director Karl Rove and other Republicans who have criticized Perry's comment.
"Karl Rove is an empty hat," Trump said. "We ended up with Obama because of Karl Rove and George W. Bush.

Rick Perry Steals Stephen Colbert’s Treasurer

Presidential candidate Rick Perry and comedian Stephen Colbert, who last week barraged Iowa voters with advertisements urging voters to support “Rick Parry,” shared the same political committee treasurer – until they didn’t.

Salvatore Purpura, who has represented numerous political committees as treasurer over the years, told POLITICO that he resigned on Thursday as treasurer of Colbert’s super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

Then, on Monday, Perry - not Parry - formally filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission listing Purpura has his campaign treasurer.

“Obviously, there was a potential conflict of interest,” Purpura said. “I told [Colbert lawyer] Trevor [Potter] on Thursday I would not be able to be treasurer anymore.”

Colbert, in an email to POLITICO, praised Purpura’s service.

“We’re not surprised. Sal is the best in the business. That’s why we went with him,” Colbert wrote. “We’re happy for Sal and we are even happier that Governor Parry has sent the clear signal of which super PAC he trusts to receive all that unlimited money waiting to pour in on his behalf. Loud and clear, sir. Unofficially, loud and clear.”

To date, Purpura remains listed as treasurer in FEC documents for both Perry’s presidential committee and Colbert’s super PAC, which Purpura attributed to a paperwork lag time. Shauna Polk, an official at Washington, D.C.-based law firm Caplin & Drysdale, has assumed treasurer duties for Colbert’s super PAC, Purpura said.

Yes, that's right, the Perry campaign's new treasurer, Salvatore Purpura, is fresh off a job as treasurer of Colbert's political action committee, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. Colbert's super PAC is set up to exploit election law that allows him to accept and spend an unlimited amount of money, provided he doesn't coordinate with political candidates. (In Iowa, he encouraged straw poll voters to vote for "Rick Parry.")

Purpura, keenly noting that working for both Perry's campaign and AfaBTT is a "potential conflict of interest," resigned on Thursday. Colbert emailed Politico with praise for his work:

"We're not surprised. Sal is the best in the business. That's why we went with him," Colbert wrote. "We're happy for Sal and we are even happier that Governor Parry has sent the clear signal of which super PAC he trusts to receive all that unlimited money waiting to pour in on his behalf. Loud and clear, sir. Unofficially, loud and clear."

It's not really surprising that Purpura's now with Perry—he's worked for a bunch of Republican campaigns. It is hilarious, though! The punchline is "campaign finance law.

Swiss franc jumps as SNB stops short

Zurich, - The Swiss National Bank on Wednesday made fresh efforts on Wednesday to tame a runaway franc but again steered clear of direct intervention, disappointing markets that had positioned for more radical measures and sending the currency sharply higher.


The central bank said it would further boost liquidity by expanding sight deposits to 200 billion Swiss francs from 120 billion francs, and would if necessary introduce further measures.


The announcement boosted the franc by as much as 2 percent against the euro, given players had speculated the SNB might set a lower limit for the euro-Swiss franc exchange rate, with some anticipating an announcement on Wednesday.


"The market was expecting far more radical measures from the SNB like targeting a specific exchange rate. This is more of the same, and is inadequate in an environment where investors are seeking safe havens," said Lena Komileva of Brown Brothers Harriman.


Worries about the global economy and debt in the euro zone and the United States have prompted investors to pile into the safe-haven 'Swissie', which has rallied some 20 percent against the euro and the dollar in recent months.


The SNB had already responded by slashing its already low interest rate target to virtually zero and expanding sight deposits.


SNB policymaker Jean-Pierre Danthine said last week that no option was being ruled out in the central bank's campaign against the currency's strength, though he said some solutions were more practicable than others.


The Swiss franc has soared to record levels versus both the euro and the U.S. dollar as debt problems and worries about slowing economic growth drive investors into the safe-haven currency.


“It’s clear that Swiss authorities would prefer to use only verbal intervention to weaken the franc as the prospect of an actual peg would put enormous stress on the system, but the impact of jawboning will diminish if they do not take any material action relatively soon,” said Boris Schlossberg, director of currency research at GFT.


The euro/franc cross could probe the CHF1.12 level over the course of the day, while the dollar/franc pair could test the 78.00 centime level if a rise in risk aversion prompts traders to challenge the SNB’s resolve, he said.


The euro was already under pressure after a high-profile meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to produce concrete steps toward ringfencing the euro zone’s long-running sovereign-debt crisis, Brooks noted.


The euro EURUSD -0.06% traded at $1.4389 versus the dollar, down from $1.4409 in North American activity late Tuesday.


The dollar index DXY +0.07% , which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, traded at 74.032, up from 73.967.


The British pound GBPUSD -0.47% traded at $1.6451, down slightly from $1.6464 ahead of the release of the minutes of the Bank of England’s August policy meeting.


The dollar traded at 76.58 yen versus the Japanese currency USDJPY -0.29% , down from ¥76.75 late Tuesday.

Dell Lowers Outlook On Weak Consumer

San Francisco — Dell’s sales flattened in its latest quarter as government spending declined and the company pared low-margin sales, but its net income rose 63 percent.


The mixed results on Tuesday combined with a lowered revenue forecast for the rest of the year to send Dell’s shares down 7.9 percent in after-hours trading to $14.55. Dell said that net income in the quarter ending July 29, the second of its fiscal year, rose to $890 million, or 48 cents a share, from $545 million, or 28 cents, a year ago..


The company said revenue grew 1 percent to $15.66 billion from $15.53 billion.


The adjusted income of 54 cents per share exceeded analysts’ expectations, while revenue was slightly below expectations. Analysts had predicted 49 cents a share on that basis and revenue of $15.76 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.


Brian T. Gladden, chief financial officer for Dell, attributed the flat revenue to a strategy of eliminating low-margin products in the consumer sector and paring its business of selling software from other companies.


But Mr. Gladden acknowledged that demand for Dell’s products weakened because of the economy. “It’s clear that the demand environment is weaker and a bit more uncertain than what we had in our previous view,” he said.


The company, based in Round Rock, Tex., showed mixed results in the face of a weakening economy that is causing companies to think hard about buying new technology. Large corporations increased their spending with Dell just 1 percent to $4.6 billion, raising concern that they will reduce technology equipment purchases during any further downturn.


Government sales weakened because of tight budgets, in keeping with a pattern at other technology companies like Cisco Systems. Sales to public agencies, schools and hospitals fell 3 percent to $4.5 billion during the quarter.


Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Company, pointed out that the economy did not seem to have affected Apple, which had routinely reported record earnings despite the slowdown. But he called Dell’s focus on higher-margin products a sound, but slow, strategy. "They are not going to turn that tanker ship around in a short amount of time," he said.

Before Tuesday's results, many analysts had already lowered their calendar 2011 projections as global markets tanked and economies headed for choppy waters. Corporations like Dell may be forced to reduce their full-year targets as demand slows.


During an annual analysts' day in June, executives pledged to maintain their pace of acquisitions -- it completed its $960 million purchase of Compellent in February -- to gain access to corporate clients, and to safeguard margins.


But Wall Street on Tuesday focused on anemic revenue growth, ignoring a 22.5 percent gross margin in the second quarter that actually exceeded analysts' projections by more than a full point.


Dell, which in May forecast strong government spending and a good back-to-school season, recorded sales of just under $15.7 billion in its fiscal second quarter ended July.


That marginally missed the $15.76 billion average forecast of Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


It added that sales this quarter would likely stay flat from last quarter.


Dell posted net income of about $890 million, or 48 cents a share, in the quarter ended July, versus $545 million, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding certain items, it earned 54 cents a share.


Analysts had expected 49 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, but it was not immediately clear if that estimate was comparable.

Earnings roundup Walmart's U.S. slump

New York - Consumers may not be confident, but the stores that sell to them certainly seem to be.


Walmart and Home Depot, two of the nation's largest retailers and bellwethers of the U.S. economy, on Tuesday joined a string of other merchants that have raised their outlooks for the year despite a flow of bad economic news that suggests they have no reason to be optimistic. TJX Cos., Kohl's Corp., and Nordstrom Inc. have all boosted their profit outlooks in the past week.


Retailers' results are a closely watched barometer of how willing Americans are to loosen their purse strings, which is important since consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the economy. But at a time when families are being squeezed by higher costs and high unemployment,the positive forecasts seem to fly in the face of other economic indicators.


"It's cautious optimism. Retailers want to be optimistic but they know consumers can turn on a dime," said Wall Street Strategies analyst Brian Sozzi.


Merchants do have lots to worry about. They want to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008 when shoppers pulled back so much that some retailers were forced to close their doors.


The retailer, based in Bentonville, Ark., reported net income of $3.8 billion, or $1.09 per share, in the three months ended July 31. That compares with $3.6 billion, or 97 cents per share, in the same period last year. Revenue, excluding Sam's Club membership fees, was up 5.5 percent to $108.6 billion. Results were buoyed by Wal-Mart's international business, which produces 26 percent of its revenue. The company's international division was up 16.2 percent.
Wal-Mart said it expects a positive trend going forward. The quarterly decline was smaller than the 1.1 percent drop it had in the first quarter and a 1.8 percent decrease for last year's fourth quarter. And after a difficult June, Wal-Mart said business improved in June and again in July.
Home Depot
ATLANTA — Home Depot Inc.'s second-quarter net income rose 14 percent as shoppers picked up lawn and garden products and made storm-related repairs during the summer, the company said Tuesday. The nation's largest home-improvement retailer also raised its earnings guidance.
Purchases over $900, which accounts for about 20 percent of Home Depot's revenue, rose 5.4 percent during the quarter. Transactions under $50 were flat.
"Our second-quarter results were driven by a rebound in our seasonal business, storm-related repairs and strength in our core categories," said CEO Frank Blake.
The results stood in contrast to smaller rival Lowe's, which a day earlier in part blamed bad weather for its flat second-quarter earnings and cut its revenue forecast.
TJX
TJX Companies Inc., parent of T.J. Maxx and other discount stores, said Tuesday that its second-quarter net income climbed 14 percent as it lured in budget-conscious shoppers. The company also raised its earnings outlook for the year, a sign that it expects the momentum to continue.

China's likely next premier emerges from shadows in Hong Kong

Hong Kong brokerage shares rallied after China’s Vice Premier Li Keqiang introduced new measures for cross-border investing and pledged support for the city’s financial industry. Guotai Junan International Holdings Ltd. (1788), a brokerage operating in Hong Kong and China, surged 13 percent as of the midday trading break in Hong Kong and was poised for a record gain. China Everbright Ltd. climbed 9.4 percent. The two companies posted the biggest advances among stocks in the Hang Seng Composite Index.
China will commit an initial 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) quota for Hong Kong companies to invest in the nation’s securities and allow an exchange-traded fund linked to Hong Kong stocks, Li said at an economic forum in Hong Kong today. He also said China will expand the size of offshore bond sales by Chinese companies and support the use of yuan for foreign direct investment in the nation.
“The remarks were a catalyst for these stocks, enabling them to rebound,” Ivan Li, deputy head of Hong Kong research at Kim Eng Securities Hong Kong Ltd., said by telephone today. “The market had been expecting Chinese securities firms in Hong Kong to be among the first overseas brokerages to invest in China’s domestic equity market.


Li Keqiang spoke cheerfully and humorously, with no arrogance. He also cares about our living condition. He is a very down-to-earth premier," said Yeung Cho Wai, who hosted Li at his home in a public housing estate.


His gifts for broader Hong Kong, which suffered an economic contraction in the second quarter, included pledges for freer trade, opportunities to play a bigger role in the offshore yuan market and future gas supplies.


Li's rare visit has taken a page from Wen, head of domestic policy as premier for the world's second largest economy, who offered similar incentives on his popular Hong Kong appearances.


As China's economy surged over the past decade, Wen and Communist Party chief and President Hu Jintao sought to burnish reputations as "Men of the People" through routine visits to the countryside and poorer regions. Wen even descended a mine shaft to eat dumplings with miners, and frequently held inspection tours after major disasters.


After nearly a decade in power, Hu and Wen are due to retire from their Party posts in the fall of 2012 and the presidency and premiership in 2013, in a major leadership reshuffle.


POLITICAL DEBUTANTES


It is a busy week for Chinese heirs apparent.


Vice President Xi Jinping, the man expected to take over from Hu as party chief and president, hosts his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden. On top of the usual diplomatic agenda, Biden's trip will provide him a chance to size up the future leader of China.


In Hong Kong, Li has been enjoying his own coming out party of sorts, traveling with an entourage of senior regulators including the central bank chief, and displaying a populist streak that hints at the agenda he will pursue once in power.


"Based on his previous work and the populist policy agenda he shares with his mentor Hu Jintao, Li's hot button policy issues will include increasing employment, offering more affordable housing, providing basic health care, balancing regional development, and promoting innovation in clean energy technology," Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution, said in a recent research report.


His ascent will mark an extraordinary rise for a man who as a youth was sent to toil in the countryside during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution and later had quite a liberal political experience while studying at elite Peking University.


He was born in Anhui province in July 1955, the son of a local rural official. Li worked on a commune in Fengyang County -- notoriously poor even for Mao's time and one of the first places to quietly revive private bonuses in farming in the late 1970s. By the time he left, Li was a Communist Party member and secretary of his production brigade.


He was among the first university students to win places in intensely competitive exams revived in 1977, as Deng Xiaoping and other reformers began to shed Mao's radicalism.


Peking University was among the first Chinese schools to restore law teaching after the Cultural Revolution, and Li attached himself to a British-educated professor, Gong Xiangrui, who taught ideas regarded as exotic and liberal at the time. He worked to master English, and co-translated "The Due Process of Law" by Lord Denning, the famed English jurist.


Outside class, Li mixed with radical thinkers and joined an intellectual "salon" that included Wang Juntao, later condemned as a counter-revolutionary "black hand" after the 1989 purge, Wang recounted in a memoir.


In 1980 Li, then in the official student union, endorsed controversial campus elections contested by Hu Ping and other pro-democracy activists, Hu has said. Party conservatives were aghast. But Li, already a prudent political player, stayed out of the controversial vote.


As others peeled off into radical dissent, Li continued climbing the Party hierarchy. In 1983 he joined the Youth League's central secretariat, headed then by Hu Jintao.


Li rose through the Youth League and later served in challenging Party chief posts in Liaoning, a frigid northeastern rustbelt province, and rural Henan province. He was named to the powerful nine-member Party Standing Committee in 2007.


In spite of his liberal past, Li's elevation is unlikely to bring much change on the political front, where reforms would require more unified support for any serious change.


"It will need both Xi and Li Keqiang and prominent leaders to work as a team to push for political reforms," said Li Mingjiang, an expert in Chinese politics at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.


"If the leadership is divided on the overall orientation of reforms, it will be difficult to see tangible moves or actions.

Europe Stocks Fall After Merkel, Sarkozy Meet

German Bund future FGBLc1 opened 42 ticks higher at 133.53, after rising as high as 133.79 in after hours trading.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday vowed to stand side by side in defending the euro and laid the groundwork for future fiscal union. .

But they stopped short of increasing the bloc's rescue fund and disappointed investors by declaring that any thoughts of common euro bond issuance would have to wait.

Support for a common bond had been growing as it is increasingly seen as a way to allow highly indebted euro zone countries to regain access to commercial markets while providing investors a safeguard through joint liability.

"Predictably, Tuesday's meeting between Angela Merkel and Sarkozy offered a statement of intent and floated some generic ideas, rather than offering concrete details on the next steps of how Europe's crisis will be resolved in the immediate future," Societe Generale said in a research note.

Italian 10-year government debt yields would come in focus after falling below 5 percent for the first time in five weeks in the previous session as the European Central Bank continued to buy bonds from those countries.

Analysts have said that the ECB needs to maintain consistent and steady purchases of those bonds to keep funding costs at affordable levels.

Carlsberg A/S, the Nordic region’s largest brewer, plunged 14 percent after reducing its full-year outlook. Deutsche Boerse AG (DB1) and London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE) lost more than 3 percent amid plans for a financial-transaction tax.

The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index declined 0.3 percent to 236.79 at 9:08 a.m. in London as more than three stocks dropped for every two that climbed. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.2 percent and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures rose 0.1 percent.

“The Sarkozy-Merkel meeting was the major event yesterday and anyone expecting a rabbit to be magically pulled from one of their hats would have been disappointed,” Jim Reid, a global strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in London, wrote in a report today. “Whilst markets will ponder the potential effects on market liquidity and the broader economy arising from the financial-transaction tax, it was the broader tax agreement that was unexpected.

Kevin Federline and girlfriend Victoria Prince have his fifth child

Kevin Federline becomes a father once again. The ex-husband of pop singer Britney Spears welcomed his fifth child last Monday, August 15 after his current girlfriend, former competitive volleyball player Victoria Prince, gave birth to their first daughter together at 6:33 P.M., 

Kevin and Victoria named their newborn Jordan Kay. The former backup dancer has hinted the name choice back in April. To Us Weekly, he shared, "[Victoria] said that if we were going to have a little girl, she wanted to name her Jordan. And then, we actually thought that it was a boy, but we stuck with the name Jordan because, you know, it fits both ways."

The baby girl joined Kevin's expanding family. The 33-year-old, who once tried to be a rapper, has two children with ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson, a 9-year-old daughter Kori and a 7-year-old son Kaleb, and two more sons with ex-wife Britney, 5-year-old Sean Preston and 4-year-old Jayden.

Jordan Kay, who is Prince's first child, was born at 6:33 p.m. Monday. No word yet on Jordan's size or weight, but Federline already explained how he and his lady love settled on the baby's name.

"If we were going to have a little girl, she wanted to name her Jordan. And then, we actually thought that it was a boy, but we stuck with the name Jordan because, you know, it fits both ways," he told Us Weekly in April.

The rapper, 33, who now has more children than musical hits, was once married to Britney Spears and is the father of her two boys, Sean and Jayden. He also has two other kids -- Kori and Kaleb -- with ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson, an actress-singer who starred in "Moesha." Federline left Jackson to be with Spears. His marriage to Spears ended in 2007 in a very public divorce. Shar had no hard feelings, apparently: She and K-Fed appeared together in VH1's "Celebrity Fit Club: Boot Camp" in 2010.

Federline and Prince, 28, a former pro volleyball player, began dating in 2008. Now that the birth is out of the way, the couple could be hearing wedding bells.

"I do want to get married," he told the mag. "But I will wait until I have the courage to propose.

Indiana fair tragedy was no 'fluke,' expert says

An emergency plan outlining what to do if severe weather threatens the Indiana State Fair takes up a single page and does not mention the potential for evacuations. Most of the guidelines suggest language for PA announcements and offer advice about seeking shelter.


After high winds toppled a huge outdoor stage, killing five people and injuring at least four dozen, questions about whether the fair did enough to anticipate a storm have loomed over the event. Some fairs hire their own meteorologists for just such a scenario.


The Indiana fair's one-page plan has nine bullet points. Two of them quote specific wording for announcements to be made when severe weather moves in and when the all-clear is sounded. State fair spokesman Andy Klotz confirmed Tuesday that the one-page statement is the event's severe weather policy but declined to elaborate.


While the page is part of an overall emergency plan, it's far less specific than the policies of other state fairs and outdoor venues, some of which have iron-clad rules about weather and stage construction.


Managers of the Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tenn., ask engineers to review and approve onstage sound and lighting equipment.


Let's stop bucketing meteorology and weather in general into some magical mystery science that can't be explained. When a tragic accident due to existing extreme weather conditions occurs, there is a notion to just throw your hands up in the air and say, "Well, nothing could have been done to avoid this" or "Nobody could have seen this coming" or "It was just a damn fluke". In many instances, that just simply is not the case and it wasn't the case in the tragedy at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Powerful, damaging winds were a known threat several days before and during the minutes leading up to the stage collapse.


But with all this said, it shouldn't have even come down to a warning issued by the National Weather Service. Brad Panovich, chief meteorologist at WCNC-TV, Charlotte, N.C., notes in a recent blog entry of histhat evacuations and the priority of seeking shelter even before the issuance of a severe thunderstorm warning should have already been in place. We are talking about a recipe for disaster — an approaching line of severe thunderstorms containing high winds and lightning bearing down on a large, metal but seemingly fragile outdoor stage set with its rigging standing high and hovering over the crowd below.
Story: Indiana fair's storm plan is brief, generic
He writes, "Problem here is you have people in an outdoor event and around a temporary structure which requires them to seek shelter at a much lower threshold. Something that should have been known by those organizing the event. One of the fatalities was a stage hand in a metal light structure running a spot light, with lightning clearly visible in the distance. Lightning alone was sufficient reason to evacuate people and since lightning was within 10 miles of the fair grounds patrons should have been seeking shelter.


The science of meteorology is growing by leaps and bounds especially with continuing advances in satellite and radar technology. When severe weather strikes, we are in awe of the power and the visuals but we shouldn't be in awe of the severe weather event itself. There are definitive and well-known reasons why hail reaches softball size or a tornado strikes one neighborhood but misses the other or why wind gusts reach 70 mph. This isn't voodoo, this is meteorology. The science is getting better and better each day in timing of significant weather and its location down to city landmarks and even street level.
Let's stop dismissing the science and making it a scapegoat. The gust front was not random. This was a severe weather event which was well predicted but still led to the deaths of 5 people who were hoping to see a Sugarland concert.

Carl Lewis Can’t Appear on New Jersey State Senate Ballot, Official Says

Former Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, running for a Burlington County state Senate seat, was pushed off the November ballot Tuesday when the state's top elections official refused to certify his candidacy.
A federal judge will hold a hearing on the matter Friday afternoon and could reverse the decision by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who acted in her capacity as secretary of state.


Lewis, 50, a Medford Democrat, has been embroiled in a months-long legal fight over whether he meets the state's residency requirement to run in the Eighth Legislative District.


The track-and-field star grew up in Willingboro but in recent years lived in California, where he voted as recently as 2009. Though he owns property in Burlington County and coaches track at his alma mater, Willingboro High School, he did not register to vote in New Jersey until April 11, the day he launched his campaign.


Guadagno, a Republican, tried to bump Lewis from the primary ballot in April on the ground that he had not lived in New Jersey officially for the required four years.


A federal appeals court overruled Guadagno in May and ordered that Lewis' name remain on the ballot until a federal court judge could rule on the matter.


Both sides are waiting for U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman, who already has rejected part of Lewis' residency argument, to make a determination.


Absent a decision from a court to the contrary, Lewis wasn’t a resident of the state for the constitutionally required four years prior to the general election in November, Secretary of State Kimberly Guadagno said yesterday in a letter to three county clerks in the state’s eighth legislative district.
“I am statutorily required to make and certify a statement of all candidates for whom voters ‘may be by law entitled to vote’ in November,” Guadagno said in the letter obtained by Bloomberg News. “In view of my statutory obligations, I cannot certify the name of Frederick Carlton ‘Carl’ Lewis.”
A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19, William Tambussi, an attorney for Lewis, said today in an e-mail.
Lewis, a 49-year-old Democrat, persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to stay an April 26 ruling by Guadagno that found him ineligible to run for office because of residency requirements. The ruling temporarily allowed Lewis’s name on the ballot for the June 7 primary election until a district court judge could decide the constitutionality of the state’s residency provision as it was applied to the former athlete.


This eleventh hour, unilateral political tactic is further evidence of the Secretary of State’s utter disregard of the facts,” Tambussi said in an e-mail. “Mr. Lewis’ position from the outset has been and remains that the election should be in the hands of the voters and not a political actor.”
Lewis, who grew up in New Jersey before moving to Texas and California, is fighting to represent a district that has traditionally elected Republicans. Incumbent Dawn Marie Addiego, a Republican, was appointed to fill the vacancy left by Phil Haines, who was tapped for a judgeship.
The nine-time Olympic gold medalist argued that he bought a home in New Jersey in 2005, which made him a state resident. He got a state driver’s license in 2006 and became a volunteer assistant track coach at Willingboro High School, his alma mater, in 2007. Guadagno, a Republican who is also the lieutenant governor, said the record showed Lewis didn’t buy his current home until Nov. 16, 2007, eight days after the cutoff.

Carl Lewis stops by the Tri-County Swim meet in Cherry Hill

USA TODAY's Chelsea Janes caught up with Lewis, 50, as he prepares for this weekend's Hershey's Track & Field Games in Hershey, Pa., where he is a spokesperson.


I'm so fortunate to have done what I love to do for so long, but the day I retired was one of the best days of my life. Not because I was happy to get away from the sport, but because it was clear in my mind that I had done all I possibly could, and that it was time to go.
What are you up to nowadays?
Well, first of all, I started my own foundation — the Carl Lewis Foundation — which works with kids with disabilities. I'm a U.N. (United Nations) ambassador, and I'm also now running for state senate of New Jersey.
And then a relationship with Hershey's and the Hershey's Games. And those games are so real, it's so emotional. These kids get here, maybe their first time on a plane, and they go to chocolate world, so they become friends. They go out, they want kill each other. Some cry losing, some win, but they're all friends right after. It's just so real. And stuff like that is what made me want to find other ways to keep helping out.


Once every 36 years, a local swim club hosts the Annual Burt German Tri-County Swimming Championships, the largest gathering of South Jersey athletes in one location each year. On Aug. 6 and 7, Cherry Hill’s Wexford Leas Swim Club proudly hosted the event. More than 4,000 swimmers from three counties participated.


Swimmers and their families thrilled at the appearance of Olympic Gold Medalist and champion Carl Lewis. Lewis told the children that he was once where they are now. He gave an inspirational speech that encouraged the children to always do their best.

President quiet on job plan details

Davenport, Iowa— After pledging to send a job-creation package to Congress next month and daring Republicans to block it, President Obama offered few specifics Tuesday about the form the plan might take as he stuck to a broad outline of how to improve the economy.


On the second day of Obama's three-day bus tour of the upper Midwest, the president worked off the blueprint he had used the day before, offering proposals such as extending a payroll tax cut, spending money to repair roads and bridges, and ratifying pending trade agreements.


And he continued to hammer away at Republicans in Congress, suggesting they stand in the way of economic growth, even as some Democrats expressed discomfort with what they saw as a potentially divisive stance.


"We could do even more if Congress is willing to get in the game," Obama said to a gathering of small-business owners, community leaders and rural development experts at a small college in Peosta, Iowa.


"There are bipartisan ideas — common-sense ideas — that have traditionally been supported by Democrats and Republicans that will put more money in your pockets, that will put our people to work, that will allow us to deal with the legacy of debt that hangs over our economy," he said.


Republicans pushed back by escalating their criticism of Obama's trip, calling it nothing more than a glorified campaign swing at taxpayer expense.


"This week taxpayers made a donation to the Obama reelection campaign. No matter what the president says, his Midwest bus tour is nothing but a campaign trip," said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee. "He's talking about campaigning against Congress and doling out talking points, not policy plans.


But the question remains whether there will be more to the president's plan than he has detailed in public -- and whether he will throw down a gauntlet by formally submitting it to Congress, a tactic the White House has resisted in the past.


In a statement Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Republicans were waiting to act on pending trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea -- but complained the White House hasn't sent them to Capitol Hill.


"At a time when millions of Americans are out of work and businesses are looking for opportunities to hire, we must do everything we can to create an environment where jobs can come back," McConnell said.


Obama will resume town halls today in two small towns in Illinois.

Obama tries to connect with Iowa voters

Davenport, Iowa — President Barack Obama is venturing from Iowa into politically familiar territory, taking his bus motorcade into his home state of Illinois as he wraps up a three-state tour through the cornfields, towns and cities of the Midwest.


The president will hold two town hall meetings Wednesday in western Illinois, the state he once served as senator. He'll then return to Washington for the start of a vacation.


The tour — covering Minnesota and Iowa as well as Illinois — has given Obama a chance to command attention just after Republican presidential candidates dominated the news with a debate and straw poll in Iowa.


Obama made an unscheduled stop in Guttenberg to have breakfast with small-business owners at Rausch’s Cafe. He greeted patrons, who were clearly surprised to see him.


One of them, Jim Pape, a retired plant manager, said he didn’t think much of Washington.


“They ought to plow it under and plant corn,” he said, capturing a sense of the frustration Obama is picking up out on the road.


Obama slammed the Republican presidential field, recalling a moment in last week’s GOP presidential debate when all eight of the candidates said they would refuse to support a budget deal with tax increases, even if tax revenues were outweighed 10-to-1 by spending cuts.