With JP Morgan’s 2 billion dollar loss and executive Ina Drew stepping down in the past few days or so, the company is in turmoil. Due to these recent events, the general public and those inside/affiliated with JP Morgan Chase have panicked as the stock value has plummeted over 13 % during the time after the reported loss. The question that must be asked by any serious investor is “when is the right time to buy?” This strategy of buying company stock after a high profile error isn’t a new one, but it has proven to be successful as recently as the BP oil spill, when, some time after a large value loss, the stock began to immensely recover. It is important to keep an eye out for any information about the predicted JP Morgan Chase stock activity in the next week, as making a decision to purchase at the right time (ideally its lowest point, directly before an upswing) could produce hefty rewards. What do you think?

Sales in the period ending in July will be $724 million to $728 million, the San Francisco-based company in a statement. That compares with an average $712.9 million analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg. Profit excluding some items will be 38 cents to 39 cents a share, while analysts projected 38 cents.

Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff is selling more expensive software licenses that let customers use the company’s entire suite of products, lifting deal sizes. Salesforce is also adding to its software for tracking sales leads and quotas with programs that manage human resources and let companies run marketing campaigns on Facebook Inc. and other sites.

“More mega-deals are being lined up for later in the fiscal year and the quantity and size could surprise people,” said Mark Murphy, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in San Francisco, said in May 13 research note. Murphy has an overweight rating on the shares.

Shares rose in extended trading after losing 2 percent to close at $133.80 in New York. The stock has gained 32 percent this year.

First-quarter sales rose 38 percent to $695.5 million, beating the average $678 million estimate. Salesforce reported a net loss of $19.5 million, or 14 cents a share, compared with net income of $530,000 million, or breaking even on a per-share basis, a year earlier. Profit excluding some items was 37 cents, compared with a 34-cent estimate.

READ FULL STORY HERE

Spotify, the social music service, is in the process of raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal that would value the company at as much as $4 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

Goldman Sachs is set to participate in the financing round, accounting for about $100 million. The company, which is still in discussion with several firms and may not close the round for many weeks, could ultimately raise about $220 million, two people said.

READ FULL STORY HERE

The funding is led by Japanese e-commerce site Rakuten Inc., with Pinterest’s existing venture-capital investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners also participating. Pinterest was last valued at $200 million in a funding round late last year.

READ FULL STORY HERE

The company said it’s building two solar array installations in the area, which when combined will bring in 84 million kilowatt-hours of power annually. Apple is also at work on its bio-gas fuel cell installation, set to be completed later this year.

All told, Apple says it will produce 60 percent of the power it requires to run the data center on site, procuring the other 40 percent from “local and regional sources” that are renewable.

Facilities like the one in Maiden power Apple’s growing cloud services effort. Last June the company introduced iCloud, its storage and sync service, which relies on the data centers to store user data and information. The data centers also play a role in powering Siri, the voice assistant feature for the iPhone 4S.

Apple posted information about its plans in a new section of its environmental Web site today. In an interview with Reuters, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer noted that the two solar farms would be twice as large as the company had originally let on. A proposal thatsurfaced earlier today noted that the farm across the street from the data center was given regulatory approval by the North Carolina Utilities Commission.

READ FULLS TORY HERE

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Bloomberg News says HP is mulling 25,000 job cuts. All Things D, a technology blog, estimates the purge will jettison 30,000 jobs. Both reports cited unnamed people familiar with HP’s plans.

Hewlett-Packard Co. declined to comment Thursday.

The Palo Alto, California, company ended its last fiscal year with nearly 350,000 employees. Based on that, HP is considering a 7 to 9 percent decrease in its workforce.

Analysts estimate a payroll reduction of that size would save HP more than $1 billion annually.

READ FULLS TORY HERE

As part of the test, customers in some markets who reach a monthly limit of 300 gigabytes of data can purchase additional capacity, for example 50 gigabytes for $10, Philadelphia-based Comcast said today in a blog posting.

Comcast, also the biggest U.S. cable carrier, is following competitors such as Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) in trying different ways to charge for Internet access as consumers increasingly watch online video, limiting demand for traditional pay-TV services. Comcast reported its 20th consecutive quarterly decline in television subscribers this month.

“Times have changed,” David Cohen, a Comcast executive vice president, said on a conference call. “We want to send a message to even the most intensive high-bandwidth customers that they are welcome.”

Comcast is eliminating its current 250 gigabyte cap to allow all customers to freely use as much broadband as they’d like if they pay for it, Cohen said. The vast majority of Comcast’s customers don’t use “anywhere near” 300 gigabytes, Executive Vice President Cathy Avgiris said. The median Comcast customer uses 8 gigabytes to 10 gigabytes, she said.

READ FULL STORY HERE

Predictions of how much the stock will rise on its first day of trade vary greatly — some experts said the high IPO price and increased float could limit gains to 10 percent to 20 percent, while others said anything short of a 50 percent jump would be disappointing given the hype.

“I think anything over 50 percent will be considered a successful offering — anything under that would be underwhelming,” said Jim Krapfel, analyst at Morningstar. “A lot of retail investors are not concerned about valuation. That’s what is going to drive the first day pop.”

Facebook is selling a 15 percent stake priced at $38 a share, giving the world’s largest online social network a valuation of $104 billion.

That puts the eight-year-old company, founded in a Harvard dorm room by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, a valuation akin to that of Amazon.com Inc and exceeding that of Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc combined.

In an event that many say is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a business story, Facebook will make its Wall Street debut at around 11 a.m. on Friday on the Nasdaq.

READ FULL STORY HERE

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Story Excerpt:

(Today)  Baby names. When did it all get so cutthroat and complicated?  In the good old days, you just sat down with a piece of paper, and possibly a baby book, and made a list of choices. Nobody worried about a friend stealing their baby name or how to lay claim to it on the Internet.

Welcome to 2012, where naming baby in the digital age isn’t quite so cut and dry. These days, a savvy parent gets online as soon as they’ve narrowed down their options. The first step: Do a simple Google search to make sure you aren’t setting your unborn child up for a lifetime of confusion — with a porn star or a criminal.

After all, we all know our kid is going to have plenty of people doing the exact same thing — searching for him or her online, for the rest of their lives — and no one wants to make their kid’s teenage years any more awkward than they need to be. Or worse, potentially hurt their chances of getting a job one day because their name brings up a list of felonies.

Kate Flewelling, an attorney in Chicago, turned to Google to help her and her husband pick the right spelling for their son’s name. They wanted to know exactly what they were signing on for before they filled out that birth certificate.

And then, there’s Jay Z and Beyonce, who took the whole laying claim to a baby name to the next level. They made headlines last winter when they filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect their daughter’s name — Blue Ivy Carter .

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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Story Excerpt:

(Today)  John King had dreamed about the beer he’d homebrew for his wedding since the night he proposed.

“I dropped to my knee under a streetlamp in the snow — my wife reminds me we were right next to a dumpster as well — when I popped the question,” he recalled. “We then grabbed a drink, made some phone calls, and started talking about wedding plans and discussed how making beer for the occasion would be pretty cool.”

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something … brewed? That’s the motto for a growing number of grooms, and even a few brides. Homebrewing is becoming a big deal — theHomebrewers Association estimates there’s more than one million homebrewers and over 1,000 homebrew clubs in America. And if you search the homebrewing forums on Reddit or Homebrew Talk, you’ll find plenty of threads asking for advice about what to brew for a wedding.

If I was a huge beer geek back when I got married in ’98 (I wasn’t) and I could homebrew to save my life (I can’t), I too would have brewed my own beer for my wedding. My future wife would be fussing over her dress, and I’d be fussing over beer styles. She’d be making up the guest list, and I’d be sorting out the grain bills. She’d be picking out flowers while I was out picking hops. By the time we said our vows, the energy I’d expended on beer would probably match what my bride spent arranging the rest of the wedding.

King, who writes for LouisvilleBeer.com, would set aside a portion of every batch he brewed that year, stocking up for the big day. In the end, he amassed enough beer for the rehearsal dinner, for sipping on the Louisville trolley and for the wedding party at the reception. His homebrew was supplemented by local offerings from New Albanian Brewing Company and the Bluegrass Brewing Company, making for a pretty tasty affair.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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(Fox News) Legendary disco singer Donna Summer died Thursday after a battle with cancer, sources close to the singer confirmed to FoxNews.com.

Summer, 63, was a 5-time Grammy winner whose hits dominated the charts in the 1970s. Her songs like “Last Dance,” “Bad Girls” and “Hot Stuff” were among the decade’s most successful.

She continued topping charts into the 1980s, with hits like “She Works Hard for the Money” and“This Time I Know It’s for Real.”

She is survived by her husband, singer and producer Bruce Sudano, their daughters, Brooklyn and Amanda and Summer’s daughter, Mimi, from a previous marriage.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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This column is dedicated to offering you insight to artists on the rise. I feature musicians that have the potential to make it big. You get to listen and determine their fate.

MS MR

It’s been quite some time since I’ve come across such an anonymous band. I can honestly say that I do not know one thing about this band, all I know is their sound, and to that, I’ve fallen in love. Their music is the type of sound that somehow, through the complete mystery of music, gives you a type of courage you didn’t think possible. Listening to their music makes me want to do some things I’m too scared to do. Their first EP Ghost City USA, which was released last year around this time, is one of the most beautifully brooding EP’s I’ve been introduced to. “Bones” is an incredibly dark but upbeat track that somewhat resembles something Florence Welch or Karen Elson would produce. The female vocals are absolutely gorgeous, and I think if I had to listen to one singer for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t mind listening to her voice. Their execution of sound is inarticulately emotive.  Their newest release, “Hurricane” is the song that grabbed my attention and turned me on to my favorite find of this season. They’ve managed to keep pretty low key, with just a couple blurbs written about them on some blogs, all usually pointing an arrow directly to their mp3’s; for their music is what speaks volumes.

And in even BETTER news, they’re going on tour! Their first show is in Brooklyn on June 1st (I’ll be there), and then they are all over the country all summer long. “Hurricane” is for sure just an introduction to what is going to be an absolutely unbelievable second EP. Definitely take advantage of seeing them live, I’m sure their presence on stage is just as tasty as their music.

Sailor & I

Well it seems that Sweden seems to be a breeding ground for musical talent, for they have done it again. Let me introduce to you Sailor & I, an electronic, synthetic, classical masterpiece of a band hailing from none other than Stockholm, Sweden. I first came across a remix to their song “Tough Love” by Aril Brikha, and I knew that in order to make a remix like that, the original had to be pretty decent. And I was right. As soon as I listened I fell completely in love. “Tough Love” is a beautifully delicate song dedicated to the hardships of falling in love. It may sound a bit sappy, but about one second into the song when you hear the classical string instruments mixed in with some lower bass I guarantee this song will take you to that far away place in your head where only music can take you. Then all of a sudden those beautiful instruments mix together with some darker drums and the amalgamation of instruments becomes all too perfect. The brilliance of this song lies right in the music. They are telling a story of love; the difficulties, the happiness, but they hardly need words to portray the emotions, the instrumentals do it for you. The whimsicalness of the violin depicts the softer side of love, and allow you to experience a very calming feeling. Then the hefty drums that tag in pull your emotions down to a harsh realization that life isn’t all that easy. Any song that is able to tell a story just through the instruments is for sure a work of art.

“Tough Love” is the third release from Sailor & I with collaborative efforts alongside producer and guitarist Alexander Sjödin. Their first release “John Franklin” tells a story of travel and exploration, along with really grabbed the attention of many ears all over the world. The “Tough Love” EP was supposed to be released this Spring already, but due to some greedy ears, the track was leaked and they’ve decided to push the release date back just a bit while they finish up some interviews globe wide. I cannot wait for the release of this album, I think it should be the perfect sailing summer day playlist.

Story Excerpt:

(MSNBC)  Canada‘s federal science museum has removed an animated video showing youth masturbating from an upcoming sex exhibit following a public outcry, a museum spokesman said.

The Canada Science and Technology Museum will open the “Sex: A Tell-all Exhibition” on Thursday as planned despite strong criticism from Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore, who has called it an insult to taxpayers.

But the facility has decided to remove the video and raise to 16 from 12 years the minimum age for unaccompanied children to tour the exhibit designed to answer questions youth have about sexuality.

“The museum has received a higher than expected amount of expressions of concerns from the public,” spokesman Yves St-Onge said.

“We take the feedback of our community seriously, and so we have carefully considered their suggestions, and taken appropriate action that we believe will best serve our audiences.”

The show includes life-sized, full-frontal nude photos of males and females at various stages of life, and Canada’s Sun newspapers have described a “climax room” showing animations of aroused genitals with a voice of a man describing an orgasm.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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“It works like the solar panels on your roof, converting light into electric current,” Dr. Daniel Palanker, associate professor of ophthalmology, told GizMag. “But instead of the current flowing to your refrigerator, it flows into your retina.”

While early models of implants relied on a bulky external power source, the system spearheaded by James Loudin and his colleagues at Stanford University simplifies the process by transmitting visual data to the implants directly. Their findings werepublished Monday in the journal Nature Photonics.

Grist‘s Sarah Laskow reports:

Right now, retinal implants can restore some degree of sight to blind people. But the implants need to be wired to an outside power source in order to keep charged. Plus, they’re big and unwieldy. New solar-powered implants could be much smaller and get power from light, eliminating the need for wires. These implants could also produce images with higher resolution than current implant technology can manage.

In an interview with Nature‘s Leigh Phillips, Loudin compared the implants to “Star Trek: The Next Generation” character Geordi LaForge‘s visor. “I’m not well versed in ‘Star Trek’ any more, and I don’t think Geordi had implants,” he said. “However, like his visor, our patients cannot see without the goggles.”

READ MORE

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Fire incident spokeswoman Michelle Fidler says gusts of up to 40 mph are expected Thursday in the Prescott National Forest, near Crown King.

She says the wind could push the fire, which is only 5 percent contained, northward but crews will use the opportunity to slow the blaze from the west, where communication towers are threatened.

The fire has destroyed two homes and a trailer, and prompted an evacuation order Sunday. Crown King is a community of mostly summer homes about 85 miles north of Phoenix.

The blaze started at a home, but investigators have yet to determine the cause.

SEE VIDEO HERE

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Children’s health advocates applauded the decision, but also expressed concern that recent congressional budget cuts will drastically limit funds that could help affected kids and prevent further poisoning.

“It’s a sad irony,” said Ruth Ann Norton, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning.

In January, a CDC advisory panel recommended that the threshold at which a child is deemed to have lead poisoning should be cut in half, from 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood to 5. By accepting the panel’s recommendation, the CDC now effectively increases the number of children under age 6 with elevated blood lead levels from approximately 77,000 to 442,000.

Rather than a doctor telling parents that their child’s blood lead test “came back negative” when, say, the result is 7 micrograms, now those parents will be armed with information that might help them monitor and reduce further exposures.

Among Norton’s recommendations: removing old leaded windows, repairing paint that is chipping or peeling, using a HEPA vacuum and keeping kids’ hands washed.

“We are dealing much more frankly with parents about the threats that lead poses to their children,” she said. “For generations we’ve allowed families to think their children were safe, while in fact they were being impaired by lead.”

READ MORE

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By RUSSELL IRVING

www.DontOverlookTheObvious.com

As I wrote this piece, I knew that I would have to prepare myself for the fact that some of you will be offended by my remarks.

Still, I felt the need to continue as planned.

I heard a woman complain that her spouse was cheating on her. That he left her. With multiple children. And just as my sympathy for her was mounting, she mentioned that she had left her husband for this man who has betrayed her so.

Then, my sympathy, as a balloon that was popped by a pin, began a rapid rate of deflation and disappeared.

Why, you ask? Simply because she had added a whole new dimension to the topic. She obviously had an affair with the current husband while she was married to her previous one. She had, therefore, betrayed her own vows.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I was undoubtedly missing many of the finer points of this woman’s situation.

Yet, I cannot help but wonder why men, as well as women, are so surprised and feel so justified in their anger, at such a betrayal, when they themselves had an affair.

Someone who is willing to cheat on their wife or husband  is much more likely to do the same thing, when the opportunity arises, than someone who has always been faithful to their partner.

Am I excusing such behavior? Absolutely not!

But, folks need to think about these obvious matters before their wedding.

Do I have any constructive advice to give such a woman (or man), now that their spouse has left their home?

Yes.

Forget laying guilt trips or anger on them. That’s not going to work, or work for long.

Act like a husband or wife who cherishes and desires their partner. Apologize for your role in the split. (Everyone bears some responsibility.) Be romantic. Be someone whom you would not want to leave for another.

So, toss aside your sense of ‘surprise’ and ‘anger’. If you want them back, pretend that you were simply dating them and were in competition with another person. Do what you would do to win their hearts.

Then, if it is repairable, it will work. If not, then learn from the experience and move on.

‘Nuff said.

Russell Irving is a media-acclaimed, expert on Single Life, Marriage, and more. – His book, Improve Your Marriage – Don’t Overlook The Obvious applies to couples in a ‘long term relationship‘ and is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, as well as the book’s companion site, www.DontOverlookTheObvious.com . Check out his YouTube channel, ImprovingMarriages. His Facebook page is Russell Irving. And, Twitter name is RussIrving.

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(CNN)   A New York medical examiner will begin an autopsy Thursday on Mary Kennedy, the estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was found dead at her Westchester County home. She was 52. Her death is the latest for a family that has seen its share of tragedy.

“We know from a history of this family, it’s very hard being a Kennedy, either being a blood Kennedy or being married to one,” Laurence Leamer, a Kennedy biographer, said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.” “The overwhelming celebrity, the attention, the obligations, the expectations that you’re supposed to do something with your life. It’s very, very hard.”

Few details of Mary Kennedy’s death were immediately available. The Bedford Police Department confirmed Wednesday that they were investigating a possible unattended death at an address owned by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Authorities found a deceased individual inside “an out building” on the property, police said in a statement.

“It is with deep sadness that the family of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. mourns the loss of Mary Richardson Kennedy, wife and mother of their four beloved children. Mary inspired our family with her kindness, her love, her gentle soul and generous spirit,” a statement by the husband’s family said.

“We deeply regret the death of our beloved sister Mary, whose radiant and creative spirit will be sorely missed by those who loved her. Our heart goes out to her children who she loved without reservation,” her family said in a statement.

The couple married in a civil ceremony in 1994 when Mary Richardson, a designer, was six months pregnant, according to the Westchester County Journal News. One month prior to the wedding, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. divorced his first wife, Emily Black, the mother of his two oldest children, the newspaper reported.

He filed for divorce from Mary Kennedy two years ago, but the couple was still married at the time of her death, her family attorney, Kerry A. Lawrence, said.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Lana’s friend, Kayla Moon, was with her in Atlanta when she gave birth. “She had about a 30 hour labor. She had the babies naturally like she wanted to. Abigail and Ian, a boy and a girl,” said Moon.

A few days later, Lana was released and went home to South Carolina. The next morning she noticed an unusual spot on her leg.

“It kind of look like a bruise with a red outline,” said Moon.

Friends said that when we first noticed the spot, it was about the size of her palm. Six hours later, after checking into Greenville Memorial Hospital, it was the size of a sheet of paper. Doctors determined she had flesh-eating bacteria. They performed four surgeries in six days.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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(Los Angeles Times) If all film festivals are balancing acts, it stands to reason that the annual extravaganza at Cannes, likely the world’s most celebrated cinematic event, has more to balance than most. Especially this year.

Opening Wednesday night with Wes Anderson’s oddly endearing “Moonrise Kingdom,” Cannes is celebrating its 65th anniversary this year and marking that milestone by embracing all kinds of opposites: old and young, dramatic and documentary, commercial and politically committed, avant-garde and classic, even American and not.

The U.S. presence seems especially strong, starting with the official poster, an Otto Bettmann photo of a luminous Marilyn Monroe blowing out a birthday cake candle. An 80- by 40-foot version looms impossibly large on an outside wall of the Palais des Festivals, while the building’s inside walls feature photos of other Hollywood luminaries, including Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, Clark Gable and Judy Garland, even Marlene Dietrich and Ernst Lubitsch, having a go at birthday cakes of their own.

On one level, American films are thick in the main competition, with a roster that includes new movies by Lee Daniels, who is following his Oscar-winning drama “Precious” with “The Paperboy,” and Jeff Nichols, whose “Mud” comes after the acclaimed apocalyptic meditation “Take Shelter.”

But some of the most eagerly anticipated American films — Walter Salles’ take on Jack Kerouac’s legendary “On the Road,” Andrew Dominik’s Brad Pitt-starring “Killing Them Softly” (based on George V. Higgins’ “Cogan’s Trade”) and John Hillcoat’s Prohibition era “Lawless” — were all directed by filmmakers who hail from other countries.

Speaking of elsewhere, new films are also on offer from such stalwarts as France’s Jacques Audiard (“Rust & Bone”), Italy’s Matteo Garrone (“Reality,” following up on “Gomorrah”), Britain’s Ken Loach (“The Angels’ Share”) and Austria’s Michael Haneke (the Isabelle Huppert-starring “Amour”).

The honor of being the oldest director in the competition goes to 89-year-old Alain Resnais, here with the puckishly titled “You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet.” Considerably younger, with films in the Un Certain Regard section, are debuting Americans Adam Leon, whose “Gimme the Loot” took the grand jury prize at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and Benh Zeitlin, whose “Beasts of the Southern Wild” did the same at Sundance in January.

Straddling the young-old divide in a personal way are Canadian director David Cronenberg, in competition with the Robert Pattinson-starring “Cosmopolis” from the Don DeLillo novel, and his son Brandon, in Un Certain Regard with the thriller “Antiviral.”

Though the world’s artier directors are always to be found at the festival, Cannes is also determined to embroil itself in the commercial side of things, which it does by scheduling the animated adventure “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” in an out-of-competition slot.

Then there are the numerous billboards for features that dot the city’s streets and the fronts of hotels. Most noticeable this year is the way names that were considered edgy once upon a time have now become commercial enough to merit major-league spending.

Billboards could be seen not only for Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” but also for Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers.” And who should look right at home in the prime real estate of the entrance to the Carlton Hotel but Sacha Baron Cohen in full Admiral General Aladeen regalia for his satirical comedy “The Dictator.” Thus pass the bad boys of the world.

Perhaps even more startling, however, is the recent announcement from Canada’s Alliance Films that it would charge Canadian journalists for interview access to the stars of some of the company’s films.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE