Ukan Nang Ati, 48, used to scrape a living growing opium in the isolated countryside behind the village of Kyauk Ka Chan in Myanmar
Shares of H&R Block tumbled 16% in premarket trading Thursday after the tax prep company announced significant staff cuts and office closings, and projected weaker-than-expected earnings.
The company also announced a series of changes in its top executive ranks in its after-hours statement Wednesday, including that it is looking for a new chief financial officer, and that the president of its retail tax services is leaving the company effective April 30.
Shares tumbled $2.74 to $14 ahead of the market open.
The company said it will cut about 350 full-time positions throughout its Kansas City headquarters and nationwide field organization, and close about 200 company-owned offices, which will result in a drop in seasonal temporary employment Payday Loan for Bad Credit.
The moves are expected to save the company of $85 million to $100 million a year. It will take a $30 million charge in the quarter associated with the staff reductions.
H&R Block () also expects full-year earnings of $1.09 to $1.15 a share, well below the forecasted earnings of $1.39 a share.
Senate Republicans are trying an unusual tactic to nullify new labor regulations that would speed up the time frame for unions to hold workplace elections.
The Senate will vote Tuesday on a rarely invoked measure, known as a resolution of disapproval, to overturn rules approved last year by the National Labor Relations Board.
Though the measure has little chance of passage _ it also faces a White House veto threat _ the vote forces Democrats in tough elections to take a stand on rules that have won praise from unions and sharp rebukes from business groups.
The rules simplify procedures and reduce legal delays that can hold up union elections after employees at a work site gather enough signatures to hold a unionization vote. They are set to take effect on April 30.
Unions call the changes a modest fix that would limit corporate stalling tactics, where litigation can delay elections while workers are can be subject to harassment, threats and even illegal firing.
During debate Monday, Republicans claimed the new rules would lead to “ambush” elections that barely leave company managers enough time to respond or counsel against forming a union.
“The NLRB has chosen to impose new rules to aid big labor at the expense of employees, small business employers and the jobs they would create,” said Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, called the vote “the latest chapter in an unprecedented Republican assault on unions.” Harkin, who chairs the Senate committee overseeing labor, said employers “have ample opportunity to express their views” on unions.
Business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have designated the vote a “key vote” _ used to score members of Congress each year on their records. The AFL-CIO has also aggressively lobbied lawmakers to vote against the measure.
McDonald’s ever-evolving mix of old menu standbys and new items like Chicken McBites lured in more diners who helped boost its first-quarter profit.
The world’s biggest hamburger chain said Friday that its net income rose 5 percent in the first quarter, in line with Wall Street expectations.
McDonald’s Corp. said global sales rose 7.3 percent at stores open at least 13 months, driven by gains from all regions. The metric is key because it excludes the impact of newly opened stores.
A big part of the McDonald’s success story in recent years has been the chain’s rollout of popular menu items such as coffee frappes and fruit smoothies, which have high profit margins and bring in customers throughout the day. Customers also love them because it’s a way to have a treat for a couple of bucks.
Other recent introductions by the fast-food chain include oatmeal and Chicken McBites, which the company said helped boost sales in the U.S. in the first quarter.
For the first three months of the year, McDonald’s reported a profit of $1.27 billion, or $1.23 per share. That compares with a profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.15 per share, in the year-ago period.
In the U.S., sales at restaurants open at least 13 months rose 8.9 percent, as new menu items like Chicken McBites, updated restaurants and warm weather drew customers. The results also benefitted from an extra day in the Leap Year.
McDonald’s said sales in Europe, its biggest market, rose 5 percent despite economic turmoil and severe weather in many parts of the region. Sales rose 5.5 percent in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region, where the company is focusing its expansion efforts in the coming years.
Although McDonald’s has consistently outperformed its peers in the fast-food industry, the company is facing the pressures of increasing costs for ingredients. The company’s is also seeing costs for labor and rent increase in some overseas markets.
The higher expenses are particularly problematic for a chain like McDonald’s, which risks driving away customers if those costs are passed on.
Still, the fast-food chain last year raised prices three times for a total price increase of 3 percent. The company has said it expects commodity costs to increase an additional 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent this year, which would be roughly in line with last year’s increases.
Because of its size, the way McDonald’s handles price increases can set the tone for the rest of the fast-food industry.
Shares of McDonald’s, based in Oak Brook, Ill., rose $1.72, or nearly 2 percent, to $95.28 in premarket trading.
Egypt’s election commission disqualified 10 presidential hopefuls, including Hosni Mubarak’s former spy chief and fundamentalist Islamists, from running Saturday in a surprise decision that left a field of moderates in the race for the country’s first post-revolutionary leader.
The elimination of the three most powerful and controversial candidates could go in two directions with just weeks to go before the vote, observers said. It could plunge the Arab world’s most populous nation into a new political crisis, or just the opposite, defuse it.
Farouk Sultan, the head of the Supreme Presidential Election Commission that was appointed by Egypt’s military rulers to oversee the vote, said that those barred from the contest included Mubarak-era strongman Omar Suleiman, Muslim Brotherhood chief strategist Khairat el-Shater and hard-line Islamist Hazem Abu Ismail. He did not give reasons.
Disqualified candidates have 48 hours to appeal the decision, according to election rules. The final list of candidates will be announced on April 26.
The announcement came as a shock to many Egyptians as three of the 10 excluded were considered among the front-runners in a highly polarized campaign that has left the nation divided behind two strong camps: Islamists and former regime insiders who are allegedly supported by the ruling generals.
Thirteen others had their candidacy approved, including former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, moderate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh and former prime minister and Mubarak-era minister Ahmed Shafiq, according to Sultan.
If upheld, the decision would reshape the electoral landscape by removing the most powerful and controversial candidates and leaving moderates such as Abolfotoh, an ex-Muslim Brotherhood leader who has been trying to project crossover appeal for both religious conservatives and liberals, and Moussa, who was a member of the old regime but is popular among middle class Egyptians and who is not so closely associated with it.
The presidential election is due on May 23-24, with a possible runoff on June 16-17. The winner will be announced on June 21, less than two weeks before the July 1 deadline promised by the military rulers who took over after Mubarak to hand over power.
Abu Ismail, a lawyer-turned-preacher whose eligibility had come under scrutiny in recent weeks over the question of whether his late mother had dual Egyptian-U.S. citizenship, accused the military rulers who assumed power after Mubarak’s ouster of trying to manipulate the race from behind the scenes and warned his followers would not stay silent.
“You will drown, God willing, because you are in showdown with the people, because you are playing with fire,” he said in an interview with the Islamist TV network Al-Hakma.
Abu Ismail has led the most aggressive campaign so far. On the eve of the announcement, hundreds of his supporters surrounded the election commission’s headquarters in Cairo, forcing Sultan and his employees to evacuate under the military protection.
A new election law passed after Mubarak’s ouster bars an individual from running if the candidate, the candidate’s spouse or parents hold any citizenship other than Egyptian, and the commission had ordered the Interior Ministry to provide evidence showing whether Abu Ismail’s mother was officially documented in Egypt as having dual U.S. -Egyptian citizenship.
A spokesman for el-Shater’s campaign, Murad Mohammed Ali, also called the decision “very dangerous” and said it gives a message that “there was no revolution in Egypt no checking account payday advance.”
The Muslim Brotherhood fielded the head of its political arm Mohammed Morsi as a back-up candidate last week, fearing that el-Shater would be disqualified on the grounds that his records were not entirely cleared after serving time in prison in connection with his banned political activity under Mubarak. His lawyers say the ruling generals had dropped the charges. Morsi was not disqualified.
Despite the fiery rhetoric and promises from those disqualified to appeal, some Egyptians welcomed the news.
“This is much better,” said Ahmed Khalil, a spokesman of the liberal Free Egyptians party, which was not fielding a candidate. “These three candidates were holding extremist ideologies or holding an intelligence agenda.”
The announcement was the latest twist in an already convulated political scene as the nation struggles to redefine itself and navigate a difficult transition to civilian rule.
In the last two weeks, a court suspended the work of an Islamist-dominated, 100-member panel tasked with drafting a new constitution on the grounds its makeup violated the spirit of the interim charter that governed its formation.
Islamists as well as the largely liberal and secular activists who spearheaded the protests that led to Mubarak’s ouster had hoped to have a new constitution in place before the election in order to curtail the powers of the president after nearly three decades of autocratic rule.
The Muslim Brotherhood _ which along with hard-line ultraconservative Salafis captured more than 70 percent of the parliament seats in the first post-revolutionary elections _ announced on March 31 that el-Shater would run for president.
That reversed an earlier pledge not to seek the office and came after weeks of complaints by the Brotherhood that the parliament they control is toothless and that the ruling military was preventing it from forming a government.
In what was seen as a countermove backed by the generals, Suleiman made an unexpected announcement a week later that he was entering the race for the presidential elections. Suleiman said he had decided to run to block Islamist rule and provide stability after more than a year of turmoil.
A judge close to the commission, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to disclose the information, said that Suleiman has not presented the proper number of endorsements. Each candidate needed at least 30,000 endorsements, including at least 1,000 from each of the country’s 15 provinces, to join the race.
His campaign spokesman Mohammed Mishal promised to present extra endorsements that have not been used, giving him a gateway to re-enter the race.
Another campaign spokeswoman Reem Mamdouh said in an interview with the local CBC television network that they had not been officially notified about the decisions but would definite appeal.
“Suleiman will never withdraw and let down the hopes of the large constituency of Egyptians who supported him. This is not happening,” she said.
Ayman Nour, a liberal presidential hopeful, said the commission told him he was disqualified because of his imprisonment as a dissident under Mubarak’s regime and because his name was not listed among registered voters.
He also promised to appeal, saying the decision was “politicized as the whole race is deeply politicized.”
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi comments on inflation, monetary policy and the region
Searchers on Thursday found three more bodies in the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship that capsized off the Italian coast, an official said, raising the number discovered to 28 and leaving four still missing.
Civil Protection agency chief Franco Gabrielli did not give details on the sex or ages of the victims, and it was not immediately clear where the bodies were spotted. The remaining missing are presumed dead.
The ship hit a rocky reef, took on water and turned over just outside the port of the tiny island of Giglio off Tuscany on Jan. 13. Divers and searchers have been combing the half-submerged ship, from passenger cabins to elevators to the decks where many of the 4,200 passengers and crew gathered during the delayed and frantic evacuation.
Even before the latest bodies were found, eight discovered in recent weeks were awaiting official identification. Weeks in the water badly decomposed the remains, and forensic authorities have used DNA sampling to try to identify them.
Among those listed missing or unidentified are a crew member from India and several passengers, including an elderly U.S. couple and others from Italy and Germany.
The Concordia capsized in a protected sea sanctuary, and salvage teams have been removing fuel since Feb. 12 in hopes of sparing the pristine waters from pollution. Costa Crociere SpA., the Italian cruise company, and Italian officials said fuel removal was expected to be completed by Friday evening.
Occasional bad weather and choppy seas have at times forced suspension of both the search for bodies and the fuel removal.
The operation to remove the wrecked Concordia itself could take as long as 12 months. Bids for the job are being evaluated.
The Concordia’s Italian captain is under house arrest near Naples. Capt. Francesco Schettino is under investigation for alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship during the evacuation. Schettino has denied wrongdoing and claimed that the reef wasn’t marked on charts.
Investigators are probing allegations that Schettino deliberately came too close to the island as part of a publicity stunt for the cruise line. Costa Crociere officials have distanced themselves from Schettino.
Stock futures headed lower Monday as last week’s rally, bolstered by healthy job data, appeared to lose some steam.
Even the Nasdaq futures, which had been trading higher Monday, dipped after Apple Inc. announced a dividend and $10 billion share buyback program.
In premarket trading Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 21 points to 13,142 and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures fell 2.50 points to 1,396. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 2.75 points to 2,706.25.
European markets were lower in midday trading there after Asian markets finished narrowly mixed.
Apple said Monday it would pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share and that its board had authorized a three-year share buyback program that will begin later this year.
Apple is sitting on $97.6 billion in cash and securities. For years, it has resisted calls to reward shareholders with some of that money. Since the death of CEO Steve Jobs, management had signaled that it’s been considering options for the money.
Shares broke $600 in early premarket trading, but gave up some ground after the announcement. Shares rose $3.94 to $589.51 30 minutes ahead of the opening guaranteed cash advance.
There is also some macroeconomic data that investors will be watching Monday. The National Association of Home Builders is scheduled to release its March housing market index, which measures homebuilder confidence.
In February, the index rose to 29, the highest level since May 2007. The index has been rising since September as builders are more hopeful about the potential for sales this year. Still, readings below 50 indicate negative sentiment about the new-home market. The index hasn’t hit that level since 2006, during the housing boom.
In Europe, the CAC-40 in France fell 0.7 percent to 3,568, while Germany’s DAX was down the same rate to 7,109. The FTSE index of leading British shares pulled back 0.4 percent to 5,940.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1 percent to 21,115.29. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia fell.
Other Asian indexes finished slightly up. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 closed 0.1 percent higher at 10,141.99.
Wells Fargo Advisors is moving jobs from Minneapolis to St. Louis, though the brokerage arm of Wells Fargo won’t say how many positions would shift to the region.
Wells Fargo Advisors announced to employees in Minneapolis this week that it is closing an office within its Business Services Group there and transitioning those jobs to St. Louis. Employees in Minneapolis can apply for the St. Louis positions.
Raschelle Burton, a Wells Fargo Advisors spokeswoman, confirmed the jobs are moving from Minneapolis but declined to specify how many.
“This is part of a broad and ongoing effort to maximize efficiency,” Burton said.
Wells Fargo Advisors, a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., is based in downtown St. Louis. The company employs more than 5,000 locally and provides financial services including brokerage, estate planning, and asset management.
In August, Wells Fargo Advisors CEO Danny Ludeman said 200 jobs would be added to the St. Louis headquarters campus within 18 months to improve efficiency following a series of acquisitions. Wachovia acquired St. Louis-based A.G. Edwards in 2007, followed by Wells Fargo’s acquisition of Wachovia in 2008.
Ludeman identified Minneapolis in August as a possible site for jobs that could move to St. Louis, in addition to trader jobs and IT and technical jobs from San Francisco, Seattle and New York.
Fireballs lit up the night sky in Greece’s capital as buildings were set ablaze late Sunday amid widespread rioting and looting before a historic parliamentary vote expected to approve harsh austerity measures demanded to keep the country from going bankrupt and within the eurozone.
At least 10 buildings, including a closed cinema, a bank, a mobile phone dealership, a glassware store and a cafeteria, were on fire. There were no immediate reports of people trapped inside. Dozens of shops were also looted in the worst riot damage the country has seen since unrest in December 2008 following the fatal police shooting of a teenager.
Dozens of police officers and at least 37 protesters were injured in Sunday’s violence, and more than 20 suspected rioters were detained. Clashes erupted after more than 100,000 protesters marched to parliament to rally against drastic austerity cuts that will ax one in five civil service jobs and slash the minimum wage by more than a fifth.
“I’ve had it! I can’t take it any more. There’s no point in living in this country any more,” said a man walking through his smashed and looted optician store.
A protester who declined to give his name said: “I don’t care if an ornament shop is burning, but it’s a shame the building is old. We will win.”
Since May 2010, Greece has survived on a euro110 billion ($145 billion) bailout from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund. When that proved insufficient, a new rescue loan package worth a further euro130 billion ($171 billion) was decided _ combined with a massive bond swap deal that will write off half the country’s privately held debt.
But for both deals to materialize, Greece has to persuade its deeply skeptical creditors that it has the will and ability to implement spending cuts and public sector reforms that will end years of fiscal profligacy and tame gaping budget deficits.
A three-story corner building was completely consumed by flames with riot officers looking on from the street, and firefighters trying to douse the blaze. Protesters set bonfires in front of parliament and dozens of riot police formed lines to try to deter them from trying to make a run on parliament. Clouds of tear gas drifted across the square in front of parliament. Many in the crowd wore gas masks and had their faces covered, while others carried Greek flags and carried banners.
Riot police fired dozens of tear gas volleys at rioting youths, who attacked them with firebombs, fireworks and chunks of marble smashed off the fronts of luxury hotels, banks and department stores.
Streets were strewn with stones, smashed glass and burnt wreckage, while terrified passers-by sought refuge in hotel lounges and cafeterias.
Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis said rioters tried to storm the city hall building, but were repelled.
“Once again, the city is being used as a lever to try to destabilize the country,” he said.
Conservative New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras said the rioting “hurts the entire country.”
“We are seeing scenes from a future that we must do our utmost to avert,” he said.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’ government _ an unlikely coalition of the majority Socialists and their main foes, New Democracy _ was expected to carry the austerity vote, even by a narrow margin.
Combined, they control 236 of Parliament’s 300 seats, although at least 20 lawmakers from both main parties said they would not back the new private sector wage cuts, pension reductions and civil service layoffs dictated by the draft austerity program.
“There are very few such moments in the history of a nation,” Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said. “Our country has an acute issue of survival.”
“The question is not whether some salaries and pensions will be curtailed, but whether we will be able to pay even these reduced wages and pensions,” he added credit score. “When you have to choose between bad and worse, you will pick what is bad to avoid what is worse.”
The new cutbacks, which follow two years of harsh income losses and tax hikes _ amid a deep recession and record high unemployment _ have been demanded by Greece’s bailout creditors in return for a new batch of vital rescue loans.
“By Wednesday, finance ministers from eurozone countries must finally approve the financing and support program for Greece,” Venizelos said. “If that does not happen, and it is not at all certain that it will happen unless we raise to the occasion, then we will not be able by Friday, Feb. 17, to officially start the bond exchange process.”
“We won’t be in time to carry out the bond swap by March 5, and we won’t be in time to address the problem of major bond issues that must be paid from March 14-20,” he said. “If that doesn’t happen, the country will go bankrupt.”
The parliamentary debate started shortly after 3:30 p.m. (1330 GMT; 8:30 a.m. EST), and will take about 10 hours, finishing around midnight.
“By midnight today, before markets open, parliament must send the message that our nation is both willing and able,” Venizelos aid. “Unfortunately, the markets have subjugated states.”
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted as telling the Welt am Sonntag newspaper Sunday that Greece “cannot be a bottomless pit.”
“That’s why the Greeks must finally put a bottom in,” he added. “Then we can put something in too.”
Highlighting previous promises he said weren’t kept, Schaeuble said “that is why Greece’s promises aren’t enough for us any more,” according to the report.
Asked whether Greece has a long-term future in the eurozone, Germany’s vice chancellor told ARD television “that is now in the hands of the Greeks alone.”
Philipp Roesler said in the interview broadcast that what matters is not just Greece making pledges.
“We want … the Greek parliament also to approve laws and, as far as possible, take the first steps to implement what has been agreed,” he said.
“Only when that happens, only then can there be new aid _ and Greece urgently needs that,” said Roesler, who is also Germany’s economy minister.
Roesler acknowledged that Greece faces “difficult decisions” but stressed that Germany wants it to be able to get out of trouble.
“It is not enough just to give financial aid _ they must tackle the second cause of the crisis, the lack of economic competitiveness,” he said. “For that, they need … massive structural reforms. Otherwise Greece will not get out of the crisis.”
Introducing the legislation Sunday, Socialist lawmaker Sofia Yiannaka said the intense pressure from Greece’s EU partners to pass the measures was the result of delays in implementing already agreed reforms.
“The delays have our imprint. We should not blame foreigners for them,” she said.
“We have finally found out that you have to pay back what you have borrowed … We used to say ‘poor state, but rich citizens’ because we tolerated tax evasion for populist reasons. Is this the country we want?” Yiannaka added.
Leftist parties and the small rightist LAOS _ a former junior coalition partner _ have vowed to vote against the new austerity.
“You are not trying to save Greece, but a handful of industrialists,” Communist Party spokesman Thanassis Pafilis said. “And you disgracefully blame the struggling people who created the wealth we have. You are trying to send them back to the Middle Ages. We will not allow it.”
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