FreeEnglishLessons: June 2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

English Lessons

XLY consumer discretionary ETF (NYSE Arca: xly) up 5 percent, with Dow Transportation index (Dow Jones Global Indexes: .djt) up 4 percent
XRT retail ETF (NYSE Arca: xrt) up 10 percent
XHB homebuilder ETF (NYSE Arca: xhb) up 4 percent
Office REITs Boston Properties (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: BO9-ff) & Vornado Realty (NYSE: vno) up 20 percent and 10 percent.
Homebuilder Toll Brothers (NYSE: tol) up 10 percent
Ethan Allen (NYSE: eth) up 6 percent
Goodyear Tire (NYSE: gt) is up 36 percent
Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE: wyn) up 11 percent
H&R Block (NYSE: hrb) up 36 percent
MasterCard (NYSE: ma), Visa (NYSE: v) & American Express (NYSE: axp) up 24 percent, 6 percent, and 15 percent respectively
Consulting firm Accenture (NYSE: acn) up 24 percent

The most optimistic market action is probably in that XLY consumer ETF. Though its components are largely large-cap companies across a broad consumer spectrum (McDonalds, Disney, Target, Ford, Comcast, etc), the ETF has rather quietly gotten back close to its 2007 highs.
The negative Nellies out there can point to their own stats: oil falling, home prices stagnant, NFIB small business survey still weak, Marriott (NYSE: mar) and the cruise company shares down, etc. And yes, we still have a warehouse full of economic problems.
This isn't about being an economic Pollyanna, and ultimately there are a host of reasons why people buy stocks. But returns are returns, and agree with it or not, the message of the market appears to be one of more confidence in the consumer, and thus the economy, ahead.

Online social game company Zynga plans to raise $1.5 billion to $2 billion in an initial public offering and could file paperwork with U.S. regulators as soon as Wednesday, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

This isn't about being an economic Pollyanna, and ultimately there are a host of reasons why people buy stocks. But returns are returns, and agree with it or not, the message of the market appears to be one of more confidence in the consumer, and thus the economy, ahead?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

English Lessons

Kelly Carr/Reuters

The building at 2710 Thomes Avenue, is pictured in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in this undated photograph.

"In the U.S., (business incorporation) is completely unregulated," says Jason Sharman, a professor at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, who is preparing a study for the World Bank on corporate formation worldwide. "Somalia has slightly higher standards than Wyoming and Nevada."
An estimated 2 million corporations and limited liability companies are created each year in the U.S., according to Senate investigators. The Treasury Department has singled out LLCs as particularly vulnerable to being used as shell companies, as they can be owned by anyone and managed anonymously. Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming had 688,000 LLCs on file in 2009, up from 624,000 in 2007.
Treasury and state banking regulators say banks have flagged billions of dollars in suspicious transactions involving U.S. shell companies in recent years. On June 10, a federal judge in Oregon ordered a company registered there to pay $60 million for defrauding a Ukrainian government agency through sham transactions involving shell companies. The civil lawsuit described a network of U.S.-registered shells connected to fraud in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan.
A growing niche in the shell business is shelf corporations. Like paper-only shells, which enable the secrecy-minded to hide real ownership of assets, shelf companies are set up by firms like Wyoming Corporate Services, then left "on the shelf" to season for years. They're then sold later to owners looking for a quick way to secure bank loans, bid on contracts, and project financial stability. To speed up business activity, shelf corporations can often be purchased with established bank accounts, credit histories and tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

"They just slot in your names, and you walk away with the company. Presto!" says Daniel E. Karson, executive managing director at investigative firm Kroll Inc. "The purpose is to conceal ownership."

On its website, Wyoming Corporate Services currently lists more than 700 shelf companies for sale in 37 states. The older they are, the more expensive, like Scotch whisky. Brookside Management Inc., formed in December 2004, sells for $5,995, while Knotty Management LLC, formed in May, costs just $645. In Delaware, incorporator Harvard Business Services markets First Family LLC, created in May 1997, for $10,000.
"If they're signing a large contract, they may not want it to look like they've just formed a company," said Brett Melson, director of U.S. sales at Harvard Business Services. But he added: "Unsavory characters can do a lot of bad things with the companies."
Shell and shelf companies do serve legitimate purposes. They provide a quick and cheap way for entrepreneurs to jump into business and create jobs. Businesses can use them to protect trade secrets. Politicians or other public figures may use a shell company to hold their home so that people with ill intent have a harder time locating them.
The state of Wyoming says it cracked down on incorporation services in 2009 after discovering that nearly 5,700 companies were registered to post-office boxes. New laws require companies to have a physical presence in the state through an owner or a registered agent, and make it a felony to submit false filings.
"What we want to have is good, quality legitimate businesses," said Patricia O'Brien, Wyoming's Deputy Secretary of State. "We don't regulate what the business itself does, but we are not recruiting businesses here that are questionable or illegal."
Wyoming Corporate Services is run by Gerald Pitts, its 54-year-old founder and president. On paper, he is a prolific businessman. Incorporation data provided by Westlaw, a unit of Thomson Reuters, show that Pitts is listed as a director, president or principal for at least 41 companies registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue.
Another 248 firms name Edge Financial Inc., another incorporation service, as their "manager." Gerald Pitts is the president of Edge Financial, according to records on file with the Wyoming secretary of state's office.
Companies registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue have been named in a dozen civil lawsuits alleging unpaid taxes, securities fraud and trademark infringement since 2007, a review of Westlaw data shows. State and federal tax authorities have filed liens against companies registered at the address seeking to collect more than $300,000 in unpaid taxes, according to Westlaw.
Pitts says Wyoming Corporate Services fully complies with the law and doesn't have any knowledge of how clients use the companies he registers. "However, we recognize that business entities (whether aged, shell or traditional) may be used for both good and ill," Pitts wrote in an email to Reuters. "WCS will always cooperate with law enforcement agencies who request information or assistance. WCS does not provide any product or service with the intent that it be used to violate the law."
THE UKRAINE CONNECTION
Gerald Pitts and his own incorporation firms have never been sued or sanctioned, according to federal and state court records. Wyoming officials said Wyoming Corporate Services operates legally. "If they do it by cubby holes and they are really representing each person, they meet the law," said O'Brien, the deputy secretary of state.
But clients of his have run into trouble.
Among those registered at the little house in Cheyenne are two small companies formed through Wyoming Corporate Services that sold knock-off truck parts to the U.S. Department of Defense, according to a Reuters review of two federal contracting databases and findings from an investigation by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency. The owner of those firms, Atilla Kan, awaits sentencing on a 2007 conviction for wire fraud in a related matter.
Also linked to 2710 Thomes is former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was once ranked the eighth-most corrupt official in the world by watchdog group Transparency International. He is now serving an eight-year jail term in California for a 2004 conviction on money-laundering and extortion charges. According to court records, that scheme used shell companies and offshore bank accounts to hide stolen Ukrainian government funds.
Court records submitted in Lazarenko's criminal case and documents from a separate civil lawsuit, as well as interviews with lawyers familiar with the matter, indicate Lazarenko controls a shelf company incorporated in Cheyenne that owns an estimated $72 million in real estate in Ukraine through other companies.

The U.S. government continues to seek more than $250 million from bank accounts in Antigua, Barbuda, Guernsey and other countries that it says were controlled by Lazarenko and his associates, according to a forfeiture action filed by the Department of Justice.

The paper trail linking Lazarenko to the real estate in Ukraine is labyrinthine. At the heart of it is a shelf company called Capital Investments Group, registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue.
U.S. lawyers for a Ukrainian businessman named Gennady Korban submitted documents claiming that Lazarenko is the true owner of Capital Investments Group and other U.S. companies.
Lazarenko and Korban are rivals in Ukraine, and for years have traded allegations of corruption and assassination. An organization chart accompanying Korban's submission alleges Capital Investments Group owns 99.99 percent of a Ukrainian firm called OOO Capital Investments Group. That company, the chart claims, is the owner of another company, OOO Ukrainsky Tyutyun, where Pavlo Lazarenko is a director. Each of the firms and several others are used as corporate fronts to control properties in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, the filing alleges.
Seven properties are named in the 2009 filing by Korban, including 55 Pushkin Street and 58 Komsomolskaya Street. The dossier on Capital Investments Group claims that other directors of the alleged front companies include Lazarenko's wife, son and mother-in-law.
Federal prosecutors successfully urged the court in late 2009 to disregard Korban's submissions, arguing that it would take too much time to vet his account and thus delay his resentencing after a lengthy appeal.
A few months later, in February 2010, Capital Investments Group sued Korban and others in federal court in Delaware. That lawsuit claims two properties in the Ukraine controlled by Capital Investments Group - 55 Pushkin Street and 58 Komsomolskaya Street - were stolen from it using forged documents.
The lawsuit says Capital Investments was formed in September 2005. It is registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue, and Gerald Pitts, the court documents say, is "President, Secretary, Chairman and director."
But Capital Investments Group doesn't disclose the name of its owners. Daniel Horowitz and Martin Garbus, attorneys for the company, have represented Pavlo Lazarenko in other U.S. and Ukrainian litigation. They declined to provide the owners' names, citing client confidentiality, and wouldn't comment on Lazarenko's links to CIG.
The U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco declined to comment. Asked about his association with Lazarenko and Capital Investments Group, Gerald Pitts declined to provide information on specific clients. Pitts said he is aware of the Delaware lawsuit and "is cooperating fully with authorities in the matter."
POKER EMPIRE
Another man linked to 2710 Thomes is Ira N. Rubin. Prosecutors allege he created a Rube Goldberg-style network of shell and shelf corporations to further his scams.
In December 2006, the Federal Trade Commission sued Rubin for fraud in federal court in Tampa. Documents in the civil lawsuit allege Rubin used at least 18 different front companies to obscure his role as a credit-card processor for telemarketing scams.
These operations, the FTC alleged, offered subprime credit cards that charged an upfront fee debited from customers' bank accounts, but the cards were never delivered. The complaint also alleged Rubin processed payments for online gambling rings and pharmacy websites selling controlled substances.
One company in that network was Elite Funding Group Inc. It was registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue in August 2004 and offered for sale by Wyoming Corporate Services for $1,095. Gerald Pitts was listed in public documents as the original director, wrote an investigator hired by the FTC in a January 2007 report filed in federal court in Tampa. Pitts had resigned six months earlier as director and was replaced by Rubin, according to court records.
Rubin's maze-like network served as the back office for alleged consumer scams operating from Canada, the Philippines, Cyprus and the U.S., with names like Freedom Pharmacy and Fun Time Bingo. His companies took consumer bank account information obtained by the clients, charged the accounts via an electronic transactions network that enables direct debits, kept a portion of the proceeds, and forwarded the rest to the alleged fraudsters, according to documents in the FTC's civil lawsuit.
To minimize scrutiny, Rubin used at least 18 different firms to handle his operations. A firm called Global Marketing Group processed payments for telemarketers offering bogus credit cards, the FTC alleged. Elite Funding, the Wyoming shelf corporation, was a subsidiary of Global Marketing. Rubin used Elite to open bank accounts with Wells Fargo Bank which held more than $300,000 in proceeds from the payment processing, according to court records.
Just hours after Rubin was visited by a court-appointed receiver in the case in December 2006, $249,000 vanished from the Wells Fargo account. Rubin refused to say if he transferred the money, citing his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. At least $125,000 then made its way to a bank account in Chennai, India, and has never been recovered, according to documents in the civil lawsuit.
Why use a shelf company? "To hide who they are and what they are doing. In the case of Ira Rubin, he had a payment processing empire that worked on behalf of many different industries, all of which were engaged in illegal conduct," said James Davis, an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission. "It was to his benefit to make it as difficult as possible for law enforcement to connect these companies back to him."
In 2008, Rubin fled to Costa Rica to avoid arrest for contempt in the civil case. Authorities allege he went on to run another payment-processing operation from abroad: This March 10, he and 10 others were indicted in New York for allegedly running a massive scheme to hide payments made by U.S. customers to the three largest online-poker websites, in violation of a ban passed by Congress in 2006. He was extradited from Guatemala the same month. On June 8, a New York judge denied bail for Rubin.
Stuart Meissner, an attorney for Rubin, said his client was not available for comment. Pitts declined to comment.
AMERICAN LOOPHOLES
The loopholes in U.S. disclosure of bank-account and shell-company ownership have drawn fire.
The U.S. was declared "non-compliant" in four out of 40 categories monitored by the Financial Action Task Force, an international group fighting money laundering and terrorism finance, in a 2006 evaluation report, its most recent. Two of those ratings relate to scant information collected on the owners of corporations. The task force named Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware as secrecy havens. Only three states - Alaska, Arizona and Montana - require regular disclosure of corporate shareholders in some form, according to the 2009 report by the National Association of Secretaries of State.
Some lawmakers want tighter rules. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee's Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations, has introduced the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act each year since 2008. The bill would require states to obtain and update information about the real owners of companies, and impose civil and criminal sanctions for filing false information.
"Criminals use U.S. shell companies to commit financial fraud, drug trafficking, even terrorist financing, in part because our states don't require anyone to name the owners of the companies they form," Levin said in an email to Reuters.
The bill has been beaten back by a coalition of state officials and business groups, citing concerns about the cost of implementing the new law and federal government infringement on state incorporation rights.
A leading opponent is the National Association of Secretaries of State. Kay Stimson, a spokeswoman, said in an email that the Levin bill "would have placed new burdens upon states and legitimate, law-abiding businesses-many of which are struggling to stay afloat during these difficult financial times-while continuing to provide lawbreakers with the means to evade the law."
An aide for Levin said the bill is expected to be re-introduced soon. The new bill will add provisions requiring incorporation agents who sell shelf companies to provide beneficial owner data, said a Senate aide familiar with it.
CAT AND MOUSE
Shell companies remain a headache for law-enforcement authorities. Officials say court-ordered subpoenas served on incorporators of shell and shelf corporations generally do deliver the names of the real owners hiding behind nominees. But if the owners are not U.S. citizens or companies, the investigation often hits a dead-end, they say.
There are additional hurdles. Wyoming Corporate Services charges $2,500 per year to supply an attorney who can provide an extra shield. Cheyenne attorney Graham Norris Jr. tells prospective clients sent to him by WCS that he will create a company on their behalf. That way, he says, he can invoke attorney-client privilege-adding a layer of privacy anytime there is an inquiry about their identities.
"When you do need to contact Wyoming Corporate Services, you may do so through me," advises a June 13 "Dear Client" letter supplied by Norris to Reuters. "If you contact them directly, there is a greater risk they may disclose that information in response to a subpoena; remember there is no privilege with Wyoming Corporate Services, only with your attorney."
For a fee, clients can request that Norris file a motion to quash any subpoena, the letter says. It warns that in cases where fraud or criminal conduct is alleged, a court might order Norris to name the owners. Still, after any inquiry about identity, the letter says, Norris must inform the client-and "I must also decline to answer the inquiry."
Investigators say they are sometimes loath to use subpoenas for the very reason highlighted in Norris' letter-fear of tipping off targets. "In the initial stages of investigation, when we encounter a domestic shell corporation, we know we can't subpoena the company that sold the corporation to the end users, because we don't want the target to find out they are being investigated," says FTC attorney James Davis.
Other U.S. agencies raise similar complaints about shells. The 2006 U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment, prepared by 16 federal agencies, devotes a chapter to the ways U.S. shell companies can be attractive vehicles to hide ill-gotten funds. It includes a chart to show why money launderers might like to create shells in Wyoming, Nevada or Delaware, which offer the highest levels of corporate anonymity.
The information in the chart is credited to the Web site of a firm called Corporations Today-an incorporation service run by Gerald Pitts in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(Reporting by Kelly Carr in Cheyenne and Brian Grow in Atlanta; additional reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco, Jen Rogers and Jaime Hellman in Cheyenne; research by Mary Kivimaki of Westlaw; editing by Claudia Parsons and Michael Williams)

Assessment, prepared by 16 federal agencies, devotes a chapter to the ways U.S. shell companies?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

Did the information in the chart is credited to the Web site of a firm called Corporations Today-an incorporation service run by Gerald Pitts in Cheyenne, Wyoming?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

The loopholes in U.S. disclosure of bank-account and shell-company ownership have drawn fire?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

English Lessons

DIRECTIONS: Read the following and answer all the questions?
http://www.americanenglishconversation.com/
http://www.freeenglishconversation.blogspot.com/
http://www.grammar-help.blogspot.com/

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Bank of America Corp. is close to finalizing a deal to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by a group of blue-chip investors that the bank sold them poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market tanked, according to a person familiar with the settlement talks.
The Charlotte, N.C., bank was continuing talks late Tuesday with the group, which includes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Pimco Investment Management, the world's largest bondholder, and Blackrock Financial Management. It is expected to announce an agreement as early as Wednesday, the person said on condition of anonymity because the matter was still developing.
The deal comes eight months after the group fired off a letter to Bank of America demanding that it repurchase $47 billion in mortgages that its Countrywide unit sold to them in the form of bonds. The investors have argued that Countrywide's practice of modifying loans found to have faulty paperwork or those written outside of normal underwriting standards breached signed agreements with the investors. By continuing to service bad loans rather than speeding up foreclosures, the group has claimed that Countrywide ran up servicing fees, enriching itself at the expense of investors. The New York Fed is involved because it took over assets held by American International Group Inc., which faltered under the weight of bad home loans that it insured.
Bank of America, which paid $4 billion for Countrywide in 2008, has dismissed suggestions that its handling of loan modifications and other efforts to prevent foreclosure have violated the terms of the mortgage-backed securities that the investors hold. In November, CEO Brian Moynihan said he was in day-to-day "hand-to-hand combat" with investors' demands.
But the combined effect of the Countrywide deal, mortgage crisis and the risk overhang of the soured loans have been a drain on BofA's bottom line and stock price, eventually prompting a reversal in strategy. Since the beginning of the year, the bank has struck large settlements with multiple investors. In January, the lender paid $2.6 billion to settle buyback claims on home loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And in April, the bank agreed to pay up to $1.6 billion to Assured Guaranty Ltd., an insurer that also pressed the bank to repurchase shoddy mortgages. If approved, the latest settlement would address a significant remaining slice of Bank of America's mortgage buyback claim risk.
A Bank of America spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Shares of Bank of America gained 14 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $10.96 in aftermarket trading on Tuesday. The shares had closed the regular session down 3 cents at $10.82.

Bank of America Corp. is close to finalizing a deal to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by a group of blue-chip investors that the bank sold them poor-quality mortgage-backed securities?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

A Bank of America spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. Shares of Bank of America gained 14 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $10.96 in aftermarket trading on Tuesday?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

English Lessons

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Monday, June 27, 2011

English Lessons

Browse Local Singles at Match.com on Yahoo!

Friend #2 — The Vince Vaughn Type
This is the guy who — like the characters Vince Vaughn inevitably plays — tries to convince your date that women are controlling and he’s better off without you. Briana, 31, of Los Angeles, can relate. She fell in love with her boyfriend right away, but loathed his best friend. He constantly put her down and tried to persuade her boyfriend to give Briana the boot. But she wasn’t going to let one jerk scare her away from a great guy. So she decided to be the bigger person and reached out to his friend directly. “When I needed to book a speaker for work, I called him, and he hooked me up with someone,” she says. “He was great and made me shine at work — and I made him shine.” He ended up apologizing and telling Briana he had her pegged all wrong. “I think he gained respect for me when he saw that I was able to separate work from our personal problems,” Briana says. Now, Briana, her beau and his best friend all hang out happily.

How to make nice: Remember, this pal isn’t your boyfriend. And just because your man thinks his immature pal is amusing doesn’t mean he values his opinions on dating. Chances are, the VV type is jealous that your man found someone great. Or, he feels threatened that you’re taking his best friend away (really!). Do let your date know if the guy says something truly mean-spirited (“You two will last maybe three weeks”). If he knows his friend is being rude to you and doesn’t do anything, or says something like, “Let it go” or “He talks to everyone that way,” then do yourself a huge favor and move on.

Friend #3 — The Player
How do you know this guy can’t respect boundaries? Because he flirts with you! When Alison, 34, of Philadelphia, started dating Sam, his best friend propositioned her. “I never told Sam about Jude coming on to me because I felt like I could handle it,” she says. “When Jude suggested that we get together alone, I said, ‘No thanks.’” But Jude continued to make her feel uncomfortable, and Alison soon realized she didn’t like Sam enough to put up with his best friend, Mr. Octopus.

How to make nice: If it’s just a glance or two in your direction, try ignoring it (some guys just can’t help noticing attractive women). But if he makes a clear advance or says something truly suggestive, say something right away: “I’m dating your friend and am not at all interested in you.” And do tell your date, just in case he hears a twisted version of the story (“Man, it was crazy, your lady came on to me outside the bathroom”). Chances are, your date knows that his friend is a player with women; hopefully, he will (a) tell his pal to keep his hands off and (b) keep you two apart as much as possible.

Friend #4 — The Mooch
So you’re dating a guy whose roommate thinks it’s fine to tag along for Thai food or to the movies? It happens. Amy, 26, of Farmington Hills, MI, was annoyed when her date’s roommate felt it was fine to hang out with them in front of the TV during an early date. She thought: What’s with a guy who lets his roommates join in on a date? But she didn’t know how to get the roomie pal to quit inviting himself along each time.

How to make nice: Some folks are just clueless — and if your guy happens to be living with one of these unfortunate souls, you shouldn’t hold it against him. That said, it’s not a good sign if your date can’t let his buddy know he’s not welcome on dates. Let your guy know you’d love to hang out more with him — but just with him, alone. Let him know nicely that you’d prefer if the pal didn’t join the two of you anymore. If his friend continues to show up, show your date to the door.

One last word of advice: a guy’s friends are very important to him (just as yours probably are to you). So know that you may have to tolerate some times with you less-than-favorite person, but if your guy’s a keeper, it’s worth it!

Julie Weingarden Dubin writes for Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Shape. She is the author of How to Plan an Elegant Second Wedding and lives in Huntington Woods, Michigan.

How to make nice: If it’s just a glance or two in your direction, try ignoring it (some guys just can’t help noticing attractive women). But if he makes a clear advance or says something truly suggestive?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

One last word of advice: a guy’s friends are very important to him?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

English Lessons

DIRECTIONS: Read the following and answer all the questions?
http://www.americanenglishconversation.com/
http://www.freeenglishconversation.blogspot.com/
http://www.grammar-help.blogspot.com/

The Transportation Security Administration has denied that its agents required a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper last week before allowing her to pass a screening checkpoint at Northwest Florida Regional Airport.
"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," the agency said Sunday night in a statement. "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove an adult diaper."
A response released earlier Sunday by the TSA said that the agency had reviewed the circumstances "and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."
The woman's daughter, Jean Weber, told CNN on Monday that the TSA agents acted professionally and never ordered the removal of her mother's diaper. However, Weber said the agents made it clear that her mother could not board the plane unless they were able to inspect the diaper.
According to Weber, it was her idea to remove the diaper so it could be inspected and they could make their flight.
"They were doing their job according to the instructions of the TSA and their policies," Weber said, later adding that the options offered them were to remove the diaper or "she was not going to get on the plane."
On Sunday, Weber told CNN that the June 18 incident occurred when she and her mother were traveling from northwest Florida to Michigan, where her mother was planning to move in with other relatives prior to moving into an assisted-living facility.
"My mother is very ill, she has a form of leukemia," Weber said Sunday. "She had a blood transfusion the week before, just to bolster up her strength for this travel."
At a security checkpoint, a TSA officer ushered the wheelchair-bound woman into a glassed-in area where a pat-down was performed, Weber said. Weber said an agent told her "they felt something suspicious on (her mother's) leg and they couldn't determine what it was" -- leading them to take her into a private, closed room.
Soon after, Weber said, a TSA agent told her that her mother's Depend undergarment was "wet and it was firm, and they couldn't check it thoroughly." But her mother had no clean diapers in her carry-on luggage and the departure time for the plane was approaching, Weber said.
"They said, 'You can get her luggage back to get more out of her luggage,' but the luggage was checked and I didn't know how long it would take to get her luggage," Weber said. "I asked if I could take the wet Depends off and they said yes but said I had to take her back to the lobby of the airport -- to the restroom out of the screening area."
She said she and her mother then went to a bathroom and removed the wet diaper, then went back through the screening checkpoint.
Weber said her mother, a nurse for 65 years, "was very calm" despite being bothered by the fact that she went on to complete her journey without underwear.
By this weekend, the elder woman -- who was not identified by name -- was doing "fine" in Michigan with her relatives, Weber said Sunday.
This is not the first time that the TSA's pat-downs of passengers have come under fire, nor the first time that the agency has rallied behind its officers and policy.
Last year, the administration announced it was ramping up the use of full-body scanning and pat-downs to stop nonmetallic threats, including explosives, from getting on planes. The goal is to head off attacks such as the one allegedly attempted on Christmas of 2009 by Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, who allegedly had a bomb sewn into his underwear on a flight from the Netherlands to Michigan.
The TSA estimates that only 3% of passengers are subjected to pat-downs -- and then only after they have set off a metal detector or declined to step into a full-body scanner. Yet the new policy has triggered an uproar online and in airports, from a small but vocal number of travelers who feel their rights and privacy were being violated.
The federal safety agency has made some adjustments to its policy, but no major changes.
"Every traveler is a critical partner in TSA's efforts to keep our skies safe," Administrator John Pistole, who ordered the new approach, said last fall. "And I know and appreciate that the vast majority of Americans recognize and respect the important work we do."
More recently, outrage erupted over a video-recorded pat-down of a 6-year-old passenger last April at New Orleans' airport. The video, which was posted on YouTube, shows the girl protesting the search by a female security officer at first, though she complies quietly while it is under way.
Pistole addressed this controversy at a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee meeting last week, explaining the pat-down was ordered because the child had moved while passing through a body imaging machine. He told committee members that "we have changed the policy (so) that there'll be repeated efforts made to resolve that without a pat-down."

The next day, TSA spokesman Greg Soule said that the new policy -- which will apply to children age 12 and younger -- was in the process of being rolled out.

Did the Transportation Security Administration has denied that its agents required a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

Did he tell the committee members that "we have changed the policy (so) that there'll be repeated efforts made to resolve that without a pat-down?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

English Lessons

DIRECTIONS: Read the following and answer the questions?
http://www.americanenglishconversation.com
http://www.freeenglishconversation.blogspot.com/
http://grammar-help.blogspot.com/
http://freeenglishlessons-denise.blogspot.com/

LUXEMBOURG (AP) -- Hours of talks between eurozone finance ministers on the imploding finances of Greece broke up early Monday morning without the ministers signing off on a vital installment of rescue loans needed to avoid bankruptcy next month.
Greece will get the next euro12 billion of its existing euro110 billion bailout package in early July, but only if it manages to pass euro28 billion in new spending cuts and economic reforms by the end of the month, said Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who also chairs the regular meetings of the 17 eurozone finance ministers.
"We have to, of course, await this vote" by the Greek parliament, Juncker said as he left the meeting.
However, Juncker said that as long as the parliament supported the new measures, he was certain that Greece would also get a second bailout -- on top of the existing one -- that will keep it afloat over the coming years as it works to restore its struggling economy. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said Sunday that his country was in talks for a new bailout similar in size to the first one.
In a statement, the ministers said that the private sector would contribute to the new package of rescue loans on a voluntary basis. Banks and other private creditors will be asked to buy up new Greek bonds as old ones mature, thereby reducing the amount of money other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund will have to provide.
"No pressure may be exerted on the private sector," Juncker stressed, since any sign of coercion could force rating agencies to consider the bond-rollover as a partial default. Such a negative rating could take down Greek banks and further shake other struggling euro countries like Ireland and Portugal, economists have warned.
Juncker said he planned to convene a special finance ministers meeting in the first days of July, where the remaining questions would be finalized. He said that because of the voluntary nature of the roll-over, it was too early to put a number on the contribution of the private sector.
The meeting of the 17 eurozone nations came after a tumultuous week that saw rioting on the streets of Athens, a Greek Cabinet reshuffle and days of market turmoil that sent borrowing costs spiking. A default by Greece could cause ripples around the world, disrupting the global economy similarly to the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Just before the meeting broke up, the finance chiefs of the United States, Canada, Japan and the U.K. were updated on the discussions taking place in Luxembourg in a conference call limited to the Group of Seven rich nations, underlining the heightened level of concern over the small euro nation.
A little over a year after its first bailout, Greece is trailing its financial goals. Without passing the new austerity measures, its budget deficit will remain above 10 percent of economic output this year -- far from the promised 7.5 percent. The country's debt is expected to reach 160 percent of gross domestic product by the end of 2011, while its economy continues to shrink.
The harsh austerity measures and the bleak outlook for the depressed Greek economy and the resulting street protests are increasingly challenging the survival of Papandreou's government.
Opening a three-day parliamentary debate that will culminate in a confidence vote Tuesday, Papandreou blamed Greece's bloated and inefficient state sector for bringing the country to its knees. He vowed deep changes with a fall referendum on the constitution that would make it easier to get rid of inept officials or workers.

Juncker said that as long as the parliament supported the new measures, he was certain that Greece would also get a second bailout -- on top of the existing one -- that will keep it afloat over the coming years as it works to restore its struggling economy?

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BENGHAZI, Libya – British Apache and French attack helicopters struck targets for the first time in NATO's campaign in Libya, hitting Moammar Gadhafi's troops early Saturday near a key coastal oil town, the alliance said. Hours later, at least eight airstrikes were heard in Tripoli.
The action was a significant step-up in NATO's operations and a major boost to Libyan rebels, just a day after rebel fighters forced government troops from three western towns and broke the siege of a fourth in yet another erosion of Gadhafi's power since the eruption in mid-February of the uprising to end his 42-year rule.
NATO said the helicopters struck troops trying to hide in populated areas, military vehicles and equipment. Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of the Libya operation, said the engagement "demonstrates the unique capabilities brought to bear by attack helicopters."
Until now, NATO has relied on attack jets, generally flying above 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) — nearly three miles (five kilometers) high — and pounding Gadhafi targets in relentless overnight bombings. And eight thunderous explosions from a rare daytime NATO attack were heard Saturday afternoon in Libya's capital. A Libyan government official said it was not immediately clear what was hit.
The helicopters give the alliance a key advantage in close-up combat, flying at much lower altitudes.
The Apaches hit two targets near the eastern oil town of Brega, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense in London. It said they took off from HMS Ocean, stationed off the Libyan coast and returned safely after completing their mission in the early morning hours.
British Maj. Gen. Nick Pope said the Apaches targeted a radar installation and a military checkpoint. "Hellfire missiles and 30mm cannon were used to destroy the targets," he said.
Separately from the helicopters, Royal Air Force aircraft destroyed another military installation near Brega and two ammunition bunkers at the large Waddan depot in central Libya, Pope said.
Brega is of strategic importance to Libya's oil industry and lies on the coastal road along the Mediterranean that leads to the capital, Tripoli. In the early days of the uprising against Gadhafi, it went back and forth between rebel and loyalist hands, but later the front line settled to the east of the town, leaving Brega under Gadhafi's control.
Waddan lies southwest of Brega, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) from the coastline.
The French Gazelle and Tiger model attack helicopters took off from the helicopter transport ship Tonnerre in the Mediterranean, said Col. Thierry Burkhard. He said they struck 15 military vehicles and five military command buildings, without identifying the sites or their location.
Burkhard said the French helicopters came under light-arms fire but were not hit or damaged. The operation was aimed at putting "additional pressure on the Gadhafi forces who continue to threaten the civilian population," he said.
British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said Saturday that the "use of the attack helicopters is a logical extension" in NATO's campaign and indicated more would be used in the future.
"We will continue with the methods we have to degrade his (Gadhafi's) command and control, to degrade his supplies," Fox said from Singapore, where he was attending an Asian security conference.
The helicopter strikes came after Libyan rebels on Friday won control of four towns in the western Nafusa mountain range, where government forces have besieged and randomly shelled rebel-held areas for months.
The small rebel force in the western mountains is unlikely to threaten Gadhafi's hold on Tripoli, 45 miles (70 kilometers) northwest, but the victories could bring relief to local residents by opening up roads between their communities. The western mountain population is tiny compared with the large rebel-held territories in east Libya.
Fighting continued Saturday in another part of the mountain range, near the border with Tunisia. A resident of the town of Nalut, Mohammed Jernaz, said via Skype that Gadhafi's forces fired grad rockets, injuring 10 people.
A video posted by Nalut activists on YouTube showed injured men covered with blood being transported in the back of pickup trucks. The video's authenticity could not be confirmed.
The head of the rebels' Transitional National Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said the NATO helicopter attacks were in accordance with the U.N. resolution that authorized the international air campaign, but emphasized that the Apaches launched outside Libya.
"We welcome any measures to expedite the departure of Moammar Gadhafi, but at the same time we maintain the sovereignty of the Libyan state," Abdul-Jalil told reporters Saturday.
Abdul-Jalil and other rebel leaders met with British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Saturday in the rebels' de facto capital, Benghazi. Hague is one of the highest-ranking foreign officials to visit rebel-held territory in eastern Libya. He traveled with another British Cabinet minister, International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, on a visit Hague said was to show support for those fighting Gadhafi's rule.
Some 300 residents chanted "Down with Gadhafi!" and "Free Libya!" while Hague visited the public square that has become the symbolic heart of the anti-Gadhafi movement. He offered his condolences to relatives of prisoners killed in the 1996 massacre at the Abu Salim prison, where guards put down a riot by killing about 1,200 men, rights groups say. He also visited injured rebel fighters at a hospital.
The conflict in Libya appears at a stalemate after nearly four months. NATO airstrikes have kept the outgunned rebels from being overrun, but the rebels have been unable to mount an effective offensive against Gadhafi's better equipped armed forces.
Gadhafi's regime has been slowly crumbling from within. A significant number of army officers and several Cabinet ministers have defected, and most have expressed support for the opposition, but Gadhafi's hold on power shows little sign of loosening.
Gadhafi has been seen in public rarely and heard even less frequently since a NATO airstrike on his compound killed one of his sons on April 30. Questions are arising about the physical and mental state of the 69-year-old dictator, who has ruled Libya since 1969.
Rebels have turned down initiatives calling for cease-fires, insisting that Gadhafi and his sons must relinquish power and leave the country.

Gadhafi has been seen in public rarely and heard even less frequently since a NATO airstrike on his compound killed one of his sons on April 30?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

A video posted by Nalut activists on YouTube showed injured men covered with blood being transported in the back of pickup trucks. The video's authenticity could not be confirmed?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

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Government forces and tribal fighters exchanged gun and artillery fire in Yemen's capital early Wednesday, sending the crackle of gunfire and resounding booms over the city in fresh fighting that killed at least 41 people. The fighting spread to new areas, with tribesmen from the powerful Hasid confederation seizing buildings in neighborhoods in the city's south and northwest.
The urban battles over the last week have posed a new threat to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule. For nearly four months, thousands of Yemenis have filled the streets daily, calling for democratic reforms and Saleh's ouster. The mostly peaceful protests gave way last week to violence between Saleh's security forces and fighters loyal to Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar, head of the country's largest tribal coalition.
Saleh's often violent attempts to quash the protests have led the U.S. to turn away from its one-time ally, once considered a necessary partner in fighting Yemen's active al-Qaida branch.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday called Saleh's refusal to step down "a source of great conflict" that has caused violence.
"We cannot expect this conflict to end unless President Saleh and his government move out of the way to permit the opposition and civil society to begin a transition to political and economic reform," she told reporters in Washington.
Fighting in Sanaa raged until 5 a.m. then continued in bursts throughout the day. Witnesses said units of the elite Presidential Guard, commanded by one of Saleh's sons, shelled the headquarters of an army brigade responsible for guarding sensitive government institutions. Army officers who have defected to the opposition said the government suspected the brigade commander was about to join forces with the movement to oust Saleh.
Video: Yemen faces 'all-out civil war' (on this page)
Opposition army officers, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army rules, said the armored brigade commander, Brigadier-General Mohammed Khalil, was neutral and without political affiliation but had apparently angered Saleh.
A resident who lives close to the fighting and would only give his first name, Zaher, said columns of smoke and fire billowed from Khalil's brigade headquarters and explosions could be heard.
The 41 dead included combatants from both sides of the conflict, said the medical officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The fighting has engulfed the northern Hassaba neighborhood, where tribal fighters have seized a number of government ministries and buildings. Government artillery fire has heavily damaged the house of al-Ahmar, the tribal leader, and the government has cut the area's electricity and water supplies.
Story: Islamists ambush army, gunfights resume in Yemen
The units, led by one of Saleh's sons, and special forces wearing uniforms of government security troops attacked but failed to recapture the Hassaba administrative building from tribal gunmen.
Fighting spread to other areas of the city Wednesday, with al-Ahmar fighters seizing the office of the General Prosecutor in the city's northwest. They were accompanied by two armored vehicles from the 1st Armored Division, whose powerful commander abandoned the president two months ago. So far, however, his troops have not participated in battles against Saleh's security forces.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement that tribesmen had also taken over a five-story building in the Hadda neighborhood in the city's south after clashing with the army. The area is a stronghold of Saleh supporters.
Yemen's official news agency SABA called the tribal fighters "armed gangs," saying that they looted supplies, furniture, documents and other things from the buildings they seized.
The fighting has caused a number of countries to close or scale back their diplomatic missions. Kuwait, Italy and Qatar have withdrawn their diplomats, and the United States has advised American civilians to leave the country.
Water, electricity cut off On Tuesday, Saleh imposed collective punishment on the Hassaba neighborhood by cutting water supplies and electricity.
A resident who lives close to the fighting and would only give his first name, Zaher, said columns of smoke and fire billowed from Khalil's brigade headquarters and explosions could be heard.
Yemen is on the brink of financial ruin, with about a third of its 23 million people facing chronic hunger.
Video: Yemen fighting has wider implications (on this page)
The political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said in a report the most likely outcome is that Saleh leaves through a political deal he brokers from a position of weakness, or is ousted by force by breakaway military units and tribal leaders.
"Saleh is unlikely to survive 2011 as president of Yemen; however the likelihood of a managed transition is decreasing, and an attempt to forcibly oust Saleh from power is becoming more likely," the report said.
Saleh has exasperated his rich Gulf Arab neighbors by three times agreeing to step down, only to renege at the last minute.
And he drew the ire of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after his troops fired on protesters in the city of Taiz, about 120 miles south of the capital. The chief U.N. human rights envoy said her office was investigating reports that at least 50 people have been killed there since Sunday.

The urban battles over the last week have posed a new threat to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

And he drew the ire of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after his troops fired on protesters in the city of Taiz, about 120 miles south of the capital?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

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DETROIT (AP) -- Chrysler Group LLC, newly profitable and confident in its revamped products, will soon sever its ties with the U.S. government after most -- but not all -- of the bailout loans it got two years ago are repaid.
Italian automaker Fiat SpA agreed late Thursday to buy the U.S. Treasury's 6 percent interest in Chrysler for $500 million. Once the deal closes, the government will no longer hold a stake in the auto company. Treasury officials said it could take up to three months to make sure the agreement meets regulatory approvals, but it will likely close more quickly than that.
The deal will give Fiat a majority 52 percent stake in the automaker, just two years after it agreed to manage Chrysler after its bankruptcy.
President Barack Obama is expected to announce the agreement Friday during a trip to a Chrysler facility in Toledo, Ohio.
The U.S. government will ultimately lose around $1.3 billion in the deal. The government authorized $12.5 billion in loans for Chrysler from the end of 2008 through Chrysler's bankruptcy filing in the summer of 2009. The Treasury Department said Thursday that Chrysler has repaid $11.2 billion -- including $2 billion in undrawn loans -- but it is unlikely to recover the rest. Government officials have long said that they didn't expect to recover the full amount they loaned to Chrysler and General Motors Co. during the auto industry downturn, and that their top priority was saving thousands of auto jobs.
"We didn't do this to maximize return. We did it to save jobs," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said during a trip to Detroit in April. On Thursday, Geithner noted that GM and Chrysler are hiring again and making new investments at U.S. plants, which wouldn't have happened had they gone bankrupt.
Fiat also agreed to pay $75 million for the right to purchase the Chrysler shares held by a trust for retired autoworkers. The Treasury Department will receive 80 percent of those proceeds, or $60 million, while the government of Canada will get $15 million. The trust holds a 47.5 percent stake in the company. It is expected to sell its shares when Chrysler eventually holds an initial public offering, which could happen later this year or early next year.
Chrysler has made a remarkable turnaround in that time. Before entering bankruptcy proceedings, the company was nearly out of cash, starved after a decade under the ownership of German automaker Daimler AG and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. It needed U.S. government money to survive. But in the first three months of this year, Chrysler made a net profit of $116 million and is forecasting 2011 earnings of $200 million to $500 million.
Under the leadership of Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne, the company has cut costs and revived its sales by refurbishing most of its lineup of Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles. Sales of the Jeep Grand Cherokee were nearly three times higher in May than in the same month a year ago.
Fiat received a 20 percent stake in Chrysler after it emerged from bankruptcy proceedings in exchange for management expertise and technology. The Italian automaker has gradually raised its stake by meeting benchmarks set by the government. Last month, it paid about $1.3 billion to buy another 16 percent of the company.
Chrysler repaid the bulk of its loans on May 24, when it paid off $7.6 billion from the U.S. and Canadian governments. Chrysler repaid that money through a combination of bank loans, bond sales and money from Fiat.
Fiat's stake is likely to rise to 57 percent before the end of the year, when Chrysler meets another milestone set by the U.S. government: Producing a 40 mpg small car in the U.S. All told, Fiat has the right to purchase more than 70 percent of Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Chrysler.
This wasn't the first time Chrysler had to be rescued by the U.S. government. In the early 1980s the company, led by legendary pitchman Lee Iacocca, paid off $1 billion in government-guaranteed loans in three years.
The government still owns 26.5 percent of GM after selling part of its stake in GM's initial public offering in November. GM received $49.5 billion from the government in exchange for a 61 percent stake in the company. The Treasury Department has said it will hold off selling the rest of its shares until at least August, after GM reports its second-quarter results. The government would need to sell its remaining shares at $53 apiece to break even on its investment. On Thursday, GM's shares closed at $29.60.
The third Detroit automaker, Ford Motor Co., didn't seek a bailout.

Did Fiat's stake is likely to rise to 57 percent before the end of the year?
A. TRUE

B. FALSE

Does the government still owns 26.5 percent?

A. TRUE

B. FALSE

Sunday, June 26, 2011

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ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Two unexpected gushers in northeastern Pennsylvania are helping to illustrate the enormous potential of the Marcellus Shale natural gas field.
Each of the Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. wells in Susquehanna County is capable of producing 30 million cubic feet per day -- believed to be a record for the Marcellus and enough gas to supply nearly 1,000 homes for a year. The landowners attached to the wells, who leased the well access, numbering fewer than 25, are splitting hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly royalties.
"There was definitely excitement among the team that planned out these wells and executed their completion," said Cabot spokesman George Stark.
Drilling companies knew the Marcellus held a lot of gas. They just had to figure out a way to get it out, and they say they're getting better at it all the time.
The result is that the Marcellus, a rock formation beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio, has turned out to be an even more prolific source of gas than anyone anticipated. Energy firms are boosting their production targets, not only because new wells are coming on line but also because they're managing to coax more gas from each well.
Operators say they have a greater understanding of the complicated geology of the Marcellus, allowing them to land their drill bits in the sweet spot of the formation. They're drilling horizontally at greater distances, giving them access to more of the gas locked within the rock. And they're tweaking how they break apart the shale.
"It's like batting practice," said Matt Pitzarella, spokesman for Range Resources Corp. "The more you swing the bat, the better you get."
Fort Worth, Texas-based Range has boosted its estimate of the amount of natural gas it will ultimately be able to harvest from its Marcellus Shale wells, telling investors this month that it plans to triple production to 600 million cubic feet per day by the end of 2012.
Another major player, Chesapeake Energy Corp., has likewise reported a dramatic increase in expected well production. Early on, the Oklahoma City-based driller predicted that each well would yield 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas over its life span. That amount has since doubled, to more than 7 billion cubic feet, and continues to go up.
"Growing confidence in reserve quality is a major reason why many of the largest, most-successful, domestic and international energy companies are heavily investing in the Marcellus and other American shale plays," said Jeff Fisher, Chesapeake's senior vice president of production.
Indeed, major oil companies like Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC have placed multibillion-dollar bets on the Marcellus, a 400-million-year-old rock formation that geologists say holds the nation's largest reservoir of natural gas and perhaps the second-largest in the world.
To unlock the shale's riches, drillers combine horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing, a technique known as fracking that pumps millions of gallons of water, along with sand and chemicals, into the well to creature fissures in the rock and allow natural gas to flow up. Fracking has raised environmental concerns, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying its impact on groundwater. The industry insists the process is environmentally safe.
The technology has unleashed a drilling frenzy in Pennsylvania -- where more than 3,300 Marcellus wells have been sunk the past few years -- and accounts for a twelvefold increase in U.S. shale gas production since 2000. Gas harvested from the Marcellus and other shale fields around the country -- including the Barnett Shale in Texas and the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana -- now represents a quarter of total U.S. natural gas production.
The new Cabot wells help illustrate why boosters believe the gas field could help steer U.S. energy policy for decades to come. They were also a nice bit of good news for Cabot, the Houston-based driller that endured two years of bad publicity after state regulators accused it of polluting water supplies in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County.
The wells -- also located in Dimock -- are "producing like gushers," exulted Stark, the Cabot spokesman, helping to push the company's daily production above 400 million cubic feet per day.
Like other drillers, Cabot has steadily increased the horizontal length of its wells, from an average of 2,100 feet in 2008 to 3,600 feet last year. It has seen a corresponding increase in capacity.
Capacity, though, does not always translate to production.
Cabot's wells, and Marcellus wells in general, are not running at full tilt, mainly because the infrastructure required to take the gas from wellhead to market is not yet fully in place. An oversupply of natural gas and the availability of crews to fracture the wells are other limiting factors.
"We certainly have had to manage our pace of drilling with the installation of pipeline infrastructure and demand in the market," Chesapeake's Fisher said in a statement. "While some delays in production startups are common in the early phase of these large-scale plays, the industry is working hard to build the infrastructure that will enable Marcellus reserves to get to market for decades to come."
The Marcellus isn't the only shale formation in Pennsylvania that energy companies have their eye on. Drillers are just beginning to explore the gas-bearing Utica and Upper Devonian formations. The Utica is deeper that the Marcellus, and the Upper Devonian is shallower.
"It's triple the resource potential under the same plot of land," said Kevin Cabla, an energy analyst at Raymond James & Associates.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A member of a publicity-seeking hacker group that sabotaged websites over the past two months and is dissolving itself says his group isn't disbanding under pressure from the FBI or enemy hackers.
"We're not quitting because we're afraid of law enforcement," the LulzSec member said in a conversation with The Associated Press over the Internet voice program Skype. "The press are getting bored of us, and we're getting bored of us."
The group's hacking has included attacks on law enforcement and releases of private data. It said unexpectedly on Saturday it was dissolving itself.
In the Sunday interview, the hacker acknowledged that some of the material being circulated by rivals online -- which purports to reveal the hackers' online nicknames, past histories, and chat logs -- was genuine, something he said had proved to be "a distraction."
He added that three or four of Lulz Security's members were taking what he called "a breather" and said he was considering giving up cyberattacks altogether.
"Maybe I'll stop this hacking thing entirely. I haven't decided," he said. He said he couldn't speak for the others' long-term plans, but said it was possible some of the members would continue to be involved with Anonymous, the much larger and more amorphous hacking group which has targeted the Church of Scientology, Middle Eastern dictatorships, and the music industry, among others.
He said the six-member group was still sitting on a considerable amount of stolen law enforcement files.
"It's safe to say at this point that they are sitting on a lot of data."
Although the hacker declined to identify himself publicly, he has verified his membership with Lulz Security by posting a pre-arranged message to the group's popular Twitter feed.
Lulz Security made its Saturday announcement about disbanding through its Twitter account. That statement gave no reason for the disbandment.
One of the group's members was interviewed by The Associated Press on Friday, and gave no indication that its work was ending. LulzSec claimed hacks on major entertainment companies, FBI partner organizations, the CIA, the U.S. Senate and a pornography website.
Kevin Mitnick, a security consultant and former hacker, said the group had probably concluded that the more they kept up their activities, the greater the chance that one of them would make some mistake that would enable authorities to catch them. They've inspired copycat groups around the globe, he noted, which means similar attacks are likely to continue even without LulzSec.
"They can sit back and watch the mayhem and not risk being captured," Mitnick said.
As a parting shot, LulzSec released a grab-bag of documents and login information apparently gleaned from gaming websites and corporate servers. The largest group of documents -- 338 files -- appears to be internal documents from AT&T Inc., detailing its buildout of a new wireless broadband network in the U.S. The network is set to go live this summer. A spokesman for the phone company could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the documents.
In the Friday interview, the LulzSec member said the group was sitting on at least 5 gigabytes of government and law enforcement data from across the world, which it planned to release in the next three weeks. Saturday's release was less than a tenth of that size.
In an unusual strategy for a hacker group, LulzSec has sought publicity and conducted a conversation with the public through its Twitter account. LulzSec attacked anyone it could for "the lulz," which is Internet jargon for "laughs."
Satter contributed from London.

Two unexpected gushers in northeastern Pennsylvania are helping to illustrate the enormous potential of the Marcellus Shale natural gas field?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

In an unusual strategy for a hacker group, LulzSec has sought publicity and conducted a conversation with the public through its Twitter account. LulzSec attacked anyone it could for "the lulz," which is Internet?

A. TRUE
B. FALSE

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CALGARY, Alberta (AP) -- In the northern reaches of Alberta lies a vast reserve of oil that the U.S. views as a pillar of its future energy needs.
China, with a growing appetite for oil that may one day surpass that of the U.S., is ready to spend the dollars for a big piece of it.
The oil sands of this Canadian province are so big that they will be able to serve both of the world's largest economies as production expands in the coming years. But that will mean building at least two pipelines, one south to the Texas Gulf Coast and another west toward the Pacific, and that in turn means fresh environmental battles on top of those already raging over the costly and energy-intensive method of extracting oil from sand.
Most believe that both will eventually be built. But if the U.S. doesn't approve its pipeline promptly, Canada might increasingly look to China, thinking America doesn't want a big stake share in what environmentalists call "dirty oil," which they say increases greenhouse gas emissions.
Alberta has the world's third largest oil reserves, more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to nearly triple to 3.7 million in 2025. Overall, Alberta has more oil than Russia or Iran. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more.
Alberta is one of the few places where oil companies can invest, as the majority of the world's oil reserves are controlled by national governments. Only 22 percent of the total world reserves are accessible to private sector investment, 52 percent of which is in Alberta's oil sands, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
Canada's only major oil export market is the U.S. But with the product of oil sands and pipeline delivery to the U.S. under perennial clouds of environmental objections, and with Asian demand growing, this country wants to diversify its market, and China is eager to oblige.
Sinopec, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, has a stake in a $5.5 billion plan drawn up by the Alberta-based Enbridge company to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast province of British Columbia. Alberta Finance Minister Lloyd Snelgrove met this month with Sinopec and CNOOC, China's other big oil company, and China's largest banks.
"They are sitting there saying if you need money, we've got money; if you need expertise, we've got that; whatever you need we've got," Snelgrove said.
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said American government officials have expressed concern about a pipeline to the Pacific. They have raised it in terms of "Well, are you still going to be able to supply us?" he said.
That fear may already have fallen aside.
"There are people who still feel that one barrel of oil going from Canada to China could be one more barrel going to the United States. But those are people in the minority. It is a concern but it is not a big concern," said Wenran Jiang, a professor at the University of Alberta and a senior fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation.
Stelmach said the U.S. will remain Canada's primary oil customer.
But aboriginal and environmental opposition to the Pacific pipeline is fierce. The opponents fear it will leak. The local member of Parliament, Nathan Cullen, says accidents are inevitable in the rough waters around Kitimat, British Columbia, where the pipeline will end. And no one has forgotten the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) north of Kitimat.
However, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, freshly and convincingly re-elected, is an oil man who has suggested he supports building the pipeline. Also, Calgary-based Kinder Morgan has plans to expand an existing pipeline route to Vancouver so that oil can be shipped to Asia.
Critics dislike the whole concept of oil sands, because extracting the oil requires huge amounts of energy and water, increases greenhouse gas emissions and threatens rivers and forests. Keystone XL, the pipeline that would bring Alberta oil to Texas Gulf Coast refineries to serve the U.S. market, compounds the issue.
Pipeline leaks can affect drinking water and sensitive ecosystems, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns. In a letter to the State Department this month, it cited major pipeline spills last year in Michigan and Illinois, as well as two leaks last month in the Keystone pipeline, a 1,300-mile line owned by the same company that wants to build Keystone XL. The U.S. pipeline safety agency briefly blocked Calgary-based TransCanada from restarting the Keystone pipeline this month because of safety concerns.
But Keystone XL could substantially reduce U.S. dependency on oil from the Middle East and other regions, according to a report commissioned by the Obama administration. It suggests that the pipeline, coupled with a reduction in overall U.S. oil demand, "could essentially eliminate Middle East crude imports longer term."
The U.S. imports about half its oil. The biggest foreign supplier is Canada, at 23.3 percent, followed by Venezuela at 10.7 percent. The biggest Mideast supplier is Saudi Arabia, 10.4 percent.
The report was made public ahead of President Barack Obama's meeting in February with Harper, who is urging Obama to endorse it.
Environmental groups want him to reject it, seeing it as a test of Obama's will to fight climate change.
The State Department, which must approve any pipeline entering the U.S. across an international border, has promised a decision by year's end. But Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee want it by Nov. 1.
Committee chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said the pipeline will create at least 100,000 jobs and that the U.S. needs Canadian oil.
Michael A. Levi, the senior fellow for energy and the environment at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, said environmentalists are exaggerating the impact on the oil sands.
"A lot of people have been convinced that this is the cutting edge of the climate change fight," he said. "In the end this is the equivalent to half a percent of U.S. emissions."
He said the choice of pipeline was a critical decision in U.S-Canada relations and that turning down the Texas route would go over very badly in Canada.
But David Goldwyn, a former State Department energy official who left this year to work as a consultant, said he's confident the pipeline to Texas will be approved, especially considering the potential for Middle East turmoil to disrupt supplies in the future.
"I think it would be a huge waste of a great opportunity to provide supply security. We don't often get the choice of where we can get our oil from. In this case we get to choose Canada. That's an opportunity we shouldn't miss," he said in an interview.
He saw no threat from Chinese inroads into Canada because there is more than enough oil for all concerned.
By investing to boost Canadian production the Chinese "are growing the pie to meet their own demand. That's a whole lot better than mopping up supply from the existing pie and creating competition for resources," Goldwyn said.
But China would almost certainly react badly to a rebuff. Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert fears Chinese investment will dry up should Canada not approve a pipeline to the West Coast.
Zhang Junsai, China's ambassador to Canada, said his country is willing to invest heavily in Canada. He told The Associated Press that the fact that China's $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp., chose Toronto as the venue for its first overseas office is a "very good sign." The fund invested $800 million in Calgary-based Penn West Energy last year and $1.5 billion in Canadian mining company Teck Resources in 2009.
Apart having a stake in the $5.5 billion in the Northern Gateway pipeline plan, Sinopec paid $4.6 billion for a nine percent stake in Syncrude, Canada's largest oil sands project. And in 2009 PetroChina, Asia's largest oil and gas company, bought a $1.7 billion stake in Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.
William Cohen, who was secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, said any Chinese-Canadian oil partnership must be done "with some diplomacy and care," in a way that isn't "a threat to the United States."
Canada can do whatever it wants, but "Canada knows it has a very close and vital relationship with the United States. I'm sure there will be discussions," he said in Toronto after a public debate about whether China will dominate the 21st century.
Eddie Goldenberg, chief of staff to former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said in an interview that Canada should care less if some American officials are leery about Canada selling oil to China.
"We're not the 51st state. It's not the business of the United States to decide where Canada sells its resources," he said.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The banks that are most important to global financial stability will be required to hold extra capital on their balance sheets to protect them -- and the global economy -- from financial crises under new rules proposed Saturday.
Global central bank heads have proposed rules that would require the world's biggest banks to hold an extra 1 percent to 2.5 percent of capital on their balance sheets, depending on their size. The goal of requiring larger cash buffers is to prevent another shock to the global financial system like the one that occurred in 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
The rules were proposed by the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision, the oversight body of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The committee is part of the Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella organization for the world's central banks.
The cash buffers that giant global banks would have to hold would be in addition to an existing requirement that all banks hold 7 percent of their assets in reserve.
The Group of Governors said in a statement Saturday that the proposed requirements would discourage banks from becoming so big that their failure could destabilize the global financial system.
"This will contribute to enhancing the resiliency of the banking system and help mitigate the wider spill-over risks of global systemically important banks," Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank and chairman of the Group of Governors, said in a statement.
Banks would have three years, from the beginning of 2016 until the end of 2018, to meet the new requirements.
The Group of Governors also agreed on a method for determining banks' importance to the banking system, though it did not disclose details. The group said its package of recommendations would be announced near the end of July.

In the northern reaches of Alberta lies a vast reserve of oil that the U.S. views as a pillar of its future energy needs?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

The Group of Governors also agreed on a method for determining banks' importance to the banking system, though it did not disclose details?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE

The group said its package of recommendations would be announced near the end of July?
A. TRUE
B. FALSE