Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/298356298?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, April 11, 2013
White House celebrates the sounds of Memphis soul
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama said he'd been looking forward to a White House celebration of Memphis soul music for one reason.
"Let's face it, who does not love this music?" he asked Tuesday, opening the night's concert in an East Room bathed in amber light and transformed by the addition of a stage and backup musicians.
"These songs get us on the dance floor," Obama said. "They get stuck in our heads. We go back over them again and again. And they've played an important part in our history."
Memphis, Tenn., was segregated in the 1960s, but blacks and whites came together despite the institutional racism to create a soulful blend of gospel and rhythmic blues music that sought to "bridge those divides, to create a little harmony with harmony," Obama said.
He noted that two of the night's guests, Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper, helped form one of the city's first integrated bands.
"They weren't allowed to go to school together. They weren't always allowed to travel or eat together," the president said. "But no one could stop them from playing music together."
"And that was the spirit of their music ? the sound of Soulsville, U.S.A., a music that, at its core, is about the pain of being alone, the power of human connection, and the importance of treating each other right," Obama said. "After all, this is the music that asked us to try a little tenderness. It's the music that put Mr. Big Stuff in his place. And it's the music that challenged us to accept new ways of thinking with four timeless words: 'Can you dig it?'"
And with that, Obama took his seat and the show opened with Sam Moore, half of the duo Sam & Dave, and "American Idol" finalist and gospel singer Joshua Ledet belting out Moore's "Soul Man," followed minutes later by Justin Timberlake and Cropper's rendition of Otis Redding's (Sittin' on) "The Dock of the Bay."
Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, sat in the front row. The president and first lady at times clapped their hands and bobbed and weaved their heads to the pulsating rhythms.
The concert was the 10th in the "In Performance at the White House" series since Obama took office. Other performers included Alabama Shakes, Ben Harper, Cyndi Lauper, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples , Queen Latifah and William Bell. Latifah also was the host and Jones led the band.
Earlier in the day, Bell said the concert reaffirmed years of hard work that began in the 1960s when Stax Records was created in Memphis, and the label cranked out one soul and R&B hit after another for more than a decade.
Redding, Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Bell and Sam & Dave were among the company's artists.
"As kids coming up, we didn't think it would last this long," the 73-year-old Bell said during a rehearsal break. He later performed his hit, "You Don't Miss Your Water."
Al Green had been scheduled to perform but, about an hour before the show, the White House released a statement from the singer's spokesman who said Green had suffered a back injury and would be unable to attend.
Hours before the show, Michelle Obama kicked off a workshop featuring Moore, Staples, Timberlake, Musselwhite and Harper for students from 16 schools and organizations in Virginia, California, Memphis, New York City, Maryland, Florida and Washington, D.C., who got to question the artists.
She noted Memphis' history as the birthplace of Elvis Presley's rock and roll and B.B. King's blues.
"And while you can hear both of those influences in Memphis soul, this music has a style and a story uniquely its own," Mrs. Obama said, before launching into the story of Stax Records.
She noted that the label also represented "somebody my husband thinks he sounds like" ? Green. "Let's just tell him he does, OK? Since he is the president, we like to boost him up a little bit."
It was a reference to Obama singing a few bars of Green's "Let's Stay Together" during a Democratic fundraiser at New York's Apollo Theater in February 2012.
Obama also joked about his singing during his brief remarks opening the concert.
"Tonight, I am speaking not just as a president, but as one of America's best-known Al Green impersonators," he said to laughter.
At the workshop, Mrs. Obama also tried to encourage the students, including some aspiring musicians, by noting that it took years of perfecting their talent for the artists perched on stools in front of them to get where they are.
She recalled playing the piano as a young girl and said she regretted not sticking with it. But she said the skills one learns by studying music are useful in other areas of life.
"The discipline, the patience, the diligence I learned through the study of music, those are all skills that I apply every single day in my life," Mrs. Obama said. "I applied them as a student, as a lawyer, as a first lady, and definitely as a mother."
Since February 2009, "In Performance at the White House" has highlighted the music of Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, plus Hispanic music, music from the civil-rights era, Motown and the blues, Broadway and country music. The series itself dates to 1978.
The Memphis soul concert is set to air next Tuesday on PBS stations. It will also be broadcast at a later date over the American Forces Network for service members and civilians at Defense Department locations worldwide.
___
Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-celebrates-sounds-memphis-soul-164730499.html
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Professional Assistance From Real Estate Managers - My ...
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Source: http://barcamppune.org/?p=5365
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Tuesday, April 9, 2013
JC Penney ousts CEO Ron Johnson, Ullman returns
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Essential News from The Associated Press |
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Monday, April 8, 2013
Beyonce, Jay-Z Cuba trip was OK'd by US Treasury Dept - source
DORTMUND, April 8 (Reuters) - Borussia Dortmund central defender Mats Hummels and midfielder Jakub Blaszczykowski have been cleared to play in their Champions League quarter-final return leg against Malaga on Tuesday, coach Juergen Klopp said. Hummels, out since March with an ankle injury, and Blaszczykowski, back after a groin problem, had missed the first leg 0-0 draw in Spain last week. "At the moment it looks good for all of them and they are all with the team in the hotel," Klopp told reporters on Monday, saying Marco Reus and keeper Roman Weidenfeller had also overcome minor knocks. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beyonce-jay-z-cuba-trip-okd-us-treasury-181256431.html
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Sunday, April 7, 2013
Xi promises peaceful, prosperous China helping neighbors
BOAO, China (Reuters) - China's President Xi Jinping pledged on Sunday that change and peaceful development will power his country's economic rise and sustain growth within its borders and beyond.
Stressing that peace was pivotal for the future of the world's second biggest economy, Xi appealed to business and political leaders to use diplomacy and dialogue to resolve disputes and allow wealth to spread and solve problems.
"For Asia, development is still the top question, development is still crucial for solving many problems and conflicts," Xi told a forum in Boao on the southern Chinese island province of Hainan.
"Without peace, there is no need to talk about development," to added, speaking to an audience of executives and foreign leaders including Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Myanmar President Thein Sein and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
Painting a picture of a richer China in 2020, when the government expects average rural and urban incomes will be double 2010 levels, Xi said his country would increasingly export its wealth to its neighbors.
China will import $10 trillion worth of goods a year five years from now, he said, and outbound investment will rise by a big margin. Domestic consumption, particularly retail consumption, will also continue to expand.
China imported $1.8 trillion worth of goods and services last year, up a meager 4.3 percent from a year ago as its economy slumped into its worst downturn in 13 years.
But Xi was upbeat about the future, saying growth would follow when his government changes China's economic structure and financial system. He did not give details.
"China's economy will continue to maintain a healthy growth rate," Xi said. "We will persist with reforms and doggedly pursue the path of changing our economic ways."
In contrast, an ailing global economy faces a difficult recovery fraught with risks, he said.
Xi's message of China's peaceful and inclusive rise was echoed earlier when nearly a dozen senior executives from Chinese state-owned firms met peers from top Australian banks and companies.
Andrew Forrest, an Australian iron ore magnate and founder of Fortescue Metals Group, who chaired the closed-door meeting, told reporters that Chinese state firm executives wanted Australians to know that China was not "expansionist" or "aggressive".
"They do not understand how people could look at China through anything but friendly eyes," Forrest said.
Security concerns in other countries have hampered or overshadowed the overseas expansion of several large Chinese companies, including telecoms equipment firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and state-owned oil company CNOOC Ltd..
(Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Exclusive: Buyout firms eye Yankee Candle in $2 billion deal - sources
By Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim
(Reuters) - Yankee Candle Co Inc has attracted offers from several private equity firms in a sale process that could value the largest scented candle maker in the United States at about $2 billion, people familiar with the matter said.
Bain Capital LLC, Advent International Corp, CVC Capital Partners Ltd
Madison Dearborn Partners LLC
The candle manufacturer may be worth 10 times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of around $200 million, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential.
Madison Dearborn, Bain Capital, Advent, CVC and Ares declined to comment. Yankee Candle and CD&R did not respond to requests for comment.
Founded in 1969, Yankee Candle sells items including scented candles, home fragrance products, car fresheners and candle accessories.
The South Deerfield, Massachusetts-based company sells its candles in North America through 569 company-owned and operated retail stores, a wholesale network of about 27,800 store locations, as well as online and through its catalog.
Fitch Ratings said in January that Yankee Candle's relatively flat financial performance had constrained its ability to lighten its heavy debt load.
Yankee Candle generated net income of $56.3 million for fiscal 2012, up from $54.5 million in the prior year. It had long-term debt of $846 million and just $40 million in cash as of the end of 2012, according to earnings published on February 28.
In its meetings with the candle maker's management, Bain Capital will come across an old acquaintance.
Yankee Candle's chief executive, Harlan Kent, who last year appeared on the U.S. reality TV show 'Undercover Boss' as a Yankee Candle employee in disguise, began his career in the mid-1980s at Bain & Co, the consulting firm whose partners, including former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney, founded private equity firm Bain Capital in 1984.
Kent later worked for Bain Capital from 1997 to 2001 as senior vice president of global wholesale for umbrella maker Totes Isotoner Corp, which at the time was a Bain Capital portfolio company. He joined Yankee Candle in 2001 as senior vice president of the wholesale division and rose through the ranks to become CEO in 2009.
Chicago-based Madison Dearborn is currently also preparing another portfolio company for a sale. Technology products retailer CDW Corp, taken private by Madison Dearborn and Providence Equity Partners Inc for $7.3 billion in 2007, registered with U.S. regulators on March 22 for an initial public offering.
Madison Dearborn hired Barclays Capital
(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in Boston and Soyoung Kim and Olivia Oran in New York; editing by John Wallace)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-buyout-firms-eye-yankee-candle-2-billion-131840305--sector.html
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