Apple Inc. said Wednesday that it will hold a news conference Friday concerning its iPhone 4, which is facing mounting criticism over reception problems tied to antenna design.
An Apple spokesman declined to give further details, including whether the conference will address reported reception problems or Apple’s response to those problems. Apple plans to hold the conference at its headquarters, the spokesman said.
Apple watchers speculated that the company will offer a solution. “Given the intense pressure and scrutiny Apple has come under on the problem with the iPhone 4,It’s going to be about some kind of fix or compensation for the owners of the phone,” speculated Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research.
The Cupertino, Calif., company launched the phone last month to great fanfare as it boasted of a design that put the antenna in a stainless steel band around the phone’s frame.
But even as the phone has continued to sell well at stores, it has been plagued with user complaints about dropped calls when the phone is held in a way that covers part of the antenna.
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iPhone 4 antenna issues hit MSM, Apple to hold press conference tomorrow
New White House report claims “saved or created” ~2.5-3.6 million jobs
A new White House report says last year’s $862 billion stimulus law has now “saved or created” between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs.
That’s up from 2.2 million to 2.8 million in the last quarterly report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Christina Romer, head of the council, says in congressional testimony prepared for Wednesday that every $1 from the stimulus bill is matched by $3 in private money.
She says the law “appears to be stimulating private investment and job creation at a time when the economy needs it most.”
After government-imposed 24-hour wait, BP begins testing new cap
AP,
BP allayed last-minute government fears of making the disaster worse and began testing the new, tighter-fitting cap Wednesday that could finally choke off the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration’s point man on the disaster, said the government gave the go-ahead after carefully reviewing the risks.
“What we didn’t want to do is compound that problem by making an irreversible mistake,” he said at the end of a 24-hour roller-coaster of hopes raised, hopes dashed and hopes raised again along the Gulf Coast.
The cap — a 75-ton metal stack of pipes and valves — was lowered onto the well on Monday in hopes of either bottling up the oil inside the well machinery, or capturing it and funneling it to the surface. But before BP could test the equipment, the government intervened because of second thoughts about whether the buildup of pressure from the gushing oil could rupture the walls of the well and make the leak worse.
Obama calls on Bill Clinton to help with job creation
Burdened by low approval on the economy, President Obama brought former president Bill Clinton and investor Warren Buffett to the White House on Wednesday to talk about job creation.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that Clinton — who oversaw record surpluses and was generally seen as business-friendly — was brought in to mediate between business leaders and Obama, now under fire from corporate leaders for his economic policies.
This week, the US Chamber of Commerce issued a harsh letter complaining that the White House is burdening businesses with too much regulation and hampering job growth.
Limbaugh on Scott Brown
The Republicans are only as strong as their weakest link. Now, here’s an illustration, and herein lies the problem with Republican governance because Republican governance is different from conservative governance. There’s a story, MSNBC, Scott Brown, the Republican who won Ted Kennedy’s seat, is going to vote “yes” on financial reform. There is no conservative anywhere who would vote “yes” on financial regulatory reform. It is a fraud of a bill. It should not come close to even passing. But here we have a Republican voting for it, and if you read the story, he makes arguments that sound very much like liberal arguments, that it does all these wonderful things, that it’s got a consumer bill of rights in it, it’s gonna make sure that big, fat cats on Wall Street don’t get to screw anybody anymore when in fact it does not do that, and it cannot do that, and it will not do that. So this is going to be up to the Republicans, what they do with this victory in the House that even the White House now appears to be hoping for.
Obama issues new moratorium to override court’s rejection
The Obama administration took another crack today at imposing a moratorium on deep water oil drilling in the Gulf Coast, saying it remains concerned about safety in the wake of the BP oil spill.
“The president has and continues to believe that we have to be careful with what we’re doing, given the uncertainty about what happened 84 days ago,” said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, referring to the ongoing Gulf Coast oil spill.
A federal judge struck down a previous moratorium, and an appeals court rejected the administration’s request to reinstate it. Gibbs said the new moratorium will address the legal concerns raised by the courts, including new evidence of potential safety problems.
Scott Brown to vote for Dodd-Frank financial reform bill
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said on Monday that he will support the financial regulation overhaul, becoming one of the Republicans needed to moved one of the Obama administration’s key pieces of legislation into law.
Brown had announced that he would oppose the compromise bill that had been negotiated by the House and Senate, but shifted his support after bargainers went back to the table and restructured about $19 billion in payments that was opposed by banks in Brown’s state. A final Senate vote could come this week.
“I appreciate the efforts to improve the bill, especially the removal of the $19-billion bank tax. As a result, it is a better bill than it was when this whole process started. While it isn’t perfect, I expect to support the bill when it comes up for a vote,” Brown said in a prepared statement.
IRS needs more funding to pay for healthcare responsibilities
A warning that federal tax officials will need more congressional funding to administer the Democrats’ health reform law has rekindled the partisan debate over its cost effectiveness.
Senior Republicans have said for months that the new responsibilities required of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under the legislation would saddle the agency with billions of dollars in additional costs — expenses not accounted for in the bill.
A Wednesday report from the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), an independent watchdog within the IRS, backed those claims, finding that the agency currently lacks the resources to take on the new duties.
“I have no doubt the IRS is capable of administering social programs, including healthcare,” Nina Olson, head of the NTA, said in a statement. “But Congress must provide sufficient funding.”
9 stores in NY fined for propping doors open
Nine stores in Manhattan and the Bronx have been hit with $200 fines for leaving their doors open on hot days in the hope that the escaping cool air would lure sweaty customers. They are the first to be fined as part of a law enacted in 2008.
Last year, only warnings were given out. So far this year, the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs has inspected 105 stores. Seventy were in compliance, 26 were issued warnings and 9 that had been warned last year were fined, said Kay Sarlin, a department spokeswoman.
Fines start at $200, and go to $400 for any further infractions in the following 18 months. The legislation states that any business larger than 4,000 square feet or part of a chain with five or more stores in the city must keep its doors closed when using air-conditioning.
IRS faces tax-reporting mess
With a new mandate looming that will require business owners to file millions more tax forms, the Internal Revenue Service has begun the daunting process of figuring out how to turn the law’s sweeping demands into actual rules for taxpayers.
The new regulations, which kick in at the start of 2012, require any taxpayer with business income to issue 1099 forms to all vendors from whom they purchased more than $600 of goods and services that year. That promises to launch a fusillade of new paperwork: An estimated 40 million taxpayers will be subject to the requirement, including 26 million who run sole proprietorships, according to a report released this week by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson.
Olson’s office, which operates independently within the IRS, flagged the new reporting requirements as one of its priority issues for the next year. Like many who have delved into the details of the new rules, Olson is concerned about their far-reaching scope and potential unintended consequences.
White House: We’re not anti-business
The White House has launched a coordinated campaign to push back against the perception taking hold in corporate America and on Wall Street that President Barack Obama is promoting an anti-business agenda.
Obama has been happy to be seen by voters as cracking down on Wall Street but those efforts have had an unintended result: feeding a sense that the president and his party are indifferent or even actively hostile toward big business, whether those businesses are Silicon Valley tech companies, Midwestern manufacturers or Main Street small businesses.
And it is more than just politics: Obama’s aides believe confidence in the general direction of White House policy has an effect on the willingness of corporations to hire, invest and push the economy toward a more solid recovery.
Virginia vs. Gov’t healthcare
The state of Virginia and the U.S. government were pitched in a legal battle in a federal courtroom on Thursday that could lead to the undoing of the massive healthcare reform law passed three months ago.
Judge Henry Hudson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Richmond heard the federal government’s arguments to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Virginia that contends the healthcare law’s requirement that all Americans have health insurance is unconstitutional.
Before President Barack Obama signed the radical overhaul of the multibillion dollar health insurance industry into law, Virginia’s legislature passed its own law that took effect on Thursday that says no one could be mandated to buy health insurance.
Venezuela’s private retailers targeted as Hugo Chavez declares ‘economic war’
Cedeño’s alleged crime: selling beef for £4 a kilo, well above the regulated price of £2.58. He does not deny it – prices are marked on a white board behind the counter. “I’ve got to cover my costs. What business doesn’t? Yet eight officials came here to arrest me. It’s an abuse of power.”
Most economists attribute Venezuela’s soaring inflation to loose monetary policy, exchange controls, devaluation and anaemic domestic production, dynamics that show no sign of abating.
“The government has boxed itself in with a misguided policy mix of rampant spending and price and foreign exchange controls that has resulted in a growing output gap and galloping inflation,” said Patrick Esteruelas, of Eurasia Group political consultancy. He added that the government, unwilling to risk austerity measures in the run-up to September’s congressional elections, was deflecting blame. “It has found it highly convenient to persecute private food retailers.”
Venezuela’s authorities disagree. They say private firms are cheating customers with unjustified price rises that are driving 30% inflation, Latin America’s highest. Food prices are rising even faster, at 40%. According to Chávez, it is part of a plot by US-backed “fascist oligarchs” to destabilise his leftist experiment.