NEW YORK — The world now has a record 793 billionaires, up 15 percent from a year ago, with a rising number in India, Russia, Brazil and the Middle East as well as more women, Forbes magazine said on Thursday. Soaring stock, oil and commodities prices increased their combined net worth to $2.6 trillion as 114 individuals joined the exclusive club, including 10 more women for a total of 78. “A billion just isn’t what it used to be,” said Forbes Associate Editor Luisa Kroll, presenting the 20th annual list at a New York news conference. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates topped the list for a record 12th year in a row with a net worth estimated at $50 billion, followed by perennial No. 2 Warren Buffett, the famed investor of Berkshire Hathaway, worth $42 billion. Mexican industrialist Carlos Slim moved into the No. 3 spot at $30 billion, just ahead of Sweden’s Ikea founder, Ingvar Kamprad, at $28 billion. Moving into the top 10 are French luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault at No. 7, Canadian publishing magnate Kenneth Thomson and family, and Li Ka-shing, head of the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa. The complete […]
Whatever trust the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops had restored with their response to clergy sex abuse has been badly eroded in recent weeks by a combination of missteps and outside criticism. Any of the latest developments would be disturbing, but taken together, critics see the church as floundering with the same problems that engulfed it four years ago. The troubling signs include: -The Massachusetts attorney general now says the Archdiocese of Boston, where the abuse crisis erupted, has failed to implement key reforms it had promised, including tracking guilty priests and teaching adolescents and teens to protect themselves from predators. Advertisement -In a 2005 deposition unsealed last month, Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet, Ill., said he felt no obligation to go to police in the 1970s when a priest on trial for molestation told Imesch he was, indeed, guilty. The bishop said he has reported abuse claims to civil authorities in the last few years, but when pressed by a plaintiff’s lawyer to cite examples, he could not. -In Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, a leader in shaping the bishops’ reforms and the vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, admitted he […]
WASHINGTON — For all the recent tumult over abortion, one thing has remained surprisingly stable: Americans have proved extremely consistent in their beliefs about the procedure – and extremely conflicted in their views. A solid majority long have felt that Roe v. Wade should be upheld. Yet most support at least some restrictions on when abortions can be performed. Most think having an abortion should be a personal choice. But they also think it is murder. “Rock solid in its absolutely contradictory opinions” is how public opinion expert Karlyn Bowman describes the nation’s mind-set. If public opinion is stable, the political landscape is anything but. The arrival of two new justices on the Supreme Court has stoked speculation about how abortion laws could be affected. Also, there has been a flurry of action at the state level to ban or sharply restrict access to the procedure. In 2005, states enacted 52 measures to restrict access to abortion, according to the private Guttmacher Institute, and more are pending. Most notably, South Dakota this month outlawed almost all abortions. Supporters hope the move will provoke a legal challenge that results in the new, more conservative Supreme […]
A widely promoted B vitamin regimen for the prevention of heart attacks and strokes has shown no beneficial effects in people at high risk, researchers are reporting today. The hypothesis was that B vitamins folic acid, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6 can protect people against homocysteine, an amino acid that some doctors said was as important and dangerous a risk factor for heart disease as cholesterol. Studies of populations showed that the higher the homocysteine level in the blood, the greater the risk of heart attacks and strokes. And studies of animals indicated that homocysteine can actually damage tender linings of arteries, setting the stage for atherosclerosis. B vitamins, however, reduce blood levels of homocysteine. The vitamins, which are found in a variety of foods, including fruits and vegetables, have no known harmful effects. And if people take them as supplements, their homocysteine levels plummet. About 35 percent of Americans take B vitamins, mostly in the form of multivitamin pills, according to the Council on Responsible Nutrition, a trade group. So it seemed reasonable to many doctors and patients to expect that taking the vitamins would be protective. It might be even better than […]
My apologies that there was no Sunday edition. MY ISP, Cox Cable, went out and did not come back online until this morning. — Stephan
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
